Rock music hates metal and wants to assimilate it

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The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has again slighted heavy metal by including musicians from all genres except metal while some of metal’s longest-running, widest-selling and most-acclaimed acts go unnoticed. As one metal writer pointed out:

“This is a symptom of the disrespect across the board toward hard rock and heavy metal,” says Trunk. “The Grammys haven’t gotten any better since they gave Jethro Tull a Grammy instead of Metallica (for the first ever Best Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Performance trophy in 1989).”

Exhibit A of that lack of respect: late, great Slayer guitarist Jeff Hanneman was a glaring omission from this year’s “In Memoriam” segment at the Grammy Awards.

Back in the 1950s and early 1960s, rock was the bad boy of popular music.

Then in the late 1960s the hippies took that to a new place where rock was not the bad boy so much as the voice of protest.

Punk stole the bad boy crown again by ducking out of the hippie world and becoming antagonists of everything people wanted to believe.

Metal did the same thing but in a different way. Where punk said our society was rotted and dying, metal pointed out that our souls were rotted and dying because we were in denial of life itself.

Ever since then, other groups have been trying to reclaim the bad boy title, with hip-hop the most plausible candidate. The only problem is that all of them follow the late 1960s model, so their bad-boy-ness is tempered.

Rock ‘n Roll has not forgiven metal and punk for stepping out in a different direction. They are still those who strayed from the pack, and ideally would be assimilated (rock music with a metal or punk surface) or destroyed.

Don’t hold your breath, metalheads, that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will recognize metal. To them, we are the enemy and we are either conquered and made into rock, or must be excluded from their special bad boy club.

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12 thoughts on “Rock music hates metal and wants to assimilate it”

  1. Melanistic Semenlord says:

    What do you guys think of 1992 Sodom – Tapping the Vein?
    I guess it’s an album written in the hybrid style of speed metal and death metal, similar to Bathory’s – Octagon. The DLA reviewed Sodom’s Code REd which isn’t that good, in my opinion Tapping The Veins is superior just for its compelling rhythms.
    Cory Van Der Pol, please do a post on the speed-death metal hybrid. Say bands like Demolition Hammer, Dark Angel etc.

    1. Many years ago, I enjoyed Tapping The Vein for its absolutely feral production that made, for instance, Agent Orange sound like a limp banana in comparison. On the other hand, it doesn’t aim particularly high, and it has compositions that are basic in a way I don’t find particularly compelling. When I do want to listen to something that basic, I usually get more out of something like Morbid Visions.

      1. Timothy Mc Cummings says:

        Cory van dEr Pol said it on a review of power metal band Powerlord, something along the line that only morons who get excited by downstroke rhythms can enjoy speed metal. Even Bret Stephens thinks this way: speed metal = simplistic music that gives me headaches.

  2. deadite says:

    Question – why does metal need to be recognized by these shitbreathers?

    The Rock n Roll Hall of Fame is nothing but a masturbatory, self-congratulating circlejerk. Metal doesn’t need to be in there; acceptance by this tired institution would further cement metal’s neutering in the eyes of the mainstream.

    Fuck rock idols.

  3. Yoko says:

    The ‘hall of fame’ disregards great rock too. It’s a joke to anybody with a clue. Anyway, rock music is deader than a doorknob in 2014 (although the spirit of the worst rock has more or less migrated to hip-hop/pop now–it’s all the same thing).

  4. Celtic Frosted Flakes says:

    Just saw an advertisement for hammers on the main page! Most metal thing I’ve seen on DMU in a while! \m/ Kudos to Mr Stevens for selling your ad space to such excellent metal products!

  5. Count Ringworm says:

    I’m fine with metal being music’s Pete Rose.

  6. SERIOUS QUESTIONER says:

    Brett, how come you never reviewed Bathory’s – Requiem?
    Is there a reason for that?

  7. Smoke On The Water Deep Purple says:

    The Rock Hall has been a joke since it’s inception. Why would anyone care if metal acts end up in that shithole in the first place? I guess the recognition would be nice, but heavy metal has never really needed that in the first place.

    And even if they do start inducting metal acts, they are going to do it in the most ‘fuck you’ way possible. Not that I have any love for them, but look what they did to KISS this year. They would only induct the version of the band with Criss and Frehley because they knew it would piss off Gene and Paul. They did the same thing to Zappa when they let Lou Reed induct him, a man who Zappa hated.

    I mean, maybe we will see more mainstream bands like Priest or Metallica get in someday, but we’ll never see anyone like Mayhem or Hellhammer or anything like that getting in.

  8. Timothy Mc Cummings says:

    Let us not forget before this fair year is over, that Riot has released their latest album titled Unleashed The Fire and it is a fine piece of heavy metal! You guys should not let it pass unnoticed.

    http://www.metal-archives.com/albums/Riot/Unleash_the_Fire/431094

  9. Catastrophist says:

    Are the Radio Nihil shows still available anywhere?

    1. ASDF says:

      I think I have all of them saved.

      If they’ve gone missing I can try and upload them. I’ve never done this before so Id appreciate a point in the best direction.

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