Most of today’s most popular hits on the radio disgust me. I drive to wherever I need to be and naturally the first thing I do is turn on the radio. All I here is pointless, non-passionate garbage that has been used to make the artist obscene amounts of money that they don’t need.
The lyrics to some of the songs are ridiculous. “Baby I like it,” or “Shawty’s like a melody.” I don’t know what you like. But what in the world is a shawty, and putting your voice through an auto-tuner does not make your “lyrics” good.
There are so many other obscure genres, bands and artists, whose music is absolutely amazing and means something more than how much money it can bring in. But not a lot of people know of them.
I know what you’re thinking, that this girl is trying to make you listen to Beethoven or Mozart or something like that. No, not at all, I’m talking about metal.
Metal is a genre of rock music developed in the late 1960s and 1970s, largely in Northern Europe and the United States. It has roots in blues, and psychedelic rock, and can be defined by amplified distortion, emphatic beats, and overall loudness. Early metal bands included well known bands such as Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest.
This genre of music has been mistaken as devil worship by many close-minded people. This idea is wrong.
While the sub-genre of metal known as black metal does support anti-Christianity, and wear corpse paint — face paint to create the illusion of corpse-like decay — metal itself can be divided into sub-genre after sub-genre of music, many that have nothing to do with Satan.
From the shrieking vocals and frantic drum lead sound of black metal to the clean vocals and sweeping guitar riffs of power metal, the guttural vocals and dissonant instrumentation of death metal to folk, thrash, doom, heavy, progressive and sludge; metal is more complex and inspirational than most think.
Vocalists sing about what they know, or what they believe in. Whether it be the plight of the pagans from the Christians as the black metal band Forefather sang about in their song “Ours is the Kingdom” to more comical songs like having sex with a flight attendant in a crashing plane as power metal band Edguy did in their song “Lavatory Love Machine.”
No hotels, motels or holiday inns; most of today’s huge artists are in it for the money, because most of the songs out there make no sense, there’s no passion, beliefs, or anything.
Metal bands are not in it for the money; in fact most of them do it for fun, and don’t even want the fame.
Vocalist Athelstan of Forefather said in an interview with Masterful Magazine. “I don’t want to be a pagan metal money machine. I don’t want to pose on stage and [touring is] a lot of hassle that I don’t want to fill my life with.”
Others will tour, but hold down steady jobs.
King ov Hell, the former bassist for black metal band Gorgoroth, is a kindergarten teacher.
I’ve seen metal shows where bands played their hearts out for a crowd of 75 fans, and shook every fans hand afterward. I’ve seen a band act as a stage hand for their show, and watch the bands they’re touring with. I’ve seen a metal artist who was paralyzed from the waist down head bang while singing his song from his wheelchair. I’ve watched shows with other fans, fans who weren’t acting like idiots. The passion for the music is evident, and ongoing.
Two other misconceptions with the genre are that Nu-metal, Scream-o and 80’s glam bands are considered to be metal (which is not true, they are sub-genres of rock), and that to listen to metal you have to look like gothic kids. You know, the kids at the mall in black t-shirts, pants three sizes too big with a million pockets and zippers, and eyeliner darker than a sharpie marker. This also is false, these mall core kiddies are trying way too hard.
So if you’re sick of the junk that they are playing on the radio, if you’re sick of Weezy, Gaga or Britney, give metal a try.
