Why Heavy Metal Is Awesome
Seeing recently reunited ‘80s Sub Pop doom mongers St. Vitus stomp all over a rowdy New York City crowd this past weekend reminded me why I love metal. It's just so defiantly uncool. The audience was full of men and women wearing t-shirts decorated with skulls and demons and gothic lettering and banging their heads in skull-shaking bliss. The band's frontman, Scott "Wino" Weinrich, wore a black leather vest and sang in low snarl about "white stallions" and "purple dragons." Impressively bearded guitarist Dave Chandler summoned sludgy riffs and slicing solos. The rhythm section of bassist Mark Adams (in a sweet vintage Alice Cooper shirt) and drummer Henry Vasquez rumbled menacingly along. Being at the show was like living in a comic book. It was awesome. The thing is, I spend a lot, maybe most, of my music-listening time on indie and mainstream rock. I love them both, but sometimes get tired with the former's tendency towards jaded hipness and the latter's popularity jones. In their own ways, both genres kowtow. Sweeten the hook. Sour the chorus. Wear tight clothes.
Of course, metal has its hang-ups too--but with a band like St. Vitus, which never came close to sniffing mainstream success during its original ‘80s incarnation, there's never the sense that things are being dialed back for cool or ratcheted up for mass acceptance. The music--think Black Sabbath slowed down and dunked in motor oil--never concedes to anything other than itself. It is completely and utterly comfortable in its outsider status. And even though I had more beer spilled on me than I'd like, and my ears were ringing for a solid 36 hours afterwards, the show had a purity of intent that's rare in rock 'n' roll.
What's your take on metal? Jams for stoners or last bastion of integrity? What music do you turn to when you get tired of everything else? Let me know in the comments section.
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of corse depending what mood your in and what type you grew up with chances are youll fall back on classic staples and timeles favorites...Jay Toronto Canada www.myspace.com/witchhuntersblade
My reasons for loving it (though I retain what you said) are focused around two things: its innate intricacy, and global status.
1) Metal seems to be one of the few modern genres that remains complex. Everything from Tool, to Animals as Leaders, to Opeth, to Finntroll, to Eluveitie, and so much more. All these bands use more than just the standard 4/4 time signatures. The latter 2 are ensemble groups - meaning that they often revolve around large numbers of people to make music. That is to say that they employ orchestras and symphonies and folk instruments. Same with Haggard and Nightwish, or Turisas. Also, don't forget Meshuggah, the band that mystifies music theory experts and has been studied by musical journals.
2) Its global status is infinite. People from all over the world convene around this one genre - and I mean all over. Just go to the Encyclopaedia Metallum and find out about the 70,000+ bands they have archived from almost every country in the world. It has this power to unite almost any culture. Ever heard of Folk Metal? A genre of music focused specifically around implementing the indigenous musicality of a culture with raging guitars, deep, guttural growls, and epic double bass. Also, it is the most diverse genre of music in and of itself. I can say Metal, you can say Metal, and we can both be thinking of two completely different genres of music. Thrash, Power, Symphonic, Folk, Black, Death, Industrial, Pirate, Progressive, Nu, and more; they can be rearranged in any non-specific combination to more accurately describe a band's sound. It's amazing!
Overall, Metal is a music of unification, diversity, and complexity (provided you leave out the hair/glam bands of the 80s, such as KISS, Motley Crue, etc. - those bands were as mainstream as Metal ever got, and all the music sucked, lemme tell ya).
http://www.metal-archives.com/index.php