Addicted to Metal

[death metal black metal]

"I only listen to Black Metal. I only like Black Metal. Black Metal is all I want to hear."

I notice a lot of this on forums and see that it leads to the celebration of mediocrity and stagnation.

...because they're treating it like a commodity, where any one black metal band is about as good as all the others. "You want rosewater? We got lots of rosewater!" -- as if the price you pay for the album determines quality, not selection of album.

Most political groups could also learn from that principle.

[aimanirrajim]

ahh.. most people are stupid anyway. let them be.

[Flight_of_Zapan]

I think my main concern for this approach to music is it's acceptance of a herd mentality and a tendency toward fashion and conformity. What I enjoy about this forum is the elitist approach toward Metal. The standards have been set and I'm sure the majority of regular posters here all share common attitudes toward the music we love.  

Ironically, the first thing that drew me to Black metal was it's non-conformist, highly experimental approach. Iconoclasm in musical form. It is sad to see it reach it's limitations and the bandwagon jumpers climb on board but this has happened with every musical genre I've born witness to the birth of. I'm just glad I was born in the seventies and thus grew up with a good standard of music, whether it be the NWOBHM, crust core or the pop music of the eighties (which in retrospect is not as bad as it semed at the time. Well, I am talking about synth pop.) The finest music comes in the most varied forms after all.

[ergriefer]

i don't see BM as iconoclastic as much as just a return to the qualities that made metal cool in the first place.  not to say that there haven't been any BM bands that have "flipped the script" over the years...

either way, any music scene has to have standards.  otherwise it's chaos.

[Heimdallr]

That phenomoneon is quite hillarious really, that people turn a music genre into a lifestyle, in the modern sense of the world that is, you could say that metal was a lifestyle for its creators too, but in this case it was not about conforming to a preexisting norm, instead they rather created the norm with their way of living.

Metal still take up the majority of my listening time, but I certainly am not limited to it. For example, as I am writing this post, I am listening to Kraftwerk's Trans-Europe Express, something which would be impossible for the metal addicts as they need to uphold an image.

[Flight_of_Zapan]

Metal still take up the majority of my listening time, but I certainly am not limited to it. For example, as I am writing this post, I am listening to Kraftwerk's Trans-Europe Express, something which would be impossible for the metal addicts as they need to uphold an image.

And what an image is is to uphold, eh?

The metal police will around to check your collection at an uspecified time and take you to the cells for owning this non-metal abomination. Tsk, tsk... Be pure . Be vigilant. Behave.

[Fieldmouse]

ahh.. most people are stupid anyway. let them be.

The unexamined life is not worth living... but somebody's gotta do it, cause somebody has to labour in the machines so that we may be free.

Well, maybe, but they should at least have a bullet put in their unendingly expanding ego-balloons, and have the vote taken off them too.

[we hope you die]

Many youth today feel the need to have some kind of identity to look interesting. By saying that you are addicted to metal is a way of doing this, but if you claim this, it is important that you have plenty of band names to spout out at the right time in order to gain scene points or whatever you want to call it. This is why people pretend that there have been more than ten credible realises in the last year or so. They rely on quantity not quality of music that you like in order to be cool. It's all about having some kind of identity to hide the fact that you have nothing useful to say.

[More Celt Than Sassenach]

you mean there are people on this forum who only listen to BM, but wouldnt it feel empty not knowing what made it or what was going the same time as it