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Breaking Benjamin is the Taco Bell of alternative rock/metal. You're not getting something authentic or original, but you're getting what you came for and you're getting the same thing everytime you come in. Just crunchy Drop A# riffs, I-VI-IV-V chorus, shout-singing about existential angst or a heartless woman, like a cheesy gordita crunch to my inner emo kid.
@@PapaSmurf11182ndwasn’t the thing about grunge is that it wasn’t really an actual set in stone genre. Like Kurt cobain was trying to do punk while the other bands were trying to do metal but because they all came from Seattle they got grouped together.
@@j_jizzle_6934grunge was kind of a “feel”. Alice In Chains definitely came from metal, Soundgarden from alternative rock, Pearl Jam from classic rock and Nirvana from punk, as you said.
Metal is going through the same trajectory that jazz did. It keeps getting more technical and more self serious so less and less casual listeners are interested
I'm not on the cutting edge of jazz music but I'm a fan of the genre. I took a history of jazz class and it basically outlined what you're saying. The leaders of the genre became unconcerned with being catchy or accessible with the rise of bebop in the 1940s. People looking for more accessible music went to rhythm and blues, which led to rock, soul, disco, etc. Old jazz songs that are still widely known today were often written with some level of accessibility in mind. For example, here's a Louis Armstrong quote from the late 1940s, admonishing the inaccessibility of the new wave of jazz music: "These young cats now they want to make money first and the hell with the music. And they want to carve everyone else because they’re full of malice, and all they want to do is show you up, and any old way will do as long as it’s different from the way you played it before. So you get all them weird chords which don’t mean nothing, and first people get curious about it just because it’s new, but soon they’ll get tired of it because it’s really no good and you got no melody to remember and no beat to dance to." As far as I'm aware, nowadays there's broadly accessible music that fits the 'jazz' label but it's more the exception than the rule.
@@RU-vidUserHello sounds like Louis Armstrong felt threatened by young people doing new shit. Funny how they're only in it for the money, yet making inaccessible music for a niche audience...
Metalheads and punks being the most accepting is just such a global truth it is crazy. I am an immigrant and have never had issues hanging out with the rockers.
Rockers and metal heads in real life are wonderful and accepting. Rockers and metal heads online are entitled, elitist , annoying assholes unfortunately 😑
You kids will never know the struggle of being a black metal enthusiast in Chicago in the 1980s. You lead a cushy life today. We fought in the trenches. Especially people like Sig who said to people like his cousin, "Why you listenin' to white boy music?!"
I remember an interview with Fishbone where they said something about how the black community wasn't out there supporting them because they weren't making black music, and the band really seemed bothered by that. As a white dude, I never really understood why rock and heavy music got cut out of black music. Because, from what I remember, it was always black music, and more.
@@KhayJayArt White guy music industry types are responsible for a whole bunch of underhanded crap. I don't think they are at fault for convincing black audiences that Fishbone wasn't black music. But maybe I'm wrong. Can you back that up?
The New York City scene in the late '80s and early '90s was weird because there were always a few Black, Latino, or Asian people at metal shows because of the Hardcore scene in New York. Nobody ever bothered you at shows, but people outside, primarily minorities, used to have a whole bunch of questions when they saw me (a 6 foot + Black guy) wearing a Slayer or Pantera shirt. Other metal heads used to just throw up the horns as a sign of mutual respect for the bands. It kills me now to see people wearing old band shirts that probably never even listened to them. I have been guilty of taxing younger kids when I see them wearing an old-school shirt to see if they are legit 😆
I've thought about this for some time. The end of the nü metal era in the mid 2000s brought about the rise of metalcore which, although popular in its own right, was too extreme to cross over into pop territory, and the bands didn't express much interest in becoming mainstream celebrities. What's more, nü metal's enormous commercial success angered so many in the metal community that its gatekeeping went into overdrive. For about a solid ten years, a lot of new bands and fans were maligned by older fans as the metal audience became increasingly obsessed with championing older bands, new bands that looked and sounded like older bands, and keeping the genre as obscure and "true" as possible. *Edit: One important thing I previously left out is that the metal community's sentiment behind the concept of "true metal" often carried racist, misogynistic and homophobic overtones.* Cut to 2011 and, over in the hip-hop world, Odd Future's graphically dark raps, sophomoric attitude and chaotic live shows brought a new energy to both hip-hop culture and alternative culture. They opened the door for a generation of artists and converted a generation of would-be rock fans into fully embracing the weirder, edgier side of hip-hop, which was pivotal to it becoming the biggest genre in the world. Now, metal can't seem to connect with anyone under the age of 25, and if you saw a kid that looks like they just left Hot Topic, they're more likely to be into Playboi Carti than Slipknot. Metal created a chasm between itself and the mainstream that is just getting bigger with time.
Metal was always destined to reject the mainstream. Metal is a rejection of humanity and group mentality and the socially acceptable "metal" that panders to big audiences doesn't sit well within that ethos. In a way it's a blessing. Metal is now finally allowed to be itself in the underground because the people who want to be popular yet edgy will now make hip hop. Nice analysis.
Agreed, but the thing is, the aspects nu metal challenged about the metal scene were those of virtuosity and technical integrity, replacing riffs with muddy, downtuned drop chords or just blaring out open chords. Of course the metal community found this pretty insulting, as it was clear the edges were getting clipped off only for attaining mainstream success, which just wasn't a priority for most metal fans anyway, who naturally suspicious of mainstream ambitions.
note that i live in france so what i'm gonna say might not be true for you but i remember that the second ghost got popular and started getting mainstream recognition by winning a grammy, suddenly every metal fan i knew who had liked them started debating whether they were "real" metal or not (not to mention the weird homophobia around them started getting worse) this is still ongoing, the second they got announced at hellfest i started seeing those people whining about it. to me they're such a good case study of that very elitist attitude that goes "this band is getting popular so we don't like them anymore", from underground darlings to most hated bands by True Fans almost overnight.
In the mid 2000s we had this neat metalcore scene in my area. It was a load of fun and most of the bands were decent we even had a couple of recognized underground groups came through our town. As cool as all that was there was a bit of elitism among the fans and musicians. Like if you didn't look the part then they didn't want you there... and if you tried too hard they'd pull pot-shots in the pit. Metalcore is ok but it was destined to go the way of the Dodo because of that elitism, in my opinion. Metal in general has issues with that but the metalcore kids I knew took it to another level. All the old farts going on about Megadeth still and the youngins were saying "git brootal detune guitar." Elitism all around.
you're so wrong lol, every metal show ive been to recently had a large contingent of young people who couldn't possibly have been listening to the band when they first broke.
Speaking as a once introverted black kid in junior high school and in high school, I was a closet metal core fan. I got into it not to be apart of any particular social group, but because of how popular it was in AMVs and video game montage scene on RU-vid, at the time. I just grew to enjoy the sound based on the video content that was created with it.
Im Asian. Grew up on rap because BET didnt sell out to HBO or cable. I had an Ipod shuffle with a bunch of Linkin Park and Guns N Roses on it and from there I got into the metalcore scene in 2005. Nowadays Im listening to deathcore and prog metal. I dont even remember the last time I listened to Nu Metal lol. P.S yes Ive heard of the Linkin Park collab with Jay Z. That stuff still slaps til this day.
I’m actually very happy that metal has gone back to the underground. The reemergence of death metal in particular is some of the best we’ve had in years. The main stream may have fell off but the underground is alive and well!
@Lars Steffen Same! Like some really kick ass talent out there. 200 stab wounds, Sanguisugabogg, Coffin Rot, Church of Digust, just the name of quick few! Maggot Stomp at a label is bringing out some great bands too. The rise of Death is here.
I got super stoked on the new wave of death metal and it’s sick that bands like Blood Incantation and Tomb Mold are successful and moving the genre forward it’s just annoying that there’s a giant chasm between the not-so-underground underground metal bands and, like, Sleep Token, Lorna Shore, Slaughter to Prevail, Polyphia, Spiritbox and Bad Omens in terms of popularity what’s funny is even Blood Incantation and Tomb Mold are exponentially more popular than the “real” underground bands
Since this seems like a good thread to ask for it: any current bands to check out if I am into the sound of ~2000s era In Flames? Whoracle, Clayman, Reroute etc. Obviously doesn't have to be a replica.
My theory is that rock radio seemed to just about refuse to pickup on metalcore or post-hardcore when that was what almost every rock or metal fan was listening to by 2010. They seemed to try to maintain the relevance of artists whose time had been a decade prior. Even as a fan of those alternative metal bands like Chevelle, Seether, System of a Down, Staind, Breaking Benjamin, etc. it was still frustrating because I could see the genre getting held back from any transformative effort. My second theory is that in the age of the internet, it’s cheaper and more convenient to learn how to produce electronic music as opposed to playing electric music. My ideal guitar rig still isn’t finished and I’ve probably spent well over 6k on it at this point. Music production of hip-hop or electronic music with today’s software (and let’s be real, the many ways the internet makes it possible to acquire such software) doesn’t require nearly that much investment and we never really recovered from the 2008 recession regardless of what the parties have said. If you are of a young generations, the ones producing most of the art, your financial prospects are probably not considered that great and so the more affordable means of music making are naturally going to gain more steam
Yeah it is the real reason rap is very easy to make compared to Rock/Metal and you don't even need a band you can do everything by yourself a beat and rap to it.
yeah I'm surprised neither of them brought up electronic music. Dubstep was a splash in the pot for the early 2010s in hindsight, but it garnered a ton of popularity online, and speaking from experience, pulled me away from listening to metal for a long time. Now I have a much broader taste in music which includes things like ambient/chill and highly produced orchestral-type electronic music, alongside a list of staple metal music that has mostly kept the same 100 artists with a couple albums to each. It's just really difficult to maintain a constantly evolving musical palette while growing older. You learn what you like fairly adolescently, and the longer you stray from that era, the harder it is to retrain your ears and mind to enjoy newer or less familiar music. Hell, even the bands that I listened to religiously when I was younger, I struggle to garner a welcoming ear to their newer albums where they pop up. Some of those bands have been consistently putting out records since I was a teenager, and I can't bring myself to just open up their repertoire and delve into new stuff, simply because it sounds fundamentally different to what I learned to like about them. And that speaks 100% to my own faults as a pure listener, and I also recognize the insane skill and dedication to their own craft that keeps bands staying together and continually putting out and evolving their music.
Yes. I hate it when people cite modern technology as a reason for any music to be more popular and accessible now but that's not the case. Electronic music and beats are so easy to make and distribute that any record company wanting to make money will pick up on it and leave the rest in the dust. As for the radio, I agree in an even broader sense. I know so many people who listened to metal but don't anymore because after burning through the types of artists you listed, they had no where else to go with the genre.
I gotta think that a part of the un-mainstreaming of metal has to do with how Eminem singlehandedly scooped up a huge market share of those who might otherwise be numerous but more surface level metal fans, via perceived attitudes or aesthetics, etc. Buncha edgy young dudes who would have eaten up metal back when if Mr. Shady wasn't constantly bouncing around in their heads
@@johnindigo5477 I suppose so. But I'm wondering, if they chose to listen to Rap rather than Black Metal, why didn't black & brown kids get into Black Metal or Hardcore in the same way ?
@@tudormiller887 It was never marketed to them. There are very few marketed black metal musicians. you have to actively search to find them. And then black metal musicians marketed to black youth? There is probably an aspect of black appropriation going on here. The flow tends to be black community -> white people adjacent to black community -> mainstream white community. Cultural products don't tend to go the other way.
The entire Metalocalypse series is a formative memory for me, and I still get the giggles remember it. Obviously being from Iowa and being a youngin’ in the 2000’s, mentioning slipknot also unlocks many more early memories. This video was a whole wave of nostalgia to be honest hahah
As a huge fan of metal and also your work this is a fun collision of worlds! While metal is definitely thriving in terms of the diversity of sounds it encompasses currently, i feel like the combination of fans being gatekeepy and the music industry not seeing much reason to showcase it to a wider audience are big factors why it gets less attention and airtime than other genres nowadays. There is also a general acquired taste element to harsh music that will always to some extent limit its appeal.
it doesn't need that attention, its thriving as an underground scene. it may not be popular, but the people who do listen to it tend to be far more motivated to attend shows than average fans of rap music.
@@khodges72 rap mega stars are different imo and I think there is truth to what he’s saying. You’ll get so many more people going to local venues to see local hardcore and metal bands than local rappers. Not to mention the energy is totally different. Sometimes I swear the main reason local rock bands get so much attention is because people want a socially acceptable place to mosh and be jack asses and honestly I see why and I love it. Local rappers will be legitimately talented but you’ll seem to only see a handful of people just standing around and tapping their feet like the goth kids from South Park or just sitting around. I get the sense that rappers just go from zero to a hundred purely by marketing their music on SoundCloud to a world wide audience before getting success doing live shows, but it seems like rock bands will jump straight into live shows and instantly start getting support from their local scene and attaining crazy energy from the crowd. Then again I’m from Fort Wayne so the local rap scene might be completely different in places like Atlanta or Memphis etc.
Growing up loving Disturbed and then seeing them cover _The Sound of Silence_ is like watching your favorite uncle getting drunk and trying to fight people at the BBQ.
I fell off of listening to Disturbed in the late 00s so I looked it up and tho clearly many like it for their own personal reasons...oh my what TF was that? .__.
You may have your opinion but, I think Dave did very well with that cover. He has the vocal chops to make that song both deep, emotional, and manly. I hope he uses his opportunities to take his vocal talents into fun territories.
Loved this!! An all-female metal band that I liked around this time was called Kittie. If you like Slipknot, you may want to give them a try. ALSO the O'Keefe Foundation has a series of kids singing Slipknot and other metal songs from this time...we had Kidz Bop. haha
so many great bands with all women or women as vocalists these days as well! I haven't gotten into Kittie yet, but I'll recommend some of these modern bands for those interested in getting into (relatively) underground metal: on the more accessible, lighter end, I'd point to stuff like Sonja (helmed by Melissa Moore, the former guitarist from Apsu who completely destroyed them after they kicked her out for coming out as trans), Nova Twins, Battle Beast, Project: Roenwolfe (Alicia Cordisco is actually the guitarist of that band, and she is easily the best part of their last album), Sanhedrin, Code Orange, Blackwater Holylight, Unleash the Archers, Lucifer, Ithaca, Midnight Dice/Satan's Hallow (their vocalist was also in High Spirits back in the day and one of my friends loves the fuck outta that band), and End Boss. Transgressive (also with Cordisco as guitarist & vocalist) is also a really good thrash band whose lyrics deal with topics such as incels, transphobia (Cordisco is one of the most prominent trans women in metal), and misogyny. Anthony doesn't really dig them, tho I'd absolutely recommend Spiritbox as well. Courtney LaPlante is one of the few metalcore vocalists I can stand and she's an incredible vocalist. FFO really hooky metal and/or technical performances, and a mix of earpiercing screams and mostly beautiful cleans. for extreme metal, I'd point out Venom Prison, Exulansis, Svalbard, Arch Enemy, Oceans of Slumber (one of the few metal bands whose lead singer is a Black woman, and they're very underappreciated), Darkher, Mortal, Thou + Emma Ruth Rundle, Nervosa, Cretin, and Aephanemer (who are actually a really good introductory death metal band since they're symphonic and have some honest to god hooks).
Kittie were fucking amazing and RAW as fuck. the debut was a nu metal masterpiece (paperdoll especially), the succeding albums went more into death metal territory. thanks for reminding me, it's been some months since i last gave them a spin.
Check out, Derketa, Mythic or Gilgamesh for anyone interested in all women death metal bands. Also Larve, a newer band with a woman vocalist. Or Cerebral Bore. There’s more but I can’t think of them
The idea of coming to a group of Metalheads and saying 'I like Metallica' ruining the mood is relatable and funny to me because I'm kinda That Person? My taste was massively shaped by playing GTA Vice City at an impressionable age and despite being born in the early 90s I just chased after stuff from the 70s and the 80s, with SOME of that 2000s Mainstream Metal. The other month I shared an Epsilon Zero track I ran across (the vocalist does Retsuko's metal singing voice) and praised the Generic North American Male Clean Vocals and was then ethered out of existence by someone posting Cannibal Corpse. Turning into a corn cob as I realise that the stuff I like is best summarised as 'easy listening for lapsed metalheads'
Being a fan of Metallica, or any of the Big 4 is so tiring - zoomers will call you "old-fashioned" and "dad rock"; boomers will call you "overrated" and "sellouts". The fuck am I supposed to listen? Never saw this happening with pop or rap.
As a highschooler myself, you did nail it about the internet removing boundaries. I, a white kid, got into Gambino and neo-soul from other white kids, indie on my own, afrobeat from a black kid, reggae from an afrobeat playlist (dont ask idk either), bossa nova from a sample I heard from a rapper reccomended by a black friend... there's just so much diversity in gen z culture, and we're growing up with every possible culture at our fingertips. It's fucking beautiful.
yeah im 22 at the moment but in high school I basically found music I liked from extremely obscure and unexpected places on the internet. I started listening to Mobb Deep because I was trying to shazam a song and it came up with a Mobb Deep song that sounded nothing like what I was trying to find. that introduced me to boom bap an 90's hip hop in general. found a remix of a lil ugly mane song on some random dj mix that slowly introduced me to memphis rap, one of my favourite genres of all time. some of my favourite albums I found from random facebook groups. just the other day some random alvin and the chipmunks sludge metal mix came up on my youtube reccomendation which led me to listening to more sludge metal which i really started to enjoy.
Excited for this conversation and all the recommendations in the comments. I’m not a metal head, but SOAD was def brought back into heavy rotation summer of 2020. As someone who was socialized to play the role of “polite, high achieving, model minority”, metal (and a bit of screamo) gave me a space to express and explore some of my unadulterated rage that felt too chaotic and explosive to feel at home in hip hop.
I kinda think the death of commerical metal is what the Metal Community wanted. While bands like Disturbed and Korn got huge off MTV and radio play, bands like Megadeth and Metallica had so many people writing them off as they achieved that same level of success after ~10 years of work in pubs and small theaters. Every band that saw mainstream success had an equal number of people who disliked it, sometimes just because it was successful. I think the community (or some parts of it) didn't want to be associated with the cheesy shit in M/V's like that korn one. Probably ties in too alot of young white metalheads having the same problems you identified with the edgelord stuff. They feel ostracized and criticized by society, and Metal is a form of strength and resistance, and it's almost a whole lifestyle in itself rather then just music. When it becomes a joke or a meme, I think it's hard for those people to accept as it means a lot to them. Even worse when it becomes part of the society the lyrics often criticize; so many bands in the 80's hated MTV, but by 93' they were all over it. As an adult I can separate myself from it and see the humor in some of it, but when I was 17, not so much.
I tend to agree. There's room in metal for bands like Korn and Poison. But no one needs a few bands/styles to be sucking up all the attention and defining the zeitgeist. Keep this shit diverse!
Many good points that have substance I believe but as I stated in another comment thread, a big part for a lot of fans is also just taste. Nu metal or Core is so different musically from death, thrash, doom, black etc that fans of said genres will hear Nu Metal and it’s nothing like the music they like, appreciate and respect. It’s just totally different
@@baptizednblood6813 I think some Nu/Core stuff has roots in older styles. Some Nu metal has similar sounds to industrial/groove metal, and even doom/stoner. Some 90's metalcore I've heard gets close to death metal, and again industrial/groove. As someone who grew up more with the Pop-Emo/Core era, alot of my friends loved thrash and metal/death/whatever-core. The dividing line in both I think is the vocals; the rapping in nu-metal and screaming in 00's core really didn't appeal to some people. But on the other hand, some of those bands were huge. I remember being a teenager and hating how "all the girls only like fake metal", and watching alot of my friends go over to that side, rather then getting into 90s Death Metal like I did. I was very much speaking from my own experiences, and how I view me and people who thought the same then, now. I'm not saying it's the only reason, but I feel like it's at least some part of that.
This conversation feels like reminiscing with old friends - I also lived the "metal kid in high school" life and eventually branched out to more diverse musical taste. But I still have such a soft spot for some of that (arguably disposable) metal... to the point where I'm probably the one guy still checking out the new records and going to shows from bands that played Ozzfest 1999!
yea Underground shaped like 80% of my taste, played the hell out of it daily for years and it opened my mind to harsher stuff like High on Fire and Mastodon, and to some underground-ish hip hop from that period
Loved this. I probably would listen to you two talk for hours lol. I am interested in the whole music divide question that FD brought up, because even though everyone has access to all music, doesn’t mean they actually would be listening to like Thugger AND Dorian Electra or w/e. The social context I grew up in had a huge influence on my music taste, and even HOW I listened to music (streaming a lot of short-lived warped-tour bands on myspace for example), because that’s what the older kids I hung out with did when I started high school.
This is a dream collab for me, haha. Thanks guys! And props for using the Institutionalized beat in your videos lately. As a TPAB fanatic, i'd love to hear your personal thoughts on that album sometime. Also, I recall you mentioning in another video that you're thinking of bringing Light Work back, so I just wanted to share with you that I really enjoy that series. Thanks again!
I would almost say metal is far more mainstream than it's ever been and I mean in general. A band like Meshuggah is guaranteed a million views on a music video, which is crazy really, and it seems that way across the board for a lot of popular bands of different styles. Some teenagers are just getting into it as well through TikTok and I mean they're getting into shit like Bathory, which would be insane to me if you told me that ages 12-14. Rap very recently went through a wave of sounding metal and now a lot of these trap metal fans in general who didn't know any metal before are now suddenly metal fans. Metal shows today are massive; Spiritbox exists; and what was once not what you would consider "accessible", by any stretch of the imagination, is now household music. Music with any type of heavy sound or screaming vocals used to be considered weird for decades. Ghostemane however has changed that completely. So many fuckin normies like Ghostemane and it's interesting to see. So yeah I'd say metal is totally mainstream in it's own right, it just isn't culturally there yet. Until metal t shirts become the norm at Walmart, metal is still "alternative"
The thing is hip-hop has expanded to absorb metal and has thus allowed many hip-hop fans to connect with the real thing. A trap metal fan can easily get into old school metal and continue from there. Metal isn't gone: it is just too distrustful of the mainstream to exploit all these opportunities naturally open to it, so it looks dead when it actually isn't. Metal also loves riffs and hates hooks , which in the post-Max Martin world, is a massive setback. Trap metal fixed this problem but no one in metal today wants to match the energy of that genre to avoid accusations of 'selling out'. Old school metal gets play. Modern metal does not. That's a problem I never thought I'd live to see.
@@manniking233 Trap metal isn't metal though. It's basically aggressive trap music. Like no trap metal artists have any actual metal in their music, it's just a weird name that was given to the genre. (Sometimes it's called stuff like Hardcore Trap, Industrial Trap, etc.)
@@manniking233 Also modern metal bands are getting bigger by the day. Every goddamn day I hear people talking about shit like Spiritbox (not really too much metal), 200 Stab Wounds, etc. Let me be real here and say that metal that relies on hooks is super boring. Why would I take a super simplistic hooky song when I can get some beautifully written riffs, it doesn't make sense tbh.
@@GlumpusMumpusAt the same time, if we follow the Encyclopedia Metallum definition of metal, the only bands to have some actual commercial relevance in the last 2 decades are Gojira, Ghost (overtly hated by core kids for not being metal enough as in, lacking heaviness), Killswitch Engage and Mastodon. Still sticking to the "real metal" (like your comment implying there is barely any metal in Spiritbox) at this point is interesting too because core kids complain that nowadays most metalcore is just metal and lacks the hardcore. I have embraced any sort of nu or alt metal as metal too at this point, gatekeeping might have its benefits but at this point the frequency of people into some sort of guitar based music has reduced and it might be probably counterproductive
@@DarthBleh I get that the popularity has dropped, but I don't see the point in accepting bands that don't belong just because they can provide some relevance.
i moved from playing sports to playing punk music in high school and the speed at which my old sports 'friends' disappeared was a lesson ill never forget. the punks and weirdos were entirely fine with being a diverse group of outcasts, but you had to be yourself to join. those sports dudes are 40something now and still havent figured that bit out.
graduated from high school just slightly over a year ago. there’s two main reasons, as somehow who listens to mainly hip-hop and metal, why hip-hop reigns supreme when it comes to youth culture and staying relevant, and metal trails far behind. the first thing is that metal refuses to evolve, and when it does “gatekeepers” trash on it. second is that the public opinion, especially amongst the young people i’ve known for a majority of my life besides close friends, is that metal/emo/punk fans are violent, anti-social, or unpleasant uncool people, most likely due to how these stereotypes are portrayed in pop culture. there’s nothing glamorous or suave about suffocation, carcass, or dying fetus.
@UCQeipbDQcwrls3Wq79DpMjw Also Pantera was the biggest metal band in the turn of the century, and Phil promoted extreme stuff like black and death metal, hell he was in a BM band himself with Maniac from Mayhem amon others, these days he wears Portal and Deathspell omega shirts, and yet? Extreme metal is extremely niche and it will remain that way because of music itself and nothing else. It's too harsh and offensive to be mainstream, and that's good. Lol fuckin Playboi carti said he listens to Mayhem in an interview, is that gonna change something? Nah.
I think it’s also just nowhere near as hooky as pop and hip hop, as someone who likes rock music I can’t remember a single chorus, but you can remember almost any hook to a pop or hip hop song by the 5th listen, and since the culture has moved closer and closer towards very catchy hooks, metal completely ignored that and got left in the dust. The few metal bands that actually pay attention to hooks IE: Bring Me The Horizon are the most successful bands
@@Viper-dz2kw I’d say unlike the majority of mainstream Pop or Hip-Hop though, Metal is a very riff laden genre. The "catchiness" or focal point is going to be in the riffs a lot of the time, not necessarily choruses. And riffs don’t sell much anymore these days. The songwriting philosophies between these genres are just fundamentally different. Also the amount of sub genres it has is probably intimidating to newcomers (with more than half of them being too niche or inaccessible by design. e.g. Black Metal or Death Metal) on top of everything else listed.
Unfortunately, most people would rather listen to some generic Death Metal or Grindcore band recycling the same riffs and lyrical cliches than an Experimental or Post Metal band utilising stuff like Drone, Jazz, Industrial Music and field recordings. The Metalhead community is mostly full of gatekeepers and neckbeards, the exception being fans of those aforementioned Experimental genres. Plus there's the sexism and homophobia, particularly sexism. No wonder Punk bands hated Metal in their time and wound up paving the way for strong female artists, and even all-female bands.
It has been awesome seeing more non-white people show up in metal lately. Tosin Abasi is obviously a pretty big star now (and a fucking demon of a guitarist), but seeing guys like Arka'n out of Togo means we're getting all sorts of new sounds coming in too
Trap metal basically has allowed metal to use hip-hop to have an afterlife. There's an opportunity to resurrect in the mainstream if metalheads want to use it.
@@The_ScapeGoat mate I just want more people making metal. If it's only white men, we as listeners are missing out on what most of the world could be making. I'm not asking for fewer white men doing it, I'm asking for more of everyone doing it
I grew up in the 80's, and there was definitely a huge divide between the metal and hip-hop scenes. Most of my friends were into hip-hop, me and like one other guy were into metal, and we were friends but we would routinely bag on each other for our divergent musical tastes. But I recall quite specifically the moment I first heard Public Enemy and Anthrax get together on the "Bring the Noise" collab, and I don't think that moment can be understated. PE's Apocalypse '91 was the first hip-hop record I ever bought, and some of my rap friends begrudgingly started dipping a toe into Metallica. Kinda opened up new worlds for a lot of kids who were stuck on one side or the other previously.
I think a problem in metal music right now is that it is just kinda too afraid to be authentically cheesy. Like when I put on Powerwolf, I am transported to a guy standing next to a pot of melted cheese, and he points at the cheese, and says "don't we sure have a lot of cheese?" but he's lactose intolerant and won't ever actually interact with the cheese. Meanwhile, when I listen to Rhapsody of Fire, I am transported to a lake of melted cheese, and the entire band headdives off a cliff into the melted cheese, and emerge from the cheese with a shining sword made out of cheese while one of them plays a face shredding solo on a guitar also made out of cheese.
That's why I love Ghost, they get called Scooby-Doo music but that's like the whole point. They're putting the fun back into a genre that's forgotten how
@@shanearnold7781 Scooby-Doo metal?!?!🤣🤣🤣💀 I never heard that but it's TOO goddamn accurate Powerwolf is great bc I never knew if they were dead serious or not. You wanna make someone crack tf up show them a Powerwolf video with the lyrics on 🤣 it's like back in the day we used to just get high as hell and watch old school videos and laugh our ass off 🤣 King Diamond, Candlemass, Savatage all kinds of wild over-the-top music videos 😆
Glad they praised Iowa. Slipknot became a band that a lot of people loved to hate, which I always felt was unjustified. Those first two slipknot albums hit like a damn freight train to this day. Early Slipknot and System Of A Down (all of their albums) are the rare bands I listened to as a kid which I still love to this day. There was so much crap I listened to at that time, but there's a few gems from that era that aged remarkably well.
I think the problem is that 2000's metal WAS so mainstream. It was mainstream because of its catchiness and relative approachability. But that isn't what keeps most people coming back. I'm still a metalhead and I've transitioned to heavier forms of metal like death metal and prog metal because it has the depth that most mainstream 2000's metal lacked, and because I've listened to metal so long I can find these heavier subgenres more palatable than I would have before.
it's true, metal isn't very mainstream but the bands have a lot more longevity because the fans they get tend to cling to them. it's a double edged sword in a way, because often those same fans react very badly to seeing their favourite bands change their sound over time
@@monicaleonte8913 It can work though. Some bands change their sound a lot, but people still love them. Sigh is very different now from how they were in the 90s, but people still love them. People don't hate change necessarily, they just hate poor changes.
@GlumpusMumpus this is perhaps best exemplified by Between the Buried and Me. A band that broadly speaking can do pretty much anything and the fans at large will like it in time
Didn’t know I needed this collaboration, I like the dynamic pls do more. Record industry greed and the executives cutting development departments killed mainstream metal/rock and r&b. They seemed to only focus on pop and rap, promoting certain artists for financial gains. I work at a major white high school, I only hear rap, I don’t even see that mainly gothic dressed kids.
My absolute favorite is watching Black people react to the rock and metal music they would side eye me for repping as a teen and young adult and LOVE IT. This is OUR music too! Tina Bell, A BLACK WOMEN, PAVED THE WAY for grunge and metal we have today. Negro spirituals and plantation hymns, blues, rock. We brought it. Just no credit.
Disclaimer: I am not black. I claim no authority on black culture and what benefits it. I disagree that it is a good thing. You can find the videos you describe everywhere, but you (almost) never see videos of rock and metal fans reacting positively to hip hop music. You will find people in the comments of the videos you describe in which rock and metal fans wax lyrical about 'uniting' and 'sharing' across genres. I guarantee you NONE of these people would be caught dead listening to hip hop. They see themselves as above it. These viewers watch and like these videos because it feeds into the old propaganda that white music is 'real music'. Thus, they see black people listening to white music instead of black music as a cultural victory. Now I want to make it clear that I really want to be wrong about this. I, for one, agree that black people have been shut out of rock and metal for too long, which is supported by how many black rock and metal acts are straight-up phenomenal (shout out to Living Colour and Mother's Finest). But again, I think it is a mistake to assume these videos are a sign of progress. They are not unifying, they are assimilationist.
@@icanusernamebetterthanyou3853 i agree. metalheads are super closeminded generally. alot of them are elitists. its really annoying. wanting to get into metal more myself. but i know most metalheads would never try and do that themselves and would just look down on it.
@@icanusernamebetterthanyou3853 I don’t remember saying it is objectively “good” or “unifying”. Maybe some have. I was saying that it was cool personally to see Black people embrace things that I, another Black person like and discover what’s actually also really just a part of their roots that’s been appropriated. This is actually a complex topic because is it assimilation if it was appropriated to begin with? I was also adopted by white people so I was forced to assimilate and grew up listening to folk, country or classic rock and it evolved into metal being my favorite genre for reasons more representative of political leanings, but if a Black woman paved the way for grunge and metal as it is today then how have I really assimilated rather than embraced inspirational roots? I’ve seen plenty of “metalheads react” to Hip-Hop, Rap, R&B and genuinely enjoy it. It has been more of the mainstream stuff so does that mean they actually don’t like it and it’s racial? I couldn’t say without more examination. You probably have a point, but as someone raised in a predominantly white culture I’ve seen way too many white folks who actually only listen to hip-hop, by way of appropriation? Often. As far as my prior loving of Slipknot being assimilation, even though I’m from Iowa, mayhaps, but it’s the lyrics and instrumentals that get me as well as the “punk anarchism”. What brings me even greater joy is seeing Black reacts to RATM because Black radicalization and liberation need to get on it or unification is again not happening. Is RATM saying things Black people don’t already know? No. But they’re saying it with leftist enthusiasm. Hip-Hop is storytelling lived experiences. Where my leftist Rappers at?
Lifelong metalhead. It may surprise people to know that artistically Heavy Metal is flourishing in 2023. There were dozens of solid album releases across various sub-genres this year, with a few artists scoring minor mainstream relevance like Sleep Token blowing up on tik-tok. (Sleep Token is most definitely Metal) Now financially I'm guessing 90% of Metal artists basically live tour to tour at this point but the music is off the damn chain right now. RU-vid reaction content has definitely helped attract new people over, but Metal will always be the red-headed step child of the music industry. Its hard to get into for most people,12yr old me hated "screaming" in music until my friend made me listen to Slipknot's debut album, overnight my entire taste in music and art changed course. Give Metal a chance.
Glad to see Melon expound on metal a bit more. I know he listens to metal and likes quite a bit of it, but people always ask his opinions about hip hop and rarely do I see them asking him about metal. Great video!
Everyone has that one cultural moment that got them into metal. I still remember the first time hearing Linkin Park on the radio in Elementary School. It had an energy that wasn’t like anything i had heard before. That band was my gateway into Nu Metal bands of the time like Slipknot, SOAD, and Korn. From then on my interest expanded into bands like Children of Bodom and In Flames, etc. as I explored the sub genres of metal. Metal has an accessibility challenge today I think. For those that find excitement exploring the sub-genres, they’ll naturally wander into metal. But, a huge quantity of listeners from the 90s and 2000s never branched too far from the Nu Metal and Grunge pushed by media at the time.
100% agree: 1st time I heard any heavy music was actually on TV, I think some kind of weekend "showcase", showing off whatever was released recently. I still remember being (like) "what is this?!" XD
Metal may not be super mainstream, but it's in a oretty healthy place imo, all the bands I like are touring hard and selling tickets and merch. Its a bit of a cottage industry, but one thats very much alive
This conversation really makes me feel old now. It got me reminiscing about 20+ years ago when whole genres of music & artist and bands all had diversity in their sound.
growing up a black metalhead who also loved history, instantly fell in love with System of a Down,toxicity record in particular, through Daron Malakian i got more into Slayer and death metal and i just love hardcore, finding bad brains was so heartwarming to have a band like that, be the nucleus of hardcore and that even spread a positive message! ill always love metal and punk, its brought tons of cathartic experiences to me
Also as far as the "missing out on Meme's" part of the discussion, there's a whole small ecosystem of memeing on metal from RU-vidrs like Jared Dines, Steve Terreberry (though not exclusively metal), and Nik Nocturnal making himself essentially a meme in the Metal Community
I was very into metal when I was younger but I found myself just drifting out of it over time and now none of it is very interesting to me. I can't really pinpoint why, I think maybe it just feels like only really obscure bands are doing anything interesting in the genre. Diablo Swing Orchestra is the only metal band that's really held my attention in recent years and a lot of metalheads probably wouldn't call it real metal.
@Werse Varsity deathcore also brings in other genres of metal into their music, like Lorna shore has symphonic and black metal influence, which makes it more interesting than typical metal.
@Werse Varsity While there are quite a few interesting new Deathcore bands, i wouldn"t call it the only exciting genre whatsoever. Technical Death Metal is going really strong, Black Metal keeps giving more and less surprising stuff, and in general there"s enough good new metal out there. a bigger problem i"d see is finding it, 10 years ago you could just discover those things randomly on social media, but now it"s all echo chamber or curated stuff
DSO is avant-garde, crossover metal. There's a whole subgenre of these bands. There's creative metal everywhere. It's up to people at large (or the industry) to pick it up and promote it. Putting the onus on the fans is bullshit.
DSO is cool, but I kinda tapped out after Pandora's Pinata. They did everything I needed from their style of music on their first three albums, and I come back to them here and there.
I agree. I used to like it as a teenager but these days the only metal band I listen to is Meshuggah. I have no idea why that band in particular has continued to feel relevant in my life. They also make the greatest gym music of all time (Marrow and Combustion are probably the greatest workout songs ever made)so that helps!
Whoaaa.. the algorithm must be getting sophisticated. I've been watching these two a lot lately and I was just thinking a collab between the two would be fun.
One of the major reasons that Metal is still incredibly popular but not mainstream is because it isn't "fun" anymore. Metal started taking itself waaay too seriously and the mainstream stopped paying attention.
I just listened to this Deathcore band Lorna Shore that shit was impressive AF..... but maybe you're right. Idk my old favorites are still fun to me 🤷🏾♀️
@@juicyparsons Lorna Shore is fun af though! Those breakdowns are so brutal I literally lol'd the first time I heard their music. It's also a huge reason that band is blowing tf up on social media
@@justaguy7589 yes! That's the content creator I was trying to think of earlier. I like his platform. I usually don't feel too comfortable around a lot of metalheads but he has fun topics and decent politics. He's a punk dude too that's probably why
An other theory that I believe in, is that the interest for hard sounding music but still being accessible is now provided by hardstyle and other hard dance subgenres, like hardcore, hard techno, hard trance and frenchcore. Especially here in Europe. And I have the feeling that the love and need for those genres it's getting bigger per year. For example Defqon.1, one of the biggest hard dance festivals in Europe, was two days and is now four days. Combine that with interesting hard dance artists popping up in America (looking at you Lil Texas) and you get no mainstream interest in other hard sounding genres like metal.
Listened to a lot to post-hardcore music in middle school and high school. There was something also called metalcore. An example is Bring Me the Horizon. There’s so many sub genres of metal and punk and it gets so confusing. These genres/sub genres have so much in common, and that should be acknowledged rather than labeling and grouping things too much. These bands evolve so much to the point they’ll transcend genres. What was so cool about Warped Tour festival is that all genres could coalesce and blend with equal appreciation.
metalcore is very different from hardcore though. it's the bridge between hardcore punk and metal. the problem is that so much of metalcore barely resembles hardcore anymore, lol. I do agree that metal subgenres can be overly taxonomical. power metal in particular is literally just trad heavy metal with synths and escapist fantasy lyrics. you can just as easily put Sanhedrin next to Wolf or Judas Priest and there is barely a sonic difference in terms of appeal. speed metal is just trad heavy metal with faster performances too. most people who like one are almost certainly going to like the other.
Big “metal” fan in high school in the early 2010’s, but it was really non-commercial stuff I got from friends/guitar forums. Most of what the metalheads in my circles listened to was djent & metalcore since that was the trendy shit at the time. Periphery was a big one, alongside Protest the Hero, Between the buried and me, Human Abstract, etc. “Metal” is in quotes above because telling a metalhead that the above bands are metal could cause an argument lol. Strictly speaking it’s somewhere between metal and punk. But still!
I love Periphery and PTH for being metal with pop(Periphery) and punk/core(PTH) elements. I would never lump them with classic metal or heavy metal as they in my opinion step outside of that traditional metal sound.
It should be remembered that Rock replaced Jazz in commercial mainstream similar to the way Hip Hop replaced Rock. Was there still Jazz after that? Sure. Did it continue to grow? Definitely. Who knows that? Jazz, and Rock/Metal both have their communities and both remain vibrant forms even while remaining at the center of popular attention. Here's the thing: would Hip Hop have come along if Jazz never fell out of favor? Maybe metal not being popular any longer will lead to something else. ALSO- can you please do a video on the Charlie Rose roundtable between Stanley Crouch, Russel Simmons, and KRS One? I'd love to hear your take.
@@emperoraurelian7114 its not self hating, metal is best when it's not trying to appeal to a wide audience but rather pushing things to extremes, at least musically speaking.
It's just kind of the natural evolution of music genre I believe. After a while it becomes hard to innovate anything new that fits strict criteria of what defines a genre of music. Possibly should ask a music theorist, of which there are a few really cool ones on RU-vid, notably the guy of channel 12 tone is a metal head that fell in love with music. It's actually more exciting to see where metal and other dead or dying genres pop up. There's a really awesome Indian folk music and metal mash up I've seen recently. Old forms of rock always seem to pop up somewhere in Japan from time to time too including hair bands and metal, or at least their influence.
yup traditional metal is pretty boring, now all the newer metal bands are some funky subgenre, even the older bands have to change it up/be able to do something other bands cant to stay relevant. All the mainstream innovation seems to be happening in combining pop + metal
This gives me the 90's feels. I was born in 1980 and this brings back memories. I would hang out with every clique. I would hang out with the hip-hop heads (majority black), the nerds, and metal heads. I think my senior year 1999, I hung out solely with the metal heads.
I think a bigger problem is that so many kids just listen to whatever's on a pre-built Spotify playlist like New Music Friday which doesn't include much outside of Pop, Hip-hop, and R&B, maybe some soft rock.
I don't know if that's true for everyone. Spotify algorithm probably gives highly individual playlist for each person. Media used to be centralized but now it's personalized.
@@hamobu yeah that's how I feel about the internet/social media in general. I'm in my late 20s and can relate to people my age about shows and reruns we'd watch after school. There were few things to watch so we all kind of saw the same things. And now it's so easy to get caught up in our special niche interests. I haven't had cable in forever. I don't listen to the radio anymore. My recommended are so tailored to my interests, can I expect other people to get me when I talk about what I like? "Video killed the radio star." This just keeps happening though, like huh it's been my turn to worry about the next generation.
@@justanothercutefreak I think that things are changing, but it might be for the better. I am 44 and I grew up mindlessly consuming content. Seems to me that kids today are not only consumers but also creators. I can honestly say that making a meme or dancing on Tik Tok is better than watching Beavis and Butthead on TV which is what my generation did.
@@hamobu I really appreciate this reminder. I get what you mean actually. I've been going through an existential crisis (although I've been told this one is normal for my age), doubting if I have community, work keeps me drained and I just consume my recommended because it's easy. I'm slowly figuring it out though. I started teaching highschoolers and they inspire me so much because of how much they try to do. New doesn't have to be bad, I just have to figure out how to make it work in my favor which takes time and practice.
I've been a metal head since '87. For me, the best stuff has ALWAYS been off of the airways. So many bands I was (and to a degree, still am) into never got airplay. Bands like Deicide, Napalm Death, Carcass, Morbid Angel, etc. Half of The Big Four never got a ton of rotation. Anthrax were my favorite band in the late 80s/early 90s and beyond a guest spot on an episode of Married with Children, I don't recall them ever getting much mainstream attention. It's one of the only good things about the internet: so many people have access to this stuff, like you both were saying.
Fascinating conversation. I was into neo metal and industrial metal in middle school, so 2007-2009, but it was totally out of a desire to be "different" and cool, as a trans man who didn't even know I was trans back then. So I guess in a way it was also out of a desire to fit in with guys. Definitely fell deep into some homophobia and misogyny, anti-emo, etc. I genuinely did like the music for a while but then it became just for the image. And eventually I decided to just give it up and listen to stuff I liked, I went hard into Disney Channel stuff and pop. But Slipknot were my mains for sure even though they were well past their hayday.
I went to Ozzfest 07 when I was 16 and it was bands like Behemoth, Lamb of God, Nile, Daath, In This Moment, Static X, Hatebreed, 3 Inches of Blood, Ankla and a couple others. It was pretty sick, also Ozzfest was free that year
Any Devin Townsend fans here? While I wouldn't consider metal my favorite genre (tho I do love a lot of it), Heavy Devy is unquestionably my favorite musician.
Metal has some absolutely incredible stuff going on. I think the genre bending of modern metal bands is incredible - I'm thrilled bands wear influences from other corners of the music world on their sleeves. But, I agree with @cfg1991 that the barrier to entry is maybe higher than it's been since the 60/70s, mainly due to the prevalence of dirty vocals and a deemphasis of crossover friendly melodies in favor of highly technical instrument work.
Man, hearing you mention the homophobia against emo brings me back to when I was a younger man, took some friends to see The Get Up Kids on the "Something To Write Home About" tour, and my buddies complaining that it was "gay", never mind that they were singing about, you know, girls. Looking back on that wave of music it was misogynistic in retrospect, but at the time it was way less so than the other male-targeted music.
