Well, I thought that I’d talk briefly about music today. In particular, why – contrary to the old stereotype – most metalheads don’t just exclusively listen to metal all the time.
Whilst I’ve obviously known this for a long time, seeing comedy sketches about it on Youtube a while back reassured me of how common it is. Not to mention that the sheer number of metal covers of non-metal songs on the internet also shows that many metal musicians also listen to a wide variety of music too.
And, case in point, on the day of writing this article in early-mid January, I’m wearing an Iron Maiden T-shirt (and, if anyone still does that “name three songs” nonsense, here’s ten songs), but I’m listening to a playlist of classical music.
Other music I’ve listened to during the past twenty-four hours has included electronic music (eg: “A Drop Filled With Memories” from Susumu Hirasawa’s excellent soundtrack to Satoshi Kon’s 2006 film “Paprika”), punk music (Bad Religion, The Distillers etc...), a sea shanty or two etc… as well as classic heavy metal, of course.
And, naturally, this made me wonder why we metalheads have such varied musical tastes. There are probably as many reasons as there are metalheads in the world, but I think that a major one is discovery. For 99.9% of metalheads, the first genre of music we ever heard or liked probably wasn’t metal.
I personally didn’t even discover heavy metal until I was about thirteen (when I heard some Iron Maiden songs on a computer game soundtrack. They’ve been my favourite metal band ever since…) – before that, I loved to listen to 1980s/1990s pop music and any pop-punk music I could find. I still really like both genres, good music is good music.
There are individual songs that I like in pretty much every genre. Whether this is hip-hop, grime, acoustic/folk, electronic, gothic rock, classic rock, synthwave, pop, punk, classical etc… If I like a song, then I like that song. My musical tastes really do seem to follow their own rules. To me, good music is good music.
And it’s this “good music is good music” thing which probably leads many metalheads to be fascinated by metal when we hear it for the first time. But whilst this often initially happens by chance, it still involves a lot of self-discovery and self-directed searching afterwards.
Whilst there have never been more metal bands, and metal sub-genres, than there are today – metal isn’t exactly the most prominent genre in popular culture these days. You don’t really hear much of it on the radio, on TV, in popular films, on popular playlists or anything like that. In other words, it’s a genre which you have to actively look for. And, when you find it, you have to research it.
Even within the metal genre, there are so many different sub-genres that you have to learn – from experience – what you do and don’t like. For example, whilst I like individual songs from a wide variety of metal sub-genres, my favourite types of metal tend to be the more melodic ones like: Traditional heavy metal (Maiden, Priest, Sabbath, Saxon etc..), symphonic metal (Nightwish), power metal (Gamma Ray, Helloween, Unleash The Archers etc...), pirate metal (Alestorm, Storm Seeker), trance metal (Rage Of Light), melodic death metal (Children Of Bodom, Kalmah) and symphonic black metal (Cradle Of Filth).
This is something I’ve had to learn from listening to a variety of metal songs over the years. And, even in less melodic sub-genres, there are still some thrash metal songs that I really like (eg: “Raining Blood” by Slayer, “Master Of Puppets” by Metallica etc...), some metalcore songs that I really like (like “One More Day” by The Anchor), some nu metal songs I really like (though, arguably, System Of A Down transcended this genre) etc… Because I’ve listened to a variety of metal to learn what types I like, I’ve discovered good songs everywhere in the process.
In other words, because of the focus on having to actively look for stuff – and being guided by your own sensibilities rather than whatever is popular – you end up being a bit more open-minded. Because you’ve been exposed to good music in other genres before you stumbled across the “holy grail” (or should that be “unholy grail”?) of metal, then you know that good songs aren’t exclusive to one genre. And, if you care enough about enjoying music to focus on a genre which isn’t ultra-mainstream, then you probably also care enough about enjoying music to enjoy good music from outside of that genre too.
Again, good music is good music.
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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂
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