Like the toxic elements for which it's named, heavy metal is not there to make you happy. It's there to wake you up.
For starters, what other genre decides to remind you that you're going to die? "Only death is real" was the statement Hellhammer used to rally musicians around the new death metal genre. Black Sabbath had expressed similar sentiments in the past, reminding us of not only mortality but the great possibility that life leads to nothing, means nothing, ends suddenly and without any significance.
That's what makes metal heavy. It also wakes you up out of the consensual hallucination of consumerism, big media, happy polite social thoughts, what you're going to eat and watch, comparison shopping, politics and television drama, and shows you that beneath the illusionist surface of a world where people succeed by making you feel happy and selling you stuff, there's life... lurking.
Some have compared it to religion:
Music journos have been quick to champion the duo's tranquilizing virtues, and the band's meditative racket has attracted a wider audience than anyone could have imagined. Yes, the idea of a blissed-out metal band sounds like the stuff of novelty, but SunnO)))'s mysterious gravity has drawn everyone from faithful head-bangers to button-down newbies in search of a sonic master cleanse. There's a weird reverence at the band's shows -- an almost religious awe. (The fact that the O'Malley and Anderson perform in monks' habits might have something to do with it.)
This can't be far from the truth. Metal is a wake-up call to humanity that just happens to rock.
Comments
""Only death is real" was the statement Hellhammer used to rally musicians around the new death metal genre. Black Sabbath had expressed similar sentiments in the past, reminding us of not only mortality but the great possibility that life leads to nothing, means nothing, ends suddenly and without any significance."
This entry should be better called "It depresses you". The realization that death happens, sometimes arbitrarily, and that it's permanent most people make at age 4. Nothing profound there. Metal fans, with their delayed intellectual development, might only strike on it a decade or two after the norm... Those who accomplish things don't fixate on their deaths and don't need to be reminded of it let alone dwell on it like metal does. They set out on tasks that leave their mark on the world and do them.
Agreed. Being reminded that I'm gonna die and that my life is meaningless (debatable) does little to lift my spirits.
@Bleda
I enjoy metal, it doesn't depress me, infact i'm quite resistant to inevitable things that you would call 'tragic', what would reduce you to a blubbering heap in a dark corner of a room makes me grunt and continue with whatever i am doing. In conclusion: Flip you Bleda.
Metal doesnt depress me, iv been listening to nothing but it for years.
Im a very happy person.
It might seem a little weird to you, but a lot of the lyrics make me smile:
"By now your all just empty f****ng soulless machines, rip you apart" - All Shall Perish.
It might be because Im a screamer myself and its so much fun to belt that s**t out
@Bleda Most music, indeed most art these days is about hapiness, love, sex and positivity. There is no sense of negativity or an end. Without an end there is little motivation those who as you put it "set out on tasks that leave their mark on the world and do them" would have no reason to do them if there was no end.
Message from most music: Go out, have a good time. Don't have any worries.
Message from metal: You are going to die. Everything ends. Therefore go out and do something significant.
"Death is a great motivator" is what applies here.
Death doesn't motivate ME. Being reminded that I can wake up dead tomorrow gives me no incentive to plan for the future.
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