4 reasons metal is worth celebrating

Metal music has been around for decades and is by far one of the more diverse genres out there. Yet, for most of its existence, it has operated in the limelight, whether by choice or not.

Time to shine some light on the genre we call our own and show why metal is worth celebrating.

1. Metal is one of the most diverse music genres out there

Every genre has its variations and subgenres. Metal is not unique in that. However, I would gladly argue that very few genres have such a wide spectrum of styles and genres than metal.

Every time someone tells me that metal surely all sounds the same, I have to grit my teeth and patiently explain him that he couldn’t be farther from the truth.

It would be senseless to list all the genres here. In fact, it is virtually impossible to tell exactly how many genres of metal are out there. They easily reach into the 100+…yes, 100+.

But just by looking at the “parent” genres you already get a good sense of how diverse metal actually is.

Starting at one end of the spectrum, you get the “metal-lite” genres, like alternative metal, glam metal and grunge. Moving up the spectrum, you’ll meet traditional heavy metal, new wave of heavy metal, industrial metal, gothic metal. Continue down the line and you’ll get to progressive metal, power metal, symphonic metal, neoclassical metal and folk metal. Moving further to the right, you quickly encounter the slightly more extreme forms of metal, like doom metal, speed metal, thrash metal and metalcore. Once you have reach the other end of the spectrum, you enter the realm of the heavy, brutal and extreme genres like death metal, black metal, grindcore and extreme metal.

Now, imagine that most of these parent genres have met up at a bar and made little metal babies. As a result, genres crossed over one way or the other and created a myriad of “children” subgenres.

I think by now you get the idea of the genre’s complexity. Although I have my own reservations about using genres, this is exactly what makes metal so fascinating to me!

2. The loyalty of metal fans is unprecedented

Metal fans are highly devoted to their favourite genres and favourite bands. So much even that a Spotify research of a few years back (no longer available online, unfortunately) showed that metal listeners leave every other music fan far behind them in terms of how often they put their favourite artists on repeat. If metal fans represent the 100%, pop fans (2nd in line for the loyalty crown) only reach about 75%, while classical and blues fans don’t even reach the 60%.

Of course, we metal fans don’t need Spotify to tell us how committed we are to the cause. We know we are willing to travel far and wide to follow our favourite bands. We spend considerable amounts of money on supporting these bands by buying their music, merchandise and concert tickets. Hell, we literally wear their logos on our chests when we leave the house!

We take this very seriously. And so do the bands themselves. Most of them are aware that they need their fans as much as the fans need them. That realisation results in a very intimate feeling at club concerts, for example, where you’ll often find the band hang out in the crowd, at the bar or at the merch stands to be among their fans after they finished playing. Metal artists are very approachable for their fans. And if they are not, they’ll hear about it.

3. Metal is one of the oldest, still active music genres

It may come as a surprise to the uninitiated but metal is one of the oldest music genres that are still going strong and doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon.

The jury on the origins of metal, when metal music truly came into existence and who was the first heavy metal band is still out. However, most metalfans would agree that Black Sabbath’s release of their eponymous album in 1970 is as good a starting point of heavy metal as any. It just didn’t get any heaver than that at that time.

Solidified by the formation of bands of the likes of Judas Priest in 1969, Motörhead in 1975 and Iron Maiden in the same year (just to name a few), heavy metal as a genre was born and wasn’t going anywhere.

Metal had its ups and downs. After a surge in popularity in the 80s with the birth of thrash metal, the appearance of glam metal and later grunge pushed heavy metal to the underground, where it stayed until the later 90s and early 00s, only to rise again to uncharted heights in recent years.

Fast forward to today, metal is stronger and more active than it has ever been. Taking into consideration the diversity as mentioned above, the massive commercial success of the genre, the increase of popularity among a wider audience and that metal is very slowly but surely moving away from being the black sheep of the family, metal isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

4. Metal is more than music. It is a culture.

For decades, metal has operated on the fringes of society, raising itself up as a counter-attack to the post-World War 2 society, the hippie movement, conservatism, the power of religion, the mainstream and, as a whole, to the expectations of society.

As a result, metal moved beyond the limits of being just another music genre and formed a subculture that is characterised by non-conformity to…well…anything, really.

It shows in the way we dress, the way many of us look at the world, our views on politics and religion, but also our desire to belong to this multi-coloured community of everyone who feels they don’t belong to mainstream society.

Many of us, including myself, are proud to call themselves a metalhead. For any of us being a metalhead means something different but, regardless of how we define ourselves, it means something.

And that in itself is worth celebrating.