How about a Friday night music thread?
brendancalling made us a Metal playlist to start us off!
It’s the long-promised, long-awaited, perhaps long-dreaded metal playlist!
I’ve been a metal fan pretty much all my life, beginning with when I learned about AC/DC (more hard rock than metal, and not included in this playlist) and, soon thereafter, Ozzy Osbourne. It’s a wide-ranging genre of music, often not taken seriously, perhaps due to the occult fascination of some bands, or the frequent lack of political lyrics. Not to say there aren’t explicitly political metal bands or that apolitical bands don’t occasionally do songs about social issues—those exist and are included herein. But at its heart, metal (to me anyway) has always been a louder version of rock-n-roll. Many of the lyrics are overwhelmingly inspirational—metal is a HUGE part of my running playlist—and the rhythms are driving, to say the least.
It’s that “inspirational” part that I want to emphasize here. Back in the day, metal heads were kind of outcasts. Stoners. Kind of threatening in some ways, because they weren’t always perceived as particularly smart. And for real, I drifted away from metal early, because I liked punk rock. Yeah, we were also pariahs in high school, but our songs had meaning. We were singing about politics (the Dead Kennedys, MDC), life on the streets, not taking drugs.
But the thing is, the messages were often the same. “Believe in yourself!” “No one can stop you!” “Keep rocking!” And when metal and punk (and, later, hip hop) crossed over—wow. That was a different beast altogether. HOLY MOLY.
Caveat emptor: there’s a lot of metal I don’t like, and won’t include here. You won’t hear a lot of 1990s metal on this playlist. Like the rest of the music world, metal responded to the introduction of “grunge”, and began taking on the same dour themes and sludgy tempos. You won’t hear a lot of extreme metal on this list either, although there are some great bands out there like Vektor or Iron Reagan. It’s not because I don’t like them—I very much do and they are incredible musicians—but it’s definitely an acquired taste. Start with the California rolls before you go eating the fugu—that’s my way of thinking.