I just remembered another one of my favorite logical fallacies.
"If your music is so good, why don't more people like it?"
Because better music requires a better audience to appreciate it, that's why, you fucking moron.
In reference to any song with guttural vocals: "So, like can you understand what they're saying?"
I used to listen to Rammstein a lot it high school and other students would often criticize it by pointing out "you can't even understand what they're saying!" After explaining that it was in German, that wouldn't even resolve their confusion, because then they would simply express their disapproval of anything that wasn't English. Oddly, it never seemed to bother anyone that most rap lyrics barely qualify as English, or (more recently) that Gagnam Style is mostly non-English.
or when asked what sort of music they like, a response such as "I listen to everything except country!". If your next question is "what metal bands do you like?" be prepared for a blank stare or a response like Disturbed or Evanescence...
I don't think it's worth getting angry about it, but I still laugh internally whenever a proud metal fan clearly has no clue that their favorite metal bands aren't actually metal. At one of my old jobs, that was a high school kid who asked what type of music I liked and he got really excited when I simply replied "death metal." He quickly raised his hand for a high five while shouting "yeah! like mother fuckin' TWISTED SISTER 'n shit!" This, being my first experience with an accidentally fake metalhead, left me so perplexed that I accidentally left him hanging as I tilted my head in astonishment and wonder over whether he was actually trolling me, or genuinely unaware of his obliviousness to metal and, probably, music in general. He was then both shocked and disappointed that Twisted Sister is not death metal.
As others in this thread have mentioned, I couldn't even explain to him what death metal was, because every "metal" band that he liked was a rock band. I eventually settled on a comparison to Slayer and Metallica, but heavier. He then informed me that this wasn't possible because Slayer and Metallica are "as heavy as it gets." Fortunately, the senior staff were tolerant enough that I was allowed to bring in some of my CDs to show him and some of the other curious staff what "real metal" sounds like
Girl - is it like that yelling stuff where you scream about death? *Does HORRIBLE growling impression that everyone does to imitate/make fun of it because they think it all sounds the same and takes no skill*
And yeah the horrible impression people do to demean Screams/growls because again they think their bad impression is all it takes.
People also do this with opera and pretty much any vocal style that isn't American pop music.
All that said, the thing that really bothers me is when people call it nothing but noise or they judge the ENTIRE band based on the style of vocals. People that listen to Pop and shit it's ALL about the vocals and they can't seem to comprehend that Metal is about the instruments more than anything. The vocals are often employed more as an instrument really, and lyrics are not the important part so much as the sound.
They hear more than a couple things going on at once and assume it's just talentless noise because they are used to one looping repetitive beat.
I also post on a forum of composers who use the same MIDI program and one of the most unanimous complaints was that when someone asks what you're doing, you reply "writing music," and their next question is "what about?"
When I first read that, I was really confused because I had no idea what the question was even supposed to be asking about, and I had to read further into the thread to discover that the "what about" implies that the other person interpreted "writing music" as "writing song lyrics."
For some reason they get hung up on one thing too rather than listening and paying attention to the details, to me this mean they have no true appreciation for music. I guess that's why they say most people enjoy their music, Metalheads live it.
As someone who writes music as a hobby and who even studies musicology at all, one of the things I've noticed since becoming more musically aware is that most people don't actually listen to music; they simply hear it. I try not to be judgmental about it, because I used to be the same way and only crossed the threshold because I began studying music in my early 20s. Having begun so late in life, I still retain the memories of being totally musically illiterate and can relate to the sensation of novelty and mysteriousness when getting involved in metal and music writing for the very first time.
That being said, there are still a few things that do irritate me more than they should. One specific example was when I was an undergrad college student and my floormates wanted to host a dance party. Being one of the more musically literate people, I compiled a playlist of dance music featuring several hours more music than would actually be needed. Only a few minutes into the party, the girls on the floor were already skipping through nearly every song in the playlist demanding "what kind of music IS this, anyway!?" They were totally incredulous when I replied "dance music," then they hijacked my laptop, connected their own iTunes playlists to it and started playing nostalgic(to them) pop music and singing along as a group, apparently unaware that "dance party" and "sing along party" are two different types of events requiring two totally different types of music. Another reason why this irritated me was that we were living in an international residence hall, and our "dance party" was intended welcome the international students to our community. Instead, a small, selfish group of American girls alienated nearly the entire residence hall by playing music exclusively of their own taste from a very narrow range of sub-styles and publication dates. The international students and many other Americans had the pleasure of standing around awkwardly and watching as a small clique of American teenage girls squabbled over every song, stopping each one less than half-way through and periodically exclaiming "omg, we're the only ones singing, hahaha" evidently because they were the only ones present who really knew "how to have a good time." They even passive-aggressively encouraged others to join them, totally unaware that most of the international students were probably hearing those songs for the first time. After two more failed attempts at hosting a dance party, the floor decided to cancel all future events because "no one was coming." Jeez, I can't imagine why!
People can usually get a rise out of me when they call metal "kill your mother" music.
I'm pretty sure everybody has heard that one a time or two.
I had a high school art teacher who dismissed any music that didn't appeal to her as "urban hate music," regardless of what style of music it really was. She was totally baffled when she found out that the metalheads and rap-tards didn't hang out together outside of class since we all "listen to the same music anyway, right?" :Smug:
That's because if it doesn't have screaming, they don't consider it metal, just hard rock.
On the other end of the spectrum, I knew a guy in high school who couldn't stand music with screaming in it, but his favorite band was Linkin Park
Sorry for the long post everyone, I guess I had a lot to get off my chest.
