Communicating with normals

[More Celt Than Sassenach]

Brainwashed people should respect quality music a little more and try to understands it value with a more open mind, even if they don't like to listen to it!

Most wont understand the characteristics that make metal an art form, so if you tell them to appreciate it even if they don’t enjoy it, it would be the same as them "appreciating" rap but not enjoying it. Then everything is equal with everyone being mindful of everything they don’t like rather then critical of anything.

Most cant appreciate metal for its ideological tendencies. Because if everyone did our society would have been replaced by now. . You cant agree with any of the ideas expressed within metal then turn away and returning to the capitalist world.

I would simply want others who agree with the ideas expressed within metal to realise metal expresses such ideas.

[K.]

I think possible metalheads will find metal and we don't need to feed it to anyone.  I don't really talk about metal with the non-metal people but there are certain people who do listen to "metal" but it is crappy "metal".  
 
 The aim is to find people that already listen to metal and perhaps help them in finding 'better metal'.
(does that sound christian?)

The whole theme of this thread, 'Comunicating with Normals' very strongly implies that it is within our interest to change these 'normals'. Helping someone discover better music is one thing, especialy if they have alread shown interest, but this topic was spawned from the idea of a metal society. A metal society would be full of 'metal heads' meaning that some how you and I could possibly be a 'normal'.
What you describe is not the christian tendensy, but rather the drive that some of these posters have suggested that if you don't like the same music then them, then something is wrong for example they are

In general the "normals" tend to be comprised of trendwhores, are in complete denial, or both.... ....It seems to me that people have the perception that if they deny the truth hard enough and enough people deny it with them, it somehow becomes false...  It's more sad than anything, but repulsive and irritating also come to mind a lot when discussing "the crowd."

and

The people you call normals are often not all that normal.

I would say that ninety percent of people on earth are followers who need to be told what to do, another 8.6% can figure out what to do if given direction, and 1.4% have a chance of finding a direction.

So some normals are worth checking out. As Varg said, they are our people... just asleep. They need waking up.

I don't mean ot pick on anyone in gerneral but I find words too feble to explain without the use of examples.  A quick read of these two will establish a 'us versus them' attitude, and that people are 'just asleep. They need waking up.' is very similar to 'they want to worship, they just need guidance.' it is a rationalization of the act of conversion.' I didn't force them to woriship god, I helped them find the path. I didn't make him/her listen to metal, I just woke him/her up to the music he/she already liked. '

I probably did not illustrate my point well, and probably earned emnity from those I have quoted. for that, I apologize.

[lock_them_up]

I understand what K. is trying to say here. But why is it not that humans' taste is only altered by upbringing and beliefs? There are many fans of speed metal and death metal and even now black metal that are complete idiots, even though the music is pretty damn good. I think why metal appeals to people is because it's philosophy and general aura exudes itself forth from the music, it is the pure essence of it. Of course, when it is impure then you get crappy 'metal' like trivium etc. Simply because a band is not mainstream doesn't mean it doesn't suck though, and this is where i draw the line with 'normals' (foolish term, by the way. How are we any different from 'them'?). Through my own experience, the only thing that happens when you introduce 'posers' to underground metal is them then thinking themselves to be 'above others' because they know about 'hardcore metal band' like Ancient Rites or something. For this reason only I don't introduce people to metal, I don't see why we need more people and besides, then they tell their freinds and their freinds tell their freinds and so on.

[we hope you die]

I don't think trying to get more people into metal is a good either. But getting intelligent "normals" to at least respect metal as an artistic movement would be a more productive aim. Even if they do not like the music, they can still appreciate it as a serious art form, and thus further the cause of metal.

[lock_them_up]

Hopefully soon metal will become unfashionable again and people will turn a blind eye to the music. I fear however, that when the social barrage is over, metal will remain a dilated trend, and not something feared or hallowed.

[beyond_godlike]

Metal was never feared....

Perhaps in Norway for a brief time.

[lock_them_up]

Why? Metal should be as credible a movement as any other.

[kontinual]

Why? Metal should be as credible a movement as any other.

The whole point of this thread was to determine how to make this so.  What have you been reading?

[1337Dude]

One question I have is why do you want the trendwhores, sandalwearers, and other typical people of our day listening to our metal? I think "normals" are normals for a reason, and by bringing them into metal it would do no more than make their ideas of metal dominant, allowing for more shitty metal to surface, which would also cause the good metal to burrow down further.

If you mean only converting the intelligent ones who were on the verge of discovering metal and just needed a push - chances are they would find it on their own anyways. If they can't discover it for themselves, I don't see why we would want them listening to it. They would obviously listen to it for the wrong reasons anyways.

[More Celt Than Sassenach]

Its was never an intention to  broaden metal's audience but to bring its true nature to light, rather then misconceptions running rampant.

[kontinual]

For the last time, this is not about ruining the oh-so-precious underground by appealing to "trendwhores" (why would anybody consciously be doing that?)  Read the first post again - are the ideas so difficult to grasp?

[Agni]

 "Only by having the art-smart normals understand this stuff will we be able to preserve it. We want future generations to be able to pick up Dismember demos and Slayer bootlegs, Demilich CDs and Morbid Angel live sets, so we need them to find a home among others. Either someone sets up a fanatical metal non-profit that stores this stuff like a museum, or we let normals do it for us."

-Agreed

But it will merely be an option to them as they (10-20yrs later) can easily prefer the cooler "classic   stuff" (I get shivers thinking about COF and co. as classic bands).
Optimism is the key.

[Embalming Sand]

While all the talk went around here some positive action came about. In a local internet outlet of wide-read newspaper here in Israel there has been published an interview with a guy who is accepted amongst the art-smart people in my country for his music (he mostly plays a singer-writer style music, but at one period in the past was a member of a famous hard rock band reputed to be the first one in Israel to have lyrics in english),  anyway the article reveals he is quite fluent with metal and not only the older style but the later Black and Death Metal.

In the nutshell, the surprising thing is that he is for real and doesn't afraid to speak out his mind. For example he doesn't show much inthusiasm about Death's Symbolic, saying it is composed to sound live, it has a metalic sense but it isn't anything special ("didn't knock me of my chair" was the exact expression) it may not be much, but in the metal scene in my country, Death is revered by many as some sacred cow, so it's a nice blow to their "elitism". Most inportantly however is that this guy even mentions explicitly that european metal has in it a great Classical music influence which overshadows the influces of black music in metal.

I can only hope that there is someone like this in your own countries, because this article just made my day a whole lot better.

[lock_them_up]

Call me a pessimistic idiot if you want, but i genuinely don't see the point of getting metal recognised as a cultural force, or even getting intelligent people to listen to metal. To what end would this achieve? If the metal in question is being released into a consumerist society, then that degrades the metal to a point where any idiot can buy it. That's the problem, corporations selling metal.

[we hope you die]

It's just one of the things that would have to be achieved if you wanted to form a metal society. Like it or not, such a project would need outside support, and if most outsiders (intelligent outsiders that is) see metal as a joke then we wouldn't get very far, but if they saw it as a credible movement then we might get somewhere.