Carol Simmons Dayton Daily News " Metal gets heavy." July 30, 2006 Sunday
Those folks who keep saying that the younger generation doesn't have protest songs the way the older generation did are apparently speaking as members of the older generation - or they haven't been listening. They certainly haven't been listening to heavy metal. A lot of us are guilty of that. The genre seemed to define rock 'n' roll excess. Focusing on themes of death, destruction and insanity, the music assaulted the senses with screaming vocals and screeching guitars. And the lives of the metal rockers seemed to embody the genre's excesses in hedonistic scenarios of drugs, alcohol, sex, and, in the 1980s, unfortunate hairstyle choices.
Whatever musical integrity it had when Led Zeppelin defined its dark and dramatic intensity in the 1970s (though former Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page has refused to label his band as heavy metal) got sidelined over the years in an overindulgent haze of substance abuse, misogynistic posing and theatrical stagecraft. Even the guitar solo, the meat and potatoes of hard rock, became obsolete.
But the sidelines are full of people ready and eager to pick up the balls that have been dropped from the field of play. The mistake many observers in the stands made was to think that the game was over when the on-field action became too awful to watch. Moving on to other arenas, we missed the change-off.
Some of us are guilty, too, of stereotyping. We peg musical genres the way we define people. And we learn over and over that we have to look deeper than our own assumptions. It's just like high school, when we find out the popular jock writes sensitive poetry, or the angry rebel takes care of her disabled grandmother every afternoon, or the computer geek plays killer guitar.
Turns out, heavy metal practitioners have been writing sensitive poetry, taking care of relations and playing killer guitar all along.
The evidence is abundant on this year's daylong Ozzfest tour, which made its only Ohio stop in Columbus last weekend and continues traveling the country through Aug. 13, concluding in West Palm Beach, Fla.
Founded in 1996 by the so-called "Prince of Darkness," Ozzy Osbourne and his entrepreneurial wife, Sharon, the juggernaut that is Ozzfest celebrates the heavy metal world and its fans.
And while that world is still very maledominated and friendlier to marijuana than most parents might find comfortable, the 2006 installment highlights a seriousness running through the genre - not to mention some serious guitarsolo work.
The dark topics traditionally associated with heavy metal apparently have a new relevance for a generation living in a fractious world at war. Many contemporary metal bands such as this year's Ozzfest headliners System of a Down and Disturbed are taking on social issues with a ferociousness reminiscent of the British political-punk bands of the late 1970s, yet they manage to refrain from the nihilism and anarchy of that subgenre. In fact, this new generation of musicians reveals not only a certain vulnerability, but also a desire for healing and human connection.
There is real - and intense - anger in the music's aural assault, yet there is also pain and fear and confusion.
As Disturbed's lead singer David Draiman - whose songs cover topics ranging from the Iraq war, to child abuse, to personal responsibility - noted in one of his addresses to the receptive crowd: In this time of global unrest and uncertainty, "my brothers and sisters, we are all 'disturbed.' "
Similarly, Jamey Jasta, the lead singer of the caustically titled Hatebreed, noted that people who think his band fosters hate are wrong. "Every one of our songs is about hope," he said, leading into a song dedicated to victims of childhood molestation. (He also added that he hoped all abusers go to hell; but how forgiving and altruistic do we expect people to be?)
Led Zeppelin famously sang about a Stairway to Heaven. The next generation's AC/DC sang about a Highway to Hell. The new breed of metal musician seems to be saying that we're actually somewhere in the middle, and it's up to us to determine our own direction.
That's a pretty powerful message.
:Smug:
