University Metalheads

[scourge]

About fifteen years ago, give or take, metalheads on campuses across North America were more commonplace than African Americans. After visiting campuses since then, my own impression is that heavy metal culture has dwindled to nothing. In its place, globalist-approved prefabricated mainstream lifestyles have completely taken over. This means the hip hop, emo and punk marketed lifestyles kiddies have overrun turf formerly occupied by metal culture. Additionally, heavy metal college radio, to my knowledge, has dwindled or died off completely in many places.
For those of you in universities or colleges now, we need verification that this is or is not the case in 2006. Does your campus have at least a small, visible population of metalheads or heavy metal campus radio?

[Iconoclast]

http://www.mavradio.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=5

[Gisli]

From what I saw it was mainly the bi-curious emo type and simple minded people who just listed to rock music and top 40 stuff on the radio.

[scourge]

WFIT and WUCF had substantial hardcore punk and death metal on the air from the mid 80s into the early 90s. Jazz and NPR judeo-liberal Weimar Republic commentary courtesy of the fun, liberating Alternative Lifestyles people have swallowed the former whole. Apparently 1930s jazz and ancient Greece queer bathouse personalities is progressive. The latter still contains alternative/punk fashionable lifestyles programming, some marjinalized folk on the side, but no metal at all.

[wEEman33]

Heh, last semester I tired to land a spot on our college radio team and was rejected on the basis of "a lack of established interest within the college's listening community."

If anyone's curious, here's the sample playlist that I presented during my interview:

Theme: Exemplary use of the bass guitar in metal

Cynic “Textures”
Alarum “Woven Imbalance”
Spiral Architect “Insect”
Spastic Ink “Words for Nerds”
Vintersorg “Microscopical Macrocosm”
Iron Maiden “Flash of the Blade”
Watchtower “Asylum”
Sadus “Machines”
Atheist “I Deny”
Necromantia “Pretender to the Throne (Opus I: The Usurper's Spawn)”
Cryptopsy “Orgiastic Disembowelment”

And to answer the original poster's primary question, I'd say that if anything, rap and radio-rock are the most popular forms of music on campus. The few people that do listen to "heavy" music prefer metalcore and nu-metal over true metal.

[Iconoclast]

They also play Matisyahu on my school's radio.

Uck.

[in abyssia]

Necromantia “Pretender to the Throne (Opus I: The Usurper's Spawn)”
.

You are the man for mentioning Necromantia. Go figure, they use an eight-string bass and a four string, no guitars. HA!

Yeah, I go toa community college. Possibily the only long-haired that attends at the one i'm enrolled in (i'm there quite a lot..). Maybe I'll start a "Metal Heads for Astronomy Club" or a "Metal Heads Against Christ Club" if I see any worth-while Hessians.

[Blackened_whitey]

Well, I live in Latin America, and the university radio of the country I live in only play leftist latin american trova music (silvio rodriguez, pablo milanes, mercedes soza and shit like that) but you can see a lot of people  with long hair and maiden t-shirts. There was also this guy from a local band who used to sell pirate metal albums on the passages and he told me  the business was running good until the guards fucked him up for carrying pot on his bag.

[death metal black metal]

Universities are not attractive because they are the sycophant dissident: they proclaim opposition to society while training us for jobs and accepting the basic ideas, consumerism and democracy, no matter how "communist" or "postmodern" they become. However, many metalheads opt to get an education, but most do so undercover: metal is seen as working-class music for people who do not mind being antisocial and therefore will never have $200,000 homes in the suburbs.

[Stranger]

Universities are not attractive because they are the sycophant dissident: they proclaim opposition to society while training us for jobs and accepting the basic ideas, consumerism and democracy, no matter how "communist" or "postmodern" they become. However, many metalheads opt to get an education, but most do so undercover: metal is seen as working-class music for people who do not mind being antisocial and therefore will never have $200,000 homes in the suburbs.

I would kill to find a 200k home in my area. The cheapest you'll find around here is 900k.

[we hope you die]

Universities are not attractive because they are the sycophant dissident: they proclaim opposition to society while training us for jobs and accepting the basic ideas, consumerism and democracy, no matter how "communist" or "postmodern" they become. However, many metalheads opt to get an education, but most do so undercover: metal is seen as working-class music for people who do not mind being antisocial and therefore will never have $200,000 homes in the suburbs.

that's one of the problems with moedern metal, most of the metal heads i come across are middle or upper class, just looking for some way to be different. It completely destroys the music

[Akira]

Universities are not attractive because they are the sycophant dissident: they proclaim opposition to society while training us for jobs and accepting the basic ideas, consumerism and democracy, no matter how "communist" or "postmodern" they become. However, many metalheads opt to get an education, but most do so undercover: metal is seen as working-class music for people who do not mind being antisocial and therefore will never have $200,000 homes in the suburbs.

It's not the actual Universities that create these kinds of environments.  Rather, the attendees do.  To me, the most depressing part of college life these days is it's microcosmal mirror to post-collegiate life.  It's been 5 years since I graduated college, but I was 25 when I started college and I retained my open love for metal just as I have for the last 20 years of my life.   I had no use, nor did I need one, for trying to fit the typical college kid mold.  One benefit to being older.  I also wore big hats, scarves, and mittens to class in the winter, and carried a big silver thermos.  Aahhh.

[sikkbones]

we're here in the universitys.. we just conform to the mold of conformity more these days.

[Jofreidr_1488]

Does your campus have at least a small, visible population of metalheads or heavy metal campus radio?

Well I am not a student, however I do work at the largest University in my State and have noticed that the campus radio only plays Heavy Metal (most of the Death Metal sub-genre) one night a week, but they play it for like maybe 8-10 hours.

Metal heads are still around, but just not as numerical (and iI can remember when there were alot of them in '80s)

[0113581321345589]

There are quite a lot of metal looking people in and around my city, a fair few can be seen at the university (in the UK) too. The problem with identifying metal fans is that many of the ones I've met dress like normal people.

For some, it is because they like metal but it is maybe not their favourite genre - this is often true of avid guitar players. Secondly, some metal fans just don't seem to care about dressing up. Sure they might be hiding a Master of Puppets tshirt under their coat, but they don't tend to 'goth up'; ie make up and excessive amounts of black clothing.

There also seems to be a element of truth in that metal fans come from working class backgrounds. If  not directly, then their parents were brought up in working class areas. This also ties in with the anti-social aspect, that they don't bother much with university societies / finding comradeship, however, they will swarm to an online message board / msn. I'm sure there has been studies that show anti-social people preferring asynchronous forms of communication (email, forums). I'd agree with that - I see the evidence in my local scene.


There was/is a metal radio show. It ran temporarily but stopped. No idea if it will start again, I hope so.

There is also a large abundance of anti-social people (metal / punk / alt rock fans) studying physics. Geek central - perfect breeding ground. 8-)