Hank was right. I remember hearing him talk about “future parents” and he made a point about how my crowd out of our generation could possibly be the first generation that (musically speaking) is more hardcore than our parents AND our children.
It has been the norm for parents to complain about their children’s music being too heavy and for children to complain that their parents just don’t understand but we may have come to a point where the children are now wondering what’s wrong with Mom and Dad and why do they look like they are having a seizure when they have their headphones on.
Yes, there will always be exceptions to the rules but in a broad sense, he is right. Those of us that form that “metal” crowd have grown children or some that are just getting into music now. A lot of those kids were listening to Britney Spears and such, many of them are moving on to lightweight bands like Green Day. Few are keeping pace with their parents. Becca is one of those Spears/GreenDay types. I try to turn her on to my music but she just doesn’t get it. The heaviest she’ll listen to of my stuff is Dream Theatre. Not heavy at all… She’ll get excited when I play Reign In Blood, but it’s all a show for me. She’d rather go back to her Gwen Stefani CD. (And Mommy likes it that way, so we’ll keep it that way…)
Have we reached critical mass? Will music regress into less aggressive forms? What are the masses calling for? A few weeks ago I was with some people that were discussing music and they brought up Rob Zombie and how “hard” he was. They asked me if I liked him, I commented that when I wanted something lighter to listen to, yes. They couldn’t understand that. They thought I was merely playing the “metalhead/heavier than thou art” act.
In reality, Rob Zombie is no longer considered heavy enough to play with the big boys. In ACTUAL reality, he never was. I enjoy Rob Zombie. He is interesting but he is by NO means heavy enough for my tastes. He doesn’t even fit in the category of heavy and most that know me will say that I leave my categories wide… I’d label him “pop heavy”. Meaning, heavy enough for the bland masses and pop radio, but anyone who is into music would know Rob Zombie’s music is flash. Fun and enjoyable flash, but still, just heavy enough for light-weight dabblers to claim they listen to heavy music. These are the same people that out of ignorance say that Henry Rollins is Heavy Metal or that new Metallica is just as heavy as old Metallica… Ugh!
In the early 90′s Grunge took over the scene and metal had become a farce of itself. A parody if you will. Glam/hair bands had their season in the sun and made metal popular among high-school girls and also made it mildly acceptable with parents who no longer saw it as much of a threat. The parents had gotten what they wanted in the PMRC battle in the 80′s and saw that metal was dying out as they predicted. They were wrong. It didn’t die, it evolved. It mutated. Hip-hop and grunge were the music of the day and metal went underground. It’s OK, we like it down here. The underground is where we came from.
Unfortunately, as it went underground metal thought it had something to prove. Speed, volume, raunchiness and blasphemy just for the sake of being the most outrageous band around. I’m all for each and every one of those elements but with reason. When it’s done just to outdo the guys in the next band, they’ve turned themselves into a low-rent Howard Stern. Shocking people just to see if they can. Not very funny and definitely not in the best interest of talent.
Another reason metal suffered in the 90′s was the fractionalization of the genre. No one was “heavy metal” any more. In the 80′s there were sub-genres like “hair/glam metal” and “punk/hardcore metal” but the 90′s saw an unbelievable splitting of the “metal” genres. Like a fractal branching algorithm, there were sub-categories that got so specific, that there were only one or two bands in the category. Death-Metal, Goth-Metal, Black-Metal, Blood-Metal, Speed-Metal, Blast-Metal, Vampiric-Metal, Symphonic-Metal, etc, etc, etc… Then you could cross-genres. Vampiric-Symphonic-Goth-Metal (a la Cradle Of Filth). It became ridiculous.
For a few years, metal went so far underground as to appear dormant to the casual observer. Now it’s coming back to the surface. There are many bands out there now that are very talented. Speed and power have become integrated into the music. The slop burned itself off and the talent has survived.
I cut my teeth on bands like The Ramones, Twisted Sister and KISS (“God Of Thunder/War Machine” KISS, not “Beth/R&R All Nite” KISS). As time moved on, I moved onto heavier bands like (early)Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax. Now I’m on Lamb Of God, Morbid Angel and Dimmu Borgir. It’s all the same spirit, just different permutations of the incarnation.
To me, metal is like my Grandmother’s house. Imagine (if you will) a long hallway plastered with pictures on each wall. The pictures are never the same, but of the same people. As you enter the hallway, there’s an old black and white of a baby. Further down, a picture of that baby’s first day of school. Still further, the same baby at his wedding. Next, that same person with his new baby… and so on. Music evolves, just like families. The old give birth to the new. Some are disappointments, some go on to superstardom, most are just Uncle Ted.
This is by no means an accurate direct line but somewhere along the line, Classical, Jazz, Swing, Doo-wop, Blues, Rock, Psychedelic were all spawned off from one or another and out of that primordial ooze crawled metal, still dripping with elements of all those that came before… What’s next? I don’t know yet. But I’m looking forward to it.
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