Metal is Dead

And we have killed it.

Photo by Diego Ornelas-Tapia on Unsplash

I’ve mentioned before how I like Metal music. When I say that, people tend to look at me askance, like I’ve sprouted a third eye, and then I have to explain “Oh no, not that screaming stuff. I don’t listen to that”.

Recently, I was conversing with a friend and the subject of music came up. Anyhow, my friend remarked that he just doesn’t “get” Metal at all. He just doesn’t understand it. I remarked “What’s not to get?” This began a discussion into the nature of what actually constitutes Metal and music.

Now, I should mention that I come from a somewhat musical family. Both my parents have had at least some professional training, both in voice and instruments, and I have shown some aptitude for it. My mother plays a few different woodwind instruments, and has had extensive professional voice training. My grandmother sang quite well, my aunt has perfect pitch, and all my great aunts and uncles on my mother’s side played musical instruments, including an uncle who played the banjo all over central New York in the 1920s. In addition, my paternal grandparents were musical, my grandmother playing both piano and accordion, and my grandfather was known as the best square dancer at his high school back in the 50s. Music is in my blood. I myself play both guitar and ukulele and I’ve studied a bit of musical theory. I grew up listening to Beethoven, Brahms, Vivaldi, and many more. I have had a broad musical education. I am by no means an expert, but I am an amateur in the best sense of the word; “amateur” comes from Latin meaning “to love”.

Now that I’ve established my credentials, let us return to the topic. My friend told me what bands he had tried, which were recommended to him by friends who are so-called Metal fans. The poor lad had only listened to the modern stuff. I sighed deeply, remarking that those bands were barely even recognizable as music. You see, because of my background, I have some very strong opinions on music, specifically hard rock and Metal music. I have a controversial view that sometime in the 1990s, Metal lost it’s way, being overtaken by the beast-like screaming we call “Metal” today. I’m gonna make some folks mad here, but if your “music” is barely distinguishable from the screaming of wild beasts, it’s not good music.

On another occasion I was talking with a different young friend about Metal, and he remarked that he didn’t understand or care for it, or even really know what it was. I played part of a Metallica song for him (I think it was The Four Horsemen, but I don’t recall) and I said that was what I considered “Metal”. He replied that it didn’t sound like what he thought “Metal” was, and I realized that he’d only ever been exposed to that screaming nonsense. Yes, I’ve tried listening to it. It grates on my nerves and literally makes me feel physically ill at times.

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It seems to me that modern Metal bands are more focused on being the loudest, most violent, most extreme that they can be, and have left the artistry and skill behind in the process. They rejected the objective standard of what makes music music in order to seem more “edgy”.

That’s not what Metal is supposed to sound like to me. Metal doesn’t have to be obnoxious, ugly and harsh. It can be beautiful, even transcendent. The first exposure to Metal of any type I can recall was this music video I saw by the band Rhapsody of Fire, back when I was a kid. It was one of the most amazing things I had ever heard up to that point.

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People laugh at it because it’s not “real Metal”. Well, forgive me if I don’t enjoy listening to something that sounds like a rabid dog barking at weed-eater. No one can deny that this band is highly talented, skilled musicians who want to convey truth and beauty. Even if you don’t “like” it, that doesn’t mean it’s “bad” or “not Metal”.

The question follows, “what, then, is Metal?” And that is beyond the scope of this article. I don’t think my readers would appreciate a master’s thesis on what constitutes Metal.

Anyway, what’s played on the radio and in public spaces nowadays is very different from what I grew up with. It’s mostly hip-hop, or hip-hop adjacent music. Now, I do not like hip-hop. I just don’t consider it very good music. It’s fine if you enjoy it, though. If you do hear Metal, it’s usually something from the oldies station— maybe old Metallica, or Black Sabbath— or it’s that screaming stuff, virtually unrecognizable from what I consider good Metal. Of course most folks don’t like it; it’s not good music! They don’t know what their hearing!

But maybe it’s better that Metal isn’t mainstream. There was a point in the 1980s when Metal became somewhat popular as a style, through the glam/hair Metal subgenre, with bands like Mötley Crüe and Whitesnake. They kind of diluted Metal and commercialized it. Glam was to Metal what Olive Garden is to authentic Italian food. While Olive Garden isn’t “bad” food, it’s certainly not a real, Italian restaurant. Same with Glam; I enjoy it from time to time as a sort of guilty pleasure, but I know it’s just a commercialized marketing gimmick. Ronnie James Dio stated that he didn’t want to go commercial because it would mean watering down his music.

But these are simply the rantings of an old, out-of-touch Millennial fogey. Other Metal-heads laugh at me because I don’t like having my eardrums physically assaulted, mugged and left for dead by the side of the road to be found later by the police. I probably sound just like those old folks back in the sixties and seventies who decried rock ‘n roll as “evil”. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe Metal is supposed to be niche, only enjoyed by a select number of people on the fringes of society. Maybe we’re supposed to be outsiders. Maybe it’s good that we’re irrelevant.

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