Don't bother talking to him about music, he likes 'death metal' man!!!

How many times has a metal-head heard this?And why is it that this is said to him/her?And why is it that once you tell someone that you listen to only metal,its interpreted almost 90% of the time as 'Death Metal'???The answers to these question right after this break....


So, there I am,just hanging out in college with some guys and when asked what I like to hear,someone promptly says 'nah,no Floyd for him,he likes Death Metal'. Now,please allow me to enumerate exactly how much Death Metal I like: Death,Bloodbath and to small extents Nile and Six Feet Under.That's 4 bands.Out of I don't know HOW many.These 4 would make about 5% of the bands I like.Good enough?I don't think so. See,the point is not 'which band belongs to which genre' (that's a different story),the point is,why does the term 'metal' NOT seem synonymous with 'music' for so many people?And the less important one,why is someone who has a reputation of listening to metal shunned as some psychopath who has no musical taste or sense because he likes 'Death Metal'? Time for another break.We'll be right back...

All right,I guess the 2nd question easier to answer:prejudice. When Black Sabbath came out with their self-titled debut that started a whole new revolution in music,people were TOO scared to actually sit down and see that there was a very classical influence to their music.In fact,most of metal has been influenced by western classical:the sweeps,the fast riffs,the palm-muted chugs etc. Anyway,it was this fear,coupled by the churches labeling such music as 'antichrist' that started deterring people from this genre.Soon it was just people cautioning their kids and other kids to stay away from this music.

But herein lies part of the answer to the 1st question as well.Metal was,and still is,the heaviest,fastest and most bass-rich form of music. Its these traits that prevent people from actually listening to the rhythm sections and tunes. Now,I say PART of the answer because frankly speaking,the general public's basis for deciding how good an artiste is is from the vocals.Everyone is too centred on the vocals. Anything screamed,growled,shrieked etc. is just plain NOISE because 'that guy can't sing'. Or,if it IS the music that they like,they like it because its CATCHY.Which is why a band like Fall-Out Boy or Creed finds more favour than say Iron Maiden or Children of Bodom. Now,I understand that a scream or a growl would take some getting used to at first,but when you actually try to see what style of vocals would best suit the given rhythm,mood and lyrical content of the song, clean singing sounds absolutely RIDICULOUS. Take the example of Children of Bodom's 'Everytime I Die' - melodic guitars,atmospheric keys and THUNDEROUS bass= heavy,slow rhythm=melancholy,epic feel= perfect backdrop for screams and growls (though Alexi could try to NOT eat up half the words). If someone actually decided to sing those words like "no sparks of hope inside,no shooting stars on my sky,on broken wings,no flying high",it would sound totally out of place.

But thats the problem; no one cares about the rhythm.Thats NOT the 1st thing that catches one's attention.In fact, when I asked a female friend of mine what she thought of 'Nothing Else Matters' she said that it takes too long to start. Why? Because the intro instrumental portion is too long. So Hetfield and Ulrich should have just kept the singing part? So they are idiots to have 'disrupted' the song by painstakingly writing that solo and riff? Ridiculous, but true. But if you're a metal-head and reading this, don't bother getting people to appreciate metal. They won't. Give them some stupidly easy song or something with a ridiculously simple, beat-bastardized rhythm and cranky vocals, they'll LOVE it. No one has time to sit and appreciate the emotion or the epic feel in a song's rhythm. Everyone is too 'scandalized' by 'death metal'. So that's what Megadeth referred to in 'The Day the Music Died'.

Poor things.