I don’t know about you, but I’m usually very entertained when I read efforts by the more-or-less mainstream media to introduce the more-or-less mainstream population to extreme forms of metal.
To be clear, I like the idea in concept. Unlike some people I know, I’m all for opening up the music to new listeners. I’m not really worried that this will destroy the underground or ruin the fuck-you ethic of most bands, because I’m secure in the knowledge that no matter how much mainstream publicity extreme metal receives, the audience size is really never going to explode. The music just clashes too hard with the sensibilities of most music lovers. But there will be some converts, and that’s a good thing in my book.
Apart from welcoming the attention, I’m entertained for two other reasons: First, I enjoy seeing good writers grapple with the challenge of trying to describe the music in terms that people who have little if any previous exposure to it will comprehend, without causing them to immediately run for the hills — and I’m not talking about writers who have no real interest in educating their readers and instead just want to titillate them with some shock value.
Second, it’s fun thinking about the controversy that such educational pieces would generate if they were read by the kind of knowledgable, died-in-the-wool metalheads who are patrons of sites like this one. We all know that most metalheads are a quarrelsome, picky bunch who enjoy finding fault, even with each other, when it comes to things like genre classifications, the quality rating of a band’s music, and descriptions of albums.
I’m thinking about these topics because of an article by Jason Roche that appeared yesterday in the online version of LA Weekly under the headline, “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Metal But Were Afraid To Ask”. And yes, that photo of Elena Vladi from some band named Demona Mortiss (photo credit: W.B. Fontenot) is what illustrated Jason’s article. Continue reading »
