What's with the negative view on rock/metal music?

[Scorekeeper]

Maybe on this website, but in general, Metal has waaay more people that dislike it than like it. Metal in all its forms has never been the "popular" genre.

A rather big survey in my country among those with a tertiary education (university and HBO, the two top levels of education here) showed metal to be the largest genre among those people, with a 30% share, followed by classical music.

Mind you, that group included a ton of people from earlier generations whose musical taste developed before metal. The share would get a lot bigger if you eliminated the age 40 and up age group from that survey.

My favorite genre is symphonic metal, a fusion of metal and classical. And I'm a college student.

 

[xplosive59]

If the only metal they have heard were the stuff that are shown on scuzz and other rock channels (Black Veil Brides, Bring Me the Horizon etc) then I would agree with them that its shit. Gladly I know better, and know that metal is a very diverse genre.

I really dislike bands like Black Veil Brides but I've never understood the hate for Bring Me The Horizon. Sure, I can see why people wouldn't particularly like them, especially with the vocals, but I've always found them to be much more interesting and enjoyable than most metalcore bands, even the more accepted ones such as August Burns Red. They don't even look like a bunch of scene kids anymore.

I dont like them as you can see in my post, but saying that there are way far worse bands out there. I consider them better then, say, Asking Alexandria and Attack Attack but still it doesnt seem like they are trying to do anything that has been done before, and much better.

 

[UrieHusky]

One word would sum this up. Opinions.

There's nothing more to it, Opinions come in varying strengths so some people will be more vocal and forceful about them, such as your examples. But it's still an opinion regardless and I've never met two people with the same opinions.

I'm not sure how it's confusing that some people found your taste in music offensive, for example I find rap and hip hop offensive because (for the most part, I have come across some good stuff in these genres) it's usually about sex drugs money or cars with very little talent to speak of, yet there are still hundreds of thousands of people who happily listen to it and that's fine because it's what they /like/ so my opinion on what their listening to shouldn't matter and these peoples opinions of your favourite genre shouldn't matter to you either

 

[lacktheknack]

Pop and hip-hop happen to be two of my favorite musical genres. However, I've noticed that without fail if someone doesn't like pop or hip-hop, it seems to immediately goes beyond simply "I don't like that genre." to something along the lines of "How can you listen to that crap?" or "That music is so offensive!".

How can something be offensive purely based on it's musical content? It doesn't even seem to matter what band is playing the music or what is even being said in the lyrics, offensive or not.

Maybe it's just me, but as a regular listener I've gotten plenty of crap for listening to it.

Thoughts/opinions?

Fix'd.

It goes for any genre, really. People like what they like, and DESPISE what they don't like. If anything, rock gets the least amount of hate of all the genres (aside from maybe Classical).

 

[Evil Smurf]

Rock n'Roll and Metal is the DEVIL's MUSIC! It makes you sell your soul to Satan and fills your head with all manor of perversions and temptations. Save your soul, get a Kenny Rogers Album!
/sarcasm

people MURDER each other because of the music they listen too. Don't you watch the news

 

[Hazy992]

Hey us Hip-Hop fans get the same schtick from some[footnote]And I must stress some[/footnote] metalheads all the time

I admit I tend to hate on rap sometimes, but that's generally only the gangsta stuff. And ICP and the likes.

Hell, I've a couple of albums by MC Chris, and The Herbaliser.

Hey man, I know what you mean. Some of that stuff like Lil Wayne is just awful. And I do like some metal. Rammstein for example. Can't get enough of them

 

[Cyfu]

Yeah I have it like that too. I love metal and heavy metal. and i'm the only one in my class who likes that kind of music.
they say things like heavy metal is only screaming and growling and music you want to burn a church down to.
this is very irritating since its not true at all, but if i try to explain that to them they won't listen.

another funny thing is that if we have a break between for example Norwegian and math they don't mind if someone plays some kind of techno or some other music that is really popular right now (I really don't like that kind of music) and if i tell them to turn it off they just ignore me, but if i try to put on some metal I am suppose to turn it off immediately.

 

[Littaly]

You can't always explain taste, especially when it comes to music. Some things just don't resonate with you.

And people are always gonna state their opinions about things in a blunt way. There are plenty of things I have written off as "crap", when the reality of exactly how and why and how much I didn't like it was much more complicated. There just isn't always time or need for elaborating on things like that.

Even then, isn't metal at its core a rebellious style of music? Like, going against the establishment, not asking for its acceptance? So who cares if some people don't like it.

 

[xplosive59]

If the only metal they have heard were the stuff that are shown on scuzz and other rock channels (Black Veil Brides, Bring Me the Horizon etc) then I would agree with them that its shit. Gladly I know better, and know that metal is a very diverse genre.

I really dislike bands like Black Veil Brides but I've never understood the hate for Bring Me The Horizon. Sure, I can see why people wouldn't particularly like them, especially with the vocals, but I've always found them to be much more interesting and enjoyable than most metalcore bands, even the more accepted ones such as August Burns Red. They don't even look like a bunch of scene kids anymore.

I dont like them as you can see in my post, but saying that there are way far worse bands out there. I consider them better then, say, Asking Alexandria and Attack Attack but still it doesnt seem like they are trying to do anything that has been done before, and much better.

Just a note: all the bands mentioned in these posts are metalcore (offshoot of the hardcore genre), not actual metal.

Would say that used to be the case (when you had bands like biohazard where it is obviously hardcore with metal influence) but now its not so clear, bands like Killswitch Engage, BFMV and Trivium all say that they are "troo metalz" although being metalcore.

 

[OmniscientOstrich]

The usual platitudes levied against metal (at least from the musical perspective, let us not indulge the demagoguess with any modicum of credence) tend to be centred around harsh vocals and homogenous instrumentals. While I suppose the former is simply something that certain listeners can't look past (though bare in mind there are plenty of acts which use clean vocals as I shall demonstrate below), in regard the latter I find it to be a myopic assertion that any genre; Metal, Rock, Soul, Folk, Jazz, Electronic, Classical, Ambient etc. only contains artists which sound exactly alike and merely speaks of the listeners ingorence/lack of exposure to the topic at hand. If you're going to say that all of these songs for example are indistinguishable, then I feel you are simply being disingenuous:

Spoiler

 

[Grunt_Man11]

I have never believed in the phrase, "that's not music," even when it comes to music genre I don't like. I may not like it, but I'm not going to try and claim that it's not music.

That is... until I heard Cradle of Filth, Children of Bodom, and the like.

Why? Because, in my opinion, the ear-bleeding levels of screaming/growling overpower the instruments. You know the things that are suppose to give the song rhythm. No rhythm, no music.

It's kind of like those female singers who are so revered by music critics because they can hit the really, really high note. Ever listen to one? Tell me, how many here actually go "Ack!" and whence when they hit that high note? I do because to me it adds nothing to the song. In fact, I find it distracting. Death metal, (I'll just call it that here for the sake of time), has the same problem except it's actually worse.

I've lost count of the number of times I heard a metal song start and it sounds good. Then the lead singer has to open his friggin' mouth. Nothing ruins a good song like hearing, "mooorb dooupoooomaab togrooooooollllllll!!!" That is seriously what it sounds like to me.

That's the problem with most death metal and screamo bands that I've heard. All of that screaming and growling actually serves as a distraction to the music. Lyrics should never distract the audience from the music.

I grew up listening to Iron Maiden, Metallica, Megadeth, Ozzy Osbourne, Guns & Roses, and Motley Crue. So maybe I'm old fashioned.
Now having growled/screamed lyrics doesn't always automatically make the song suck. However, there are only two songs I can think of, off the top of my head, where the growling/screaming doesn't distract from the music.

Note how the growled lyrics are never louder then the bass guitar. Helps it go along with the song instead of overpowering it.


There's screamed lyrics, but it's infrequent and done by a back-up singer. Thus it adds to music instead of being a distraction.

Yes, I acknowledge all I said above was subjective opinion, and NOT objective fact.

 

[AnarchistFish]

If the only metal they have heard were the stuff that are shown on scuzz and other rock channels (Black Veil Brides, Bring Me the Horizon etc) then I would agree with them that its shit. Gladly I know better, and know that metal is a very diverse genre.

I really dislike bands like Black Veil Brides but I've never understood the hate for Bring Me The Horizon. Sure, I can see why people wouldn't particularly like them, especially with the vocals, but I've always found them to be much more interesting and enjoyable than most metalcore bands, even the more accepted ones such as August Burns Red. They don't even look like a bunch of scene kids anymore.

I dont like them as you can see in my post, but saying that there are way far worse bands out there. I consider them better then, say, Asking Alexandria and Attack Attack but still it doesnt seem like they are trying to do anything that has been done before, and much better.

Just a note: all the bands mentioned in these posts are metalcore (offshoot of the hardcore genre), not actual metal.

The clue's in the addition of the word "metal". Most metalcore bands lean towards the metal aspect more than the hardcore aspect these days anyway. Bands like Converge are exceptions, but BMTH, KSE etc are more metal than anything.

 

[Smokej]

the target audience are mostly 14-24 old smart-arses (who are always very vocal about how much better their music genre is than everything else), older listeners are either more open to other genres or are eternal juveniles themselves...

 

[Silent Anima]

If the only metal they have heard were the stuff that are shown on scuzz and other rock channels (Black Veil Brides, Bring Me the Horizon etc) then I would agree with them that its shit. Gladly I know better, and know that metal is a very diverse genre.

I really dislike bands like Black Veil Brides but I've never understood the hate for Bring Me The Horizon. Sure, I can see why people wouldn't particularly like them, especially with the vocals, but I've always found them to be much more interesting and enjoyable than most metalcore bands, even the more accepted ones such as August Burns Red. They don't even look like a bunch of scene kids anymore.

I dont like them as you can see in my post, but saying that there are way far worse bands out there. I consider them better then, say, Asking Alexandria and Attack Attack but still it doesnt seem like they are trying to do anything that has been done before, and much better.

Just a note: all the bands mentioned in these posts are metalcore (offshoot of the hardcore genre), not actual metal.

The clue's in the addition of the word "metal". Most metalcore bands lean towards the metal aspect more than the hardcore aspect these days anyway. Bands like Converge are exceptions, but BMTH, KSE etc are more metal than anything.

I'll give you that for KsE, but BMTH sound like they had gotten progressively less metal. I'm gonna agree with Blargh in that metalcore bands are more hardcore than metal. And in my opinion, I like those genres seperate.

 

[AnarchistFish]

If the only metal they have heard were the stuff that are shown on scuzz and other rock channels (Black Veil Brides, Bring Me the Horizon etc) then I would agree with them that its shit. Gladly I know better, and know that metal is a very diverse genre.

I really dislike bands like Black Veil Brides but I've never understood the hate for Bring Me The Horizon. Sure, I can see why people wouldn't particularly like them, especially with the vocals, but I've always found them to be much more interesting and enjoyable than most metalcore bands, even the more accepted ones such as August Burns Red. They don't even look like a bunch of scene kids anymore.

I dont like them as you can see in my post, but saying that there are way far worse bands out there. I consider them better then, say, Asking Alexandria and Attack Attack but still it doesnt seem like they are trying to do anything that has been done before, and much better.

Just a note: all the bands mentioned in these posts are metalcore (offshoot of the hardcore genre), not actual metal.

The clue's in the addition of the word "metal". Most metalcore bands lean towards the metal aspect more than the hardcore aspect these days anyway. Bands like Converge are exceptions, but BMTH, KSE etc are more metal than anything.

I'll give you that for KsE, but BMTH sound like they had gotten progressively less metal. I'm gonna agree with Blargh in that metalcore bands are more hardcore than metal. And in my opinion, I like those genres seperate.

BMTH are still metal. They've gotten less heavy since their debut album but they're still metal...
And I'm not really sure why people think metalcore is closer to hardcore than metal. Listen to a hardcore band, listen to a metal band, then listen to a metalcore band. In most cases metalcore will sound closer to metal. It just doesn't have the same intense, claustrophobic energy and raw guitar sound.

 

[guitarsniper]

A lot of people tend to ignore that certain music that, if i'm honest, is really only considered metal because it doesn't really fit in anywhere else, can be downright beautiful. The Dutch Symphonic Metal band Epica is a prime example of this, but there are definitely others.