Mentality of a beginning metalhead.

[suckerleaf]

I'm more an elitist about Country music than Metal.

Much of my taste in Metal and rock could be seen as rather pedestrian I suppose.

 

[J.]

i work with and manage a bunch of inner city guys, so rap music is all around. it was explained to me all the "different" types of rap, and it was actually quite interesting. Because to me, its a bunch of dudes talking over about a casio beat wailing about hoes, money, and bustin caps. so yeah, other people can feel elitist about their types of music.

and it annoys me when people say "you need to listen to more than metal". fuck that. there is a type of metal for every situation.

in other words, metal rules, other music drools

 

[EternalMetal]

Me neither. Because for civilians I think whenever I mention metal they think of either Metallica or hair metal bands. I've tried to explain the scope and artistry of bands like Emperor/Opeth (whether you like them or not) to non-metal listeners but of course that's futile because they're seeing images of Whitesnake and Beavis and Butthead.

I'm happy to live and let live when it comes to people's personal tastes, but there's no denying that whatever genres of metal you personally happen to enjoy, the form has a scope and aesthetic to it in both music and lyrics that transcends a lot of the elevator music that people like my parents, for instance, claim to enjoy.

I think that this is basically the main reason why metalheads develop that elitist "my music is best" attitude. Though there are some people with the attitude that jazz is just musicians being showy in a meaningless and improv sort of way, or that blues is just music for the American deep south, or even that classical is just what you are supposed to pretend to like if you are belong to the upper echelon of society, but the fact of the matter is that these genres have a general sort of respect in the mainstream. 'Classical music is written by musical geniuses, played by true professionals, and has a learned collective of knowledge that cannot be compared to'. Even blues has connotations of high art because it is 'soulful'.

But when people think of metal, they think of it as low brow, stupid, and one dimensional. Ive had people describe "my music", and usually they just try and imitate some growling metal vocals and laugh. People fail to realize that like many other forms of music, metal has a depth and sophistication of it's own. I guess this would explain why beginning metalheads who just recently began to understand the intricacies and diversity of metal begin to think that they are superior to people who listen to "other shit".

Then again, it is a very adolescent attitude in general to think that what you like is the best, so im not sure this attitude is exclusive to metalheads themselves. Just like J.'s inner city guys and their rap. I think most counter-cultures feel the same way about their entertainment, probably as a reaction to societal pressures.

Id have to admit that in middle school and early high school I felt the same way that ITP is saying that he did. My friends did listen to pop-punk though, so I was in the right though; I was better than them.

 

[End of Glory]

I do not believe I've had any moments in my life that I've felt superior or better than others just because I listen to metal. But there's been plenty of times I've had enough of people when they came from nowhere and started complaining without any reasons that Metal are just noises and are made by talentless people. Hypocrisy at it's finest when it came from lady gaga, -insert any name of a rap artist- fan or whatever shit they were praising.

 

[Master_Yoda77]

Honestly, I like the fact that most people don't listen to metal. It's a genre based on being underground and it makes the live experiences much more personal and intimate. It also helps to identify which people I want to hang out with.

 

[The Butt]

I'm pretty elitist when it comes to metal, to the point of my IRL friends never wanting to discuss music with me. Meh.

 

[Mort Divine]

I'm pretty elitist when it comes to metal, to the point of my IRL friends never wanting to discuss music with me. Meh.

To be fair, no one here wants to discuss it with you either.

 

[Funerary_Doom]

I like dressing how I want and being creative with my attire. Being a teacher is a drag sometimes because being in professional clothing all day just sorta puts a blanket on who i am as a person. i've always liked making clothes since middle school, so metal gives me that opportunity as well. Personally think when i get to choose what i want to wear freely I'm more comfortable and it just feels natural.

I dont bother telling people what i listen to or bringing up metal to my nonmetal friends. What's the point? some already can tell i'm into something different, anyways, and they respect it. but that doesn't mean they want to hear about it. I rather share it with someone who cares tbh. there's always forums and my group of friends who do listen to metal that i can always talk about metal with. I also like the fact that only a few people listen to it. when you find someone with similar taste it's like finding gold (at least at first unless they turn out to be assholes) and it's an immediate conversation. i've always loved that initial getting to know someone conversation.

i love metal. i think it's one of the few genres where you can find literally anything in. it's really diverse. yeah, some people are douches but i think in general most people are anyways and it's not necessarily because they listen to metal and are elitist. people, in general, just think they are always right.

 

[CiG]

One thing I've always liked about Metal (especially as opposed to other genres) is that most people into it are different from the next. It's very refreshing.
You can meet such a variety of people (ideologically/religiously/politically/class/race/gender/etc) just through a connection of something random like being a huge fan of Celtic Frost etc.

 

[Omni]

There's quite a bit of other music that has the same type of audience. Mainstream rock, pop and hip-hop are the main genres that don't.

 

[CiG]

Not in my experience, especially with underground Hip Hop.

 

[viewerfromnihil]

I was a kid once and once thought the things @Individual thought patterns brought up. Then I was a bigger kid who listened to Schoenberg and thought the same thing, along with scorning common practice classical. Now I like Haydn and listen exclusively to NPR and C-Span in my car. I like to get drunk and play Celtic Frost, soak off a hangover in a tub to some Tchaikovsky, and sing Kraftwerk on the toilet. Some people are dumb and outgrow it, and others are dumb and don't.

 

[Master_Yoda77]

You were quite dumb at MDF back in 2009.

 

[NinjaSweater]

I love metal but I also love hip hop

 

[chuu]

People from where I am are very close-minded when it comes to metal, it's them who feel superior for not listening to this kind of music since they think it's only about noises and creppy sounds, whatever.

 

[The Butt]

To be fair, no one here wants to discuss it with you either.

Lmao. I bet you think yer real snarky there, sandpaper cock massager.

 

[CiG]

sandpaper cock massager

 

[DarkGuitarLord]

I go through phases of listening to music other than metal, sometimes its jazz (Miles Davis pre-1968, John Coltrane) sometimes it's classical (insert great composer here), rarely hip hop (just not my cup of tea), sometimes country (typically mid 1990's - back), sometimes talk radio, but mostly metal. Never outgrew it, lived through the ridicule of a few friends and co-workers throughout the years and it's really my taste and choice in music. Gig for gig, metal is my go-to, has been since 1982 and will likely continue for the rest of my life. Good Lord, I'm old...

 

[AlienZombie]

I never listened to metal to be rebellious, I listened to it because it was the only genre of music I found that I liked. Still easily constitutes 90%+ of my music listening, over 20 years later.

 

[no country for old wainds]

i think of metal as a kind of connective tissue between people who don't fit snugly into the illusions upheld by modern society. it's a secret language shared between weirdos, outcasts, the drunk and the disillusioned, all the people who understand that society is designed to hide all kinds of existential/biological truths from us, many of them morbid, perverse and damn beautiful if you ask me. i've always found it more genuinely 'rebellious' than punk because punk (traditionally) is a reactionary gob of spit whereas metal is about questioning the consensus, imagining alternatives, searching for something real beneath the layers of bullshit. people mistake it as 'escapist' because of its obsessions with fantasy, dreams, history etc, but i think these things are actually paradoxically *more* real in the sense that they present worlds in which the darker sides of existence aren't buried under endless rationalisations and misdirections like a foul stench. obviously, i didn't understand any of this shit at the time i first discovered metal, but retrospectively i can see this is what got me so instantly obsessed. i'd been searching for it my whole life.