What the early black metallers get right: extreme metal should not be popular.

[Dead1]

I generally disagree with a lot of the ideological/philosophical crap associated with early black metal - eg the overemphasis on Satanism or Paganism, moronic church burning and even stupider murders or the total renunciation of death metal and grindcore.  

One thing that I do agree with  them is that extreme metal should never have got popular.  Sure Venom were attention whores (and yeah I like Venom) but most of the other originators of extreme metal never intended for the genre to be mainstream.  Eg Hellahmmer, Bathory, Destruction or early Slayer.  Even Metallica starts off as a pissed off anti-mainstream beast.  Extreme metal like hardcore punk was meant to be an underground counter culture inaccessible to casual fans and essentially subversive.  It was meant to be intolerant to the mainstream.

Yet what was once extreme metal has become strangely acceptable - you hear classic Metallica and Slayer in movies and TV shows.  Death metal or usually deathcore also pops its head in the mainstream and black metal is now a mainstream joke...and then there's stuff like Dethklok Apocalypse which seems aimed at mainstream types. 

And then all the crass consumerism like the megafestivals, heavy metal awards ceremonies or Nuclear Blast's almost factory approach to churning out similar sounding metal.   

You read about stuff in the extreme metal industry whereby full on extreme bands now have publicists and stylists!  It's completely contrived.  

It's not so much a maturing as complete commercialisation and conversion of it from a statement of integrity to just another product.

And given the modern consumerism is a lot more intensive than what happened in 1980s/90s it has essentially stripped metal of any counter culture value.  The all encompassing tolerance of modern metal to everything else has seen it become just anther product.

 

Note I am not talking about Motley Crue or Iron Maiden or Def Leppard or Korn or whatever.  I am strictly talking about extreme metal.

[AlSymerz]

Not sure if you're making a statement or a complaint. For that reason I agree with the former and don't care much about the later.

 

Afterthought edit:

Actually I changed my mind. I still don't entirely know if you're complaining or stating, but I say metal's popularity is a good thing. You can decide which side of the fence that puts me on.

Given that your definition of extreme seems to be pretty much metal in general I say it's a good thing that it did get popular, if that's the word that describes it. Becoming popular has allowed for many bands to tour the world. It also means  the availability of such music is better. Even simple things like having forums where these bands are discussed have happened because the popularity of it has increased. Maybe it's creators never thought it was going to be as popular as it is, maybe they hoped it would. But popularity has brought metal, of many genres to the ears of a lot of people who wouldn't have otherwise heard it.

[Dead1]

Definitely both a statement and a complaint.

We would have still had metal forums without extreme metal getting popular (I am a member of wargaming groups for systems played ny mere hundreds of people on the whole of the planet).

People who truly want heavier and more extreme music would find it (even easier than in 1980-90).  

 

As for touring, yes popularity ensures ticket sales at bigger venues.  But it has resulted in a phenomenon where many bands put out souless cut and paste cookie cutter albums just to tour.  This has openly been admitted in a few interviews (though not just in extreme metal). 

Labels like Century Media, Nuclear Balst and Napalm are notorious for putting out mass produced "extreme" metal.  Hence the comment about publicists and stylists.  

In essence making extreme metal popular and something for purpose of money for labels and professional albeit artistically bankrupt artists makes it another product not too disimilar to reality TV or Justin Beiber or whatever passes for popular music.

 

Like hardcore punk, extreme metal should be there for the people willing to make that journey of discovery, and not just another shitty bear worthless product like just about everything else on the planet.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

7 hours ago, Dead1 said:

Definitely both a statement and a complaint.

We would have still had metal forums without extreme metal getting popular (I am a member of wargaming groups for systems played ny mere hundreds of people on the whole of the planet).

People who truly want heavier and more extreme music would find it (even easier than in 1980-90).  

 

As for touring, yes popularity ensures ticket sales at bigger venues.  But it has resulted in a phenomenon where many bands put out souless cut and paste cookie cutter albums just to tour.  This has openly been admitted in a few interviews (though not just in extreme metal). 

Labels like Century Media, Nuclear Balst and Napalm are notorious for putting out mass produced "extreme" metal.  Hence the comment about publicists and stylists.  

In essence making extreme metal popular and something for purpose of money for labels and professional albeit artistically bankrupt artists makes it another product not too disimilar to reality TV or Justin Beiber or whatever passes for popular music.

 

Like hardcore punk, extreme metal should be there for the people willing to make that journey of discovery, and not just another shitty bear worthless product like just about everything else on the planet.

But extreme metal is still there for people who wish to make the journey of discovery. Most people just aren't interested in discovering it because they find it intolerable. You yourself have said many times that you don't care for the bulk of extreme metal you're finding out there currently, you prefer listening to the older stuff. Doesn't mean there's not plenty of killer EM out there for those of us driven to look for it. And as you've noted many times it's not even very hard to find anymore in the internet age if you're so inclined. 

The fact that there are now commercial "products" mass marketed to kids that are based on extreme metal in no way negates the existence of the more undiluted and inaccessible forms of the art. You're really talking apples and oranges here. You can't simply claim that they've now made extreme metal popular, because that's not even close to accurate. Popular new mainstream musical artforms have been created over the last 30 years which borrow some elements from extreme metal. That is more accurate, and there's nothing wrong with that because actual extreme metal remains intact and is still not any more commercially viable than it ever was. There's just more choice now. 

To your earlier post (which I thought I had posted my reply to early this morning but turns out I actually must have fallen asleep in mid sentence typing to you at 4:30am) I just want to say that I don't see how a 40 year old musical sub-genre which has become basically 'dad rock' (for a certain subset of dads) can be expected to maintain any kind of counter culture value. The young people of today will need to come up with their own rebellious counter culture music just like every other generation before them since recorded music became a thing back in the mid 20th century have done.

This has been the way of things since at least WWII or possibly even as far back as the 1920's. Each generation develops their own new kind of music that the older generations don't appreciate. Then when that younger generation gets older that style then becomes acceptable as the norm and the young people invent some new genre that becomes the edgy counter culture stuff. I don't see why extreme metal (if we're talking about commercial thrash like Metallica) should be any different.

Most 20th century music even from before my old ass was born that most of us would now consider mild & tame and acceptable to grannies was once considered radical and subversive for its time. 1950's rock & roll seemed no less radical and extreme to the establishment of that time than punk and thrash and death and black metal were to the establishment of the 1980's and 90's. I remember my mother yelling at me to turn that noise off in the mid 70's. She couldn't see how it was even considered "music" and we're talking about Led Zeppelin here, which is generally considered easy listening these days. It all comes full circle eventually. 

[AlSymerz]

I still can't see popularity as a bad thing.

I also can't see how any one form of music can exist without popularity of some kind.

If one person can 'make the journey' to enjoy punk and/or extreme metal, then a million people can make the same journey. The more willing to 'make the journey' the more popular the music becomes.

And whose to say that the majority of these metal fans haven't already made the journey you expect them to make?

 

 

 

[zackflag]

Extreme metal is still relatively unpopular on a mass scale. Like, I very rarely meet other people in real life who are even aware this type of music exists, let alone are fans of it. You might meet one out of every 100 regular people who has even heard of Behemoth, and if we're gonna get gatekeepy and talk about "actual" extreme, underground metal artists, that ratio becomes significantly smaller.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

There has always been a fairly sizeable segment of metal fans who feel dismay when they consider the possibility of their little esoteric niche of music that most people don't like or even know about, could one day become watered down and popular which they fear could ruin everything for them because then they wouldn't have their own special secret little thing anymore. If their favorite niche sub-genre were to become popular that would essentially make them just another average normie music fan and destroy all their illusions of superiority. This mainly applies to fans of sub-mainstream metal, as most fans of the more obscure, harsher and less palatable forms of 'underground' extreme metal have no worries about ever seeing their gnarly inaccessible filth gaining any traction with the mainstream. We'd be thrilled to death if blackened death bands from the underground like Archgoat or Cadaveric Incubator or Spectral Wounnd or someone like that could get real popular and become the flavor of the week. But that's easy for us to say when we know it'll never ever happen. We gatekeepers can safely take comfort in the continued longevity of our imagined elitism.

Funny thing is at the same time many of these sub-mainstreamers will also frequently lament the 'changing of the guard' as it were. Apparently a lot of long time metalheads feel bad about how it seems (to them) like we will never have another massively popular dinosaur metal band like Priest or Maiden or Metallica or Pantera ever again. This is of course nonsense. As long as there is metal music being made and there are kids there will always be some massively popular metal bands. Problem is they're just going to be of the watered-down more commercial variety and many old schooler metallers just don't like or respect that kind of stuff. They don't see bands like Korn or Linkin Park or Balloon-knot or Asking Alexandria or Trivium or 5FDP as being of comparable quality to the Priests and Maidens and Megadeths and Slayers they cut their teeth on back in the day. The fans of these newer era bands would of course disagree vehemently. I'm sure they see their modern day nu-metal and metalcore heroes as infinitely better than a bunch of old has-been senior citizen dinosaur bands from olden times like Priest, Maiden and Megadeth.

So as I see it, it's really more a matter of perspective and which generation of metal fans you come from than anything else. I'm sure lots of people would insist that whichever music they happen to enjoy is objectively better than some garbage nu-metal or metalcore bands, or in my case maybe hipster post-black bands or whatever it might happen to be that they don't like. And therefore they believe it's ok to drag those bands. I've done it myself, most of us have I think. But obviously when it comes to music, beauty is in the ears of the beholder. Whatever sounds good to you is good. And that's really all there is to it.

[RelentlessOblivion]

Even if it never came more popular within the heavy metal spear you would still have fans of morbid Angel, entombed, mayhem, and immortal, fans who would idolise their favourite bands to the point of forming bands which essentially played the same style but with vastly reduced quality. I don’t think popularity is the reason extreme metal bands are spawning like maggots on a rotten corpse these days.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

10 minutes ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

Even if it never came more popular within the heavy metal spear you would still have fans of morbid Angel, entombed, mayhem, and immortal, fans who would idolise their favourite bands to the point of forming bands which essentially played the same style but with vastly reduced quality. I don’t think popularity is the reason extreme metal bands are spawning like maggots on a rotten corpse these days.

How do you know the quality would be "vastly reduced" in your hypothetical scenario? I personally can't stand Morbid Angel and I have never heard a band they've influenced heavily that I didn't think was better. I could probably say the same about not all obviously, but certainly about many Entombed and Mayhem and Immortal clones. But that's me, I know this opinion puts me in the extreme minority. Originator Schmidgeonator.

[Dead1]

4 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

But extreme metal is still there for people who wish to make the journey of discovery. Most people just aren't interested in discovering it because they find it intolerable. You yourself have said many times that you don't care for the bulk of extreme metal you're finding out there currently, you prefer listening to the older stuff. Doesn't mean there's not plenty of killer EM out there for those of us driven to look for it. And as you've noted many times it's not even very hard to find anymore in the internet age if you're so inclined. 

The fact that there are now commercial "products" mass marketed to kids that are based on extreme metal in no way negates the existence of the more undiluted and inaccessible forms of the art. You're really talking apples and oranges here. You can't simply claim that they've now made extreme metal popular, because that's not even close to accurate. Popular new mainstream musical artforms have been created over the last 30 years which borrow some elements from extreme metal. That is more accurate, and there's nothing wrong with that because actual extreme metal remains intact and is still not any more commercially viable than it ever was. There's just more choice now. 

 

 

It's not really a journey of discovery.  What you're referring to is merely exploring depths.  Looking for less popular death metal is no different to looking for less popular glam or country or pop.

The issue is more about initial entry pathways.  Getting into extreme metal is now as easy as going to your local major electronics store and picking up the latest Nuclear Blast release.  Seriously I can go into a big bright yellow shop called JB Hi Fi which is a major chain in Australia (they are everywhere) and pick up latest Behemoth or Amon Amarth or Abbath or even Benediction or Massacre or whatever.

It's that easy.

I watch mainstream TV very rarely.  Even then there's ads and references to extreme metal eg a recent one for a major national telco with some middle aged metalhead or another one where a girl accidentally connects extreme metal into a radio call. 

On Facebook, non metal people keep sending me extreme metal memes and jokes (eg heavy metal knitting or some animal making noise over a metal track which is titled death metal rooster or whatever). 

There's people doing metal on those stupid reality TV shows (which I only know about because non metal people send me links on Facebook).

 

So extreme metal is now easily accessible and a joke and part of mainstream marketing.

 

Sure you might not have every man and his dog now listening to Carcass Greatest Hits but extreme metal is far more accessible and mainstream now than at any time in its history.  And I actually think it's turning into a joke and removing its core values and soul. 

 

 

[AlSymerz]

As cringey as those ads are I still fail to see how this is a bad thing, but each to their own I guess

 

[Dead1]

3 hours ago, zackflag said:

Extreme metal is still relatively unpopular on a mass scale. Like, I very rarely meet other people in real life who are even aware this type of music exists, let alone are fans of it. You might meet one out of every 100 regular people who has even heard of Behemoth, and if we're gonna get gatekeepy and talk about "actual" extreme, underground metal artists, that ratio becomes significantly smaller.

Agreed it's not popular like Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga.

But as I mentioned I can now buy extreme metal stuff in large retail chains including ones whose main product lines are consumer electronics and fridges.

 

The actual underground doesn't exist anymore.  Internet made everything ultra accessible.  Only difference between bands is popularity which in itself is a function of label interests.

 

13 minutes ago, KillaKukumba said:

As cringey as those ads are I still fail to see how this is a bad thing, but each to their own I guess

 

They make extreme metal into a goofy joke.  They essentially "defang" it and make it a part of the mainstream.  They make it just another marketing gimmick/tool.

 

I love extreme metal music but I also loved its old value set - it was anti-mainstream, anti-consumerist, anti-popular and subversive in intent.  Very similar to hardcore punk.   It wasn't meant for people who weren't willing to commit to it.

I know these things don't matter much to you but they are important to me....as you can tell I tend to have more radical socialist notions.     

 

Now I have got commercial music in my collection be it AC/DC or Def Leppard or Guns N Roses or Hellyeah but those types of bands never really had an anti-mainstream attitude and always sought some sort of commercial success.

 

 

 

[SurgicalBrute]

It's not about feeling elite, it's about trying to keep tourists and casuals from shitting up something people are passionate about, which happens anytime a niche culture reaches the greater consciousness of society. People, especially the kind of dumbfucks it's specifically meant to keep out, will try and misconstrue this as "elitists trying to gatekeep newcomers", but I have yet to see any metal fan actually shit on someone who shows a legitimately honest interest in the genre.

What people are trying to avoid are the useless masses who latch onto every trendy thing like the social parasites they are, start "reeeeing" about how thing needs to change and conform specifically to them rather than enjoying thing for what it is, and then leaving thing a hollowed out husk of itself when they move on to something else.

Now, I'm not saying extreme metal as a whole has become popular with the masses, but I don't think it's totally incorrect to say that black metal, at the very least, has become somewhat trendy on certain sections of the internet. Thirty seconds of searching on social media can confirm this, because while it may not truly be counter culture anymore, there's still an air of edginess around it that appeals to suburban tryhards and keyboard culture warriors

[Dead1]

2 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

There has always been a fairly sizeable segment of metal fans who feel dismay when they consider the possibility of their little esoteric niche of music that most people don't like or even know about, could one day become watered down and popular which they fear could ruin everything for them because then they wouldn't have their own special secret little thing anymore. If their favorite niche sub-genre were to become popular that would essentially make them just another average normie music fan and destroy all their illusions of superiority. This mainly applies to fans of sub-mainstream metal, as most fans of the more obscure, harsher and less palatable forms of 'underground' extreme metal have no worries about ever seeing their gnarly inaccessible filth gaining any traction with the mainstream. We'd be thrilled to death if blackened death bands from the underground like Archgoat or Cadaveric Incubator or Spectral Wounnd or someone like that could get real popular and become the flavor of the week. But that's easy for us to say when we know it'll never ever happen. We gatekeepers can safely take comfort in the continued longevity of our imagined elitism.

 

Actually I deplore popularity in any of my hobbies.  Eg I am a wargamer and have seen popularity destroy rulesets.   Not only do the companies get greedy and start doing stupid shit to make more money (eg dumbing down gameplay to make it more accessible) you also get influxes of people who are fly by nighters or even worse dickheads with a real competitive mentality whose attitudes ruin it for people.  Everything gets more commercialised, more slick, more homogenised and the sense of community is destroyed.

 

Same applies to anything really.  My father-in-law worked in initial set up of Tasmania's poppy industry.  He loved it as they all worked as a team and were all passionate about it.  People helped each other out.  He said by the time he retired it had lost all that.  It became all about money and backstabbing politics for personal gain.

 

And I hate having Tasmania discovered by the rest of the world.  Some of my favourite places are being ruined by hordes of tourists or related developments.  And all these mainland wankers who like what they see but then want to change it back to their homogenised profit driven bullshit.

 

And we all saw how popularity ultimately sunk thrash, grunge (not extreme metal but still), black and death metal.  Over saturation, too many posers and too many driven purely by money or fame and not the actual music.

 

I would say mainstream popularity of anything is bad thing.

 

 

 

9 minutes ago, SurgicalBrute said:

It's not about feeling elite, it's about trying to keep tourists and casuals from shitting up something people are passionate about, which happens anytime a niche culture reaches the greater consciousness of society. People, especially the kind of dumbfucks it's specifically meant to keep out, will try and misconstrue this as "elitists trying to gatekeep newcomers", but I have yet to see any metal fan actually shit on someone who shows a legitimately honest interest in the genre.

What people are trying to avoid are the useless masses who latch onto every trendy thing like the social parasites they are, start "reeeeing" about how thing needs to change and conform specifically to them rather than enjoying thing for what it is, and then leaving thing a hollowed out husk of itself when they move on to something else.

Now, I'm not saying extreme metal as a whole has become popular with the masses, but I don't think it's totally incorrect to say that black metal, at the very least, has become somewhat trendy on certain sections of the internet. Thirty seconds of searching on social media can confirm this, because while it may not truly be counter culture anymore, there's still an air of edginess around it that appeals to suburban tryhards and keyboard culture warriors

 

 

Ah Surge, I wish I had your eloquence.

 

You have hit the nail on the head.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

1 hour ago, Dead1 said:

 

It's not really a journey of discovery.  What you're referring to is merely exploring depths.  Looking for less popular death metal is no different to looking for less popular glam or country or pop.

The issue is more about initial entry pathways.  Getting into extreme metal is now as easy as going to your local major electronics store and picking up the latest Nuclear Blast release.  Seriously I can go into a big bright yellow shop called JB Hi Fi which is a major chain in Australia (they are everywhere) and pick up latest Behemoth or Amon Amarth or Abbath or even Benediction or Massacre or whatever.

It's that easy.

I watch mainstream TV very rarely.  Even then there's ads and references to extreme metal eg a recent one for a major national telco with some middle aged metalhead or another one where a girl accidentally connects extreme metal into a radio call. 

On Facebook, non metal people keep sending me extreme metal memes and jokes (eg heavy metal knitting or some animal making noise over a metal track which is titled death metal rooster or whatever). 

There's people doing metal on those stupid reality TV shows (which I only know about because non metal people send me links on Facebook).

So extreme metal is now easily accessible and a joke and part of mainstream marketing.

Sure you might not have every man and his dog now listening to Carcass Greatest Hits but extreme metal is far more accessible and mainstream now than at any time in its history.  And I actually think it's turning into a joke and removing its core values and soul. 

The actual underground doesn't exist anymore.  Internet made everything ultra accessible.  Only difference between bands is popularity which in itself is a function of label interests.

Of course the metal underground still exists. Just because something has become relatively easy too find for anyone who might be looking for it (and even for some who might not be looking for it) when compared to the difficulties we all had finding stuff back in pre-internet times, that doesn't change the fact that there are still billions of people on this planet who are completely and blissfully unaware of its existence because they are not and would not ever be in any way interested in extreme metal. Even most people in first world, middle class, western society. The term "underground" has never been about how easy or hard it could be to find something. The term refers to how the vast majority of typical average people you bump into in life are completely unaware of its existence. Underground means low profile as opposed to high profile. 

And as far as the 'exploring depths' thing goes, of course looking for underground metal is no different or no more difficult than looking for more obscure and unknown artists from any other genre. I don't think anyone's arguing that obscure metal bands are any harder to find. But no matter what genre of music most people are into, the fact remains that the overwhelming majority of them will never have the desire or feel a need to dig any deeper than what can be found most easily on the surface level.

And even though you may be able to buy legit extreme metal CD's at JBHF or Wal-Mart or Best Buy...that doesn't mean most shoppers are actually looking at them or in any way aware of what would actually be found within. And we all know that most of what is going to be available in big box stores is going to be distributed by major labels. Major label stuff accounts for a very miniscule percentage of the new music I personally listen to, probably less than 3%. So someone like me (assuming I was still interested in acquiring physical media which I'm not) is not going to find very much he would be interested in purchasing there other than maybe some older stuff I already have, or that one or two major label releases I might happen to actually dig each year. I still have to scour the interwebs to find what I'm looking for. I don't have to scour very hard, I freely admit it's easier than ever to find hundreds of albums I like enough to purchase each and every year. But most of that stuff is still going to be virtually invisible to anyone who's not already a metalhead who's actively looking for it.

[zackflag]

Yeah I still fail to see how "casuals" showing any interest in extreme metal somehow dilutes or tarnishes it. Black metal, at least in my opinion, is the best it's ever been, by and large, so if these so called "scene tourists" have been trying to take over and destroy all that we hold dear then they must be doing a piss poor job at it. Or perhaps it's because the valiant keepers of the gates are adequately warding them off.... or something.

I dunno, this all sounds like neurotic sectarianism to me.

[AlSymerz]

1 hour ago, Dead1 said:

 Seriously I can go into a big bright yellow shop called JB Hi Fi which is a major chain in Australia (they are everywhere) and pick up latest Behemoth or Amon Amarth or Abbath or even Benediction or Massacre or whatever.

 

To be fair that's not entirely the truth. While JB Hi Fi might be everywhere their selection of metal is nothing compared to what they used to have. Through the 90's and 00's JB HIFI's used to have rows and rows of metal CDs, it would be nothing for a city store to have more than 2000 metal branded CD's, while in a store like Dandenong where metal was huge it was even bigger and heavily weighted towards the heavier side of metal. But even the biggest of stores these days would be lucky to have 500 metal CDs, some wouldn't even be half that. They will often have the leading bands from the main genres but ask for anything slightly obscure and the store managers would have no idea.

43 minutes ago, zackflag said:

Yeah I still fail to see how "casuals" showing any interest in extreme metal somehow dilutes or tarnishes it.

 

I still agree!

 

[Dead1]

18 minutes ago, KillaKukumba said:

 

To be fair that's not entirely the truth. While JB Hi Fi might be everywhere their selection of metal is nothing compared to what they used to have. Through the 90's and 00's JB HIFI's used to have rows and rows of metal CDs, it would be nothing for a city store to have more than 2000 metal branded CD's, while in a store like Dandenong where metal was huge it was even bigger and heavily weighted towards the heavier side of metal. But even the biggest of stores these days would be lucky to have 500 metal CDs, some wouldn't even be half that. They will often have the leading bands from the main genres but ask for anything slightly obscure and the store managers would have no idea.

I still agree!

Both our local and the Hobart JB still have tons of metal including extreme metal.  Cairns store was crap though.

1 hour ago, zackflag said:

Yeah I still fail to see how "casuals" showing any interest in extreme metal somehow dilutes or tarnishes it. Black metal, at least in my opinion, is the best it's ever been, by and large, so if these so called "scene tourists" have been trying to take over and destroy all that we hold dear then they must be doing a piss poor job at it. Or perhaps it's because the valiant keepers of the gates are adequately warding them off.... or something.

I dunno, this all sounds like neurotic sectarianism to me.

The casuals do tend to appropriate aspects of extreme metal.  Eg that dickhead playing "Trap" (whatever the fuck that is) who is essentially a techno DJ but pretends he is black metal.  Or Kardashians et al wearing metal t-shirts.   

So our metal culture becomes their fashion statements and trendy bullshit (or as I mentioned gimmicks for advertising telcos or whatever other corporate bullshit).

The casuals certainly fuck the local gigs up.  Any time there would be trouble at a metal gig it's a drunk casual wanker who has somehow stumbled in.  Same also in hard rock gigs.  The hardcore are there for a good time listening to music they love, the casuals are there to get drunk and carry on like idiots.

 

 

1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Of course the metal underground still exists. Just because something has become relatively easy too find for anyone who might be looking for it (and even for some who might not be looking for it) when compared to the difficulties we all had finding stuff back in pre-internet times, that doesn't change the fact that there are still billions of people on this planet who are completely and blissfully unaware of its existence because they are not and would not ever be in any way interested in extreme metal. Even most people in first world, middle class, western society. The term "underground" has never been about how easy or hard it could be to find something. The term refers to how the vast majority of typical average people you bump into in life are completely unaware of its existence. Underground means low profile as opposed to high profile. 

 

Thing with metal (and hardcore) is it's not just music.  It's a culture, a community and a value set. 

Over commercialisation and making it mainstream destroys all that.

 

It's actually the same as that awesome little lake side country town snuggled under some picturesque mountain.  They're happy living a quiet life with their own values.   Then all of a sudden mainstream discovers it and in come the Starbucks and hipster Poke Bowl joints  ( :D) and a million mainstream types who like the "quaintness" of it but want to change it to reflect their own horrid plastic world and who in the end will turn it into a glorified circus run purely for money.

 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

38 minutes ago, Dead1 said:

Both our local and the Hobart JB still have tons of metal including extreme metal.  Cairns store was crap though.

The casuals do tend to appropriate aspects of extreme metal.  Eg that dickhead playing "Trap" (whatever the fuck that is) who is essentially a techno DJ but pretends he is black metal.  Or Kardashians et al wearing metal t-shirts.   

So our metal culture becomes their fashion statements and trendy bullshit (or as I mentioned gimmicks for advertising telcos or whatever other corporate bullshit).

The casuals certainly fuck the local gigs up.  Any time there would be trouble at a metal gig it's a drunk casual wanker who has somehow stumbled in.  Same also in hard rock gigs.  The hardcore are there for a good time listening to music they love, the casuals are there to get drunk and carry on like idiots.

 

 

Thing with metal (and hardcore) is it's not just music.  It's a culture, a community and a value set. 

Over commercialisation and making it mainstream destroys all that.

 

It's actually the same as that awesome little lake side country town snuggled under some picturesque mountain.  They're happy living a quiet life with their own values.   Then all of a sudden mainstream discovers it and in come the Starbucks and hipster Poke Bowl joints ( :D) and a million mainstream types who like the "quaintness" of it but want to change it to reflect their own horrid plastic world and who in the end will turn it into a glorified circus run purely for money.

Your lakeside country town analogy doesn't work for me because first of all as I've said, to me it's apples and oranges. The major label flavors of extreme metal that are being peddled to mainstreamers and casuals really have no relation at all to the kind of metal I'm listening to. It might as well be an entirely separate genre. And even if it did, no matter who happens to discover and get into any extreme metal band that I might happen to be into, I'm still here in my room listening to whatever I please. The casuals have not invaded my space or turned my life into a circus or infringed upon my rights or changed my life in any way. I have not had to compromise my values or change my listening habits one little bit. So I fail to see how the 'over commercialisation' of extreme metal destroys anything or affects me personally if I decline to participate. It doesn't. We might get more clueless mainstreamers joining the forum, but is that really the end of the world? Can't we educate them and bring them into the fold? We all had to start somewhere. 

And I'm really not sure what guys like you and Surge feel you're losing or is being taken from you by some casuals becoming interested and messing about around the fringes of more commercial extreme metal. Or hearing a Metallica song on a tv ad or if non-metallers like the Kardashians start wearing Slayer t-shirts without knowing the band's music. So what if some black metal becomes trendy. Who cares? How are they "shitting up" our beloved extreme metal? What does "leaving the thing a hollowed out husk of itself" even mean?

It would seem to me that if extreme metal in general became more popular across the board and more accepted as a legitimate form of music by the masses, then you might start seing even more metal albums in stock at JBHF (even the Cairns store) and more metal gigs being booked at your local Lonnie venues. Isn't that what you're always lamenting, that the local Tassie metal scene has all but flatlined and there's no gigs to go see and hardly any decent records in the shops to buy? The hardcore metal faithful are already all on board. So if you want to see some new life breathed into the extreme metal scene then you're gonna have to tolerate mainstreamers and casuals sticking their noses in, it comes with the territory. And if as you say you enjoy extreme metal being a quiet little niche genre that the masses are ignorant of then I'd say don't worry, the casuals will no doubt lose interest soon enough and move onto something else.

[Dead1]

Your stance seems somewhat contrary to your musical preferences and statements against mainstream metal.

 

If extreme metal gets even more popular, you're not going to get crusty death band X becoming big.  Instead you will have manufactured overpolished commercial extreme metal becoming big.  We're seeing this already as it's been happening for decades - Amon Amarth, Arch Enemy, Dimmu Borgir, In Flames etc (most of these bands have been artistically bankrupt for years but the commercial systems as espoused by Nuclear Blast keeps them alive and in the dollars and in the scene "consciousness" when they should be long forgotten). 

Labels like Napalm and Nuclear Assault mass produce homogenised polished metal in the same way Kia mass produces cars.

The crusty band X won't even stay crusty if there's some big label or TV show showering them with cash.  "Hey boys, this here is your stylist and this here is your publicist, we're all gonna make a ton of money.  But first let's do something about your sound."

You'll go to a gig and instead of 60 hardcore metal fans loving it, you'll get 600 trendies who won't even listen to the music (I've been to concerts by popular mainstream pop and rock acts where the band was drowned out by crowd talking.  People would turn up to these concerts because the artist was big on Triple J radio, not because of some sort of love for the music).

 

Again I've been to plenty of big gigs by mainstream acts (both metal and non-metal) and they lack the energy, soul and vibe of a smaller gig full of hardcore fans.  

 

And I am happy buying my CDs and vinyl in the local store where I know the owner and he orders stuff I like in.  The big chains like JB HiFi can go jump - that kind of oligarchic capitalism is fucking the world up.  (I was seriously hoping COVID + Ukraine War would destroy it but sadly it just got stronger).

 

----

 

Anyhow both my post and your post proves the small country town analogy works.  Outcome is the same - over commercialisation, homogenisation mindless trend hoping and destruction of something that was unique and had a sense of community. 

 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

38 minutes ago, Dead1 said:

Your stance seems somewhat contrary to your musical preferences and statements against mainstream metal.

If extreme metal gets even more popular, you're not going to get crusty death band X becoming big.  Instead you will have manufactured overpolished commercial extreme metal becoming big.  We're seeing this already as it's been happening for decades - Amon Amarth, Arch Enemy, Dimmu Borgir, In Flames etc (most of these bands have been artistically bankrupt for years but the commercial systems as espoused by Nuclear Blast keeps them alive and in the dollars and in the scene "consciousness" when they should be long forgotten). 

Labels like Napalm and Nuclear Assault mass produce homogenised polished metal in the same way Kia mass produces cars.

The crusty band X won't even stay crusty if there's some big label or TV show showering them with cash.  "Hey boys, this here is your stylist and this here is your publicist, we're all gonna make a ton of money.  But first let's do something about your sound."

You'll go to a gig and instead of 60 hardcore metal fans loving it, you'll get 600 trendies who won't even listen to the music (I've been to concerts by popular mainstream pop and rock acts where the band was drowned out by crowd talking.  People would turn up to these concerts because the artist was big on Triple J radio, not because of some sort of love for the music).

Again I've been to plenty of big gigs by mainstream acts (both metal and non-metal) and they lack the energy, soul and vibe of a smaller gig full of hardcore fans.  

And I am happy buying my CDs and vinyl in the local store where I know the owner and he orders stuff I like in.  The big chains like JB HiFi can go jump - that kind of oligarchic capitalism is fucking the world up.  (I was seriously hoping COVID + Ukraine War would destroy it but sadly it just got stronger).

----

Anyhow both my post and your post proves the small country town analogy works.  Outcome is the same - over commercialisation, homogenisation mindless trend hoping and destruction of something that was unique and had a sense of community. 

 

I can definitely undestand where you're coming from when you talk about stuff like the commercialization of metal and labels churning out mass produced, contrived, homogenized, overpolished metal products and the "comoditization" of bands being bad and smaller bands playing smaller gigs in smaller clubs almost always being better than big bands playing big halls. I'm not disputing any of that stuff, in fact I actually agree with you. To be clear I have absolutely no use for mainstream metal, or mainstream anything really. But especially not for mainstream metal. 

Our point of contention here is just that there is no connection between any of what you've been describing and the underground metal that I'm listening to. I'm not a mainstreamer or even a sub-mainstreamer like you. Not even a mainstream sympathizer. The mainstream metal world operates on a whole different frequency than the shit I'm into. A frequency that unlike you, I don't concern myself with or pay any attention to. None of that mainstream noise effects me at all, I'm oblivious to it. Like you said, in your scenario we'd have all the shitty plastic overpolished extreme metal bands becoming big but that'd be fine with me because I've never cared about any of those bands to begin with! No matter how many Amon Amarths, Arch Enemies, LoG's, Mastodons, Behemoths and Dimmu Borgirs hit the bigtime that still won't have any effect at all on me or the raw shit that I'm listening to. 

Your hypothesis that the sky is falling because a handful of extreme metal bands are in danger of becoming popular and you think that would somehow corrupt, ruin and destroy the entire rest of the underground extreme metal scene as we know it and turn the whole thing into fake disposable plastic garbage is laughably ludicrous. That is not how it works. There will always be an underground that operates independently from the mainstream because lots of bands are just not right for and have no desire to be part of the mainstream. You know who I'm talking about man, the bands you like to describe as Z-grade turdburgers. Crusty band X. AKA the bands I tend to gravitate towards. Bands that for the most part have absolutely no possible shot at the bigtime. No one from the major label is going to come knocking nor will the suits be lining up to shower crusty band X with cash. Crusty band X will stay crusty.

I'm sure there could be a small handful of underground bands in which the labels might see some commercial potential, but with the vast majority of the rest of these thousands of underground bands they won't see any potential at all. In the end it's all about the almighty dollar for these (semi) major metal labels and if they don't think they can make any money with a particular band then they'll have no interest whatsoever in pursuing them. That's how labels think, if something somewhere starts making money then they'll all try to find something similar so they can grab themselves a piece of that pie too. These dudes are born with blinders on, they don't care about anything or anyone else except what they hope could make them $$$$$.

Sure, if extreme metal ever actually became the next big thing (never happen but I'll play along) and labels were all on the hunt for their next big moneymaker, we could maybe lose some marginal bands who operate on the seams of the underground, out near where it meets the sub-mainstream. I'm sure there are bands like that who could no doubt be persuaded by a NB or a Relapse to water themselves down and polish it up to try and take a run at commercial success. But that's certainly nothing new, since they first started recording music we've always had "sellout" bands that were willing and happy to alter their sounds in hopes of attaining commercial success no matter how much of a longshot. But the cool thing is these days for every semi name band we lose to the mainstream I reckon 3 more unknown underground bands are spawned to take its place. If there's one thing I don't think we'll have to worry about anytime soon it's having a shortage of raw crusty filthy gnarly obscure underground bands.

So for every band extreme metal or otherwise who manages to make it big I say good on them if they can make a few bucks from playing their music. I'm sure that was their goal when they got started and I won't begrudge any band their success. I probably won't have any interest in listening to them myself, but I'm sure there are plenty of others who would. Meanwhile I have plenty of crusty filthy bands and norsecore and bedroom black metal to listen to that aren't in any danger of being sucked into the mainstream vortex.

[SurgicalBrute]

It's actually almost funny to me, seeing some of you come on here with your "what's it hurting" and "everything seems fine to me", simply because I've seen this entire series of events play out so many times in other hobbies that it's like fucking deja vu all over again.

Everything seems to be all sunshine and unicorn farts right now? Well yeah, no shit...no one said things were actually fucked right this very moment. Believe me, if things had actually gone pear shaped, the community would be a hell of a lot more divided than it is right now. But are you honestly saying you don't understand how an established sub-culture can be negatively impacted by a gradual, yet steadily increasing, influx of people who neither understand it, nor can be assed enough to bother learning about it? Because that seems pretty self-explanatory to me.

[RelentlessOblivion]

It might be naive but I just don’t see extreme metal reaching the point where the subculture is as die looted as more commercially accessible music. The lighter metal genres sure maybe, but we are hardly likely to see the likes of Inquisition and mayhem thrust into the public I through literature or film. 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

5 hours ago, SurgicalBrute said:

It's actually almost funny to me, seeing some of you come on here with your "what's it hurting" and "everything seems fine to me", simply because I've seen this entire series of events play out so many times in other hobbies that it's like fucking deja vu all over again.

Everything seems to be all sunshine and unicorn farts right now? Well yeah, no shit...no one said things were actually fucked right this very moment. Believe me, if things had actually gone pear shaped, the community would be a hell of a lot more divided than it is right now. But are you honestly saying you don't understand how an established sub-culture can be negatively impacted by a gradual, yet steadily increasing, influx of people who neither understand it, nor can be assed enough to bother learning about it? Because that seems pretty self-explanatory to me.

Well you'd better explain it to me then Surge, because you're not making any sense. How do you get from they're carrying some extreme metal CD's at major retailers now, to the doomsday scenario of our extreme metal subculture as we've known it is under attack and on the brink of being irreparably damaged by an influx of commoners and idiots? I know you to be an intelligent and reasonable man Surge. So please tell me honestly, what specific negative impact are you actually, realistically afraid of if some casuals are able to get their hands on some extreme metal CD's?

Extreme metal is a genre that's been around for about 40 years now, so it would stand to reason that sooner or later you might see some of it in a store or some normies might get wind of its existence. You know it's gonna be mostly major label commercial garbage for sale at the big box stores that super kvlt elitists such as ourselves have little to no interest in. Or maybe some old school classics like a discount comp of first two Obituary albums or something. It won't be the hardcore kvlt Iron Bonehead, Godz of War or Invictus Productions shit. But whatever they're selling at JBHF or Best Buy or wherever, it's all stuff that's been available online for anyone to come and buy from the most unlikely normie casual sweater-vested dweeb to the kvltiest bullet-belted ritual goat sacrificer. Are you suggesting that we should actually become gatekeepers and somehow find a way to screen and vet who is allowed to purchase and listen to our precious extreme metal? Should we put up barriers for them to clear before we deem to allow them to buy our merch or a ticket to attend a live gig?

I've always heard people talking about gateway bands and how important it is to have some around in order to entice new metal fans to join us in banging our heads. I disagree, I've always felt that the true metal brethren will heed the calling and find their way to the flock with or without the help of lame-o gateway bands. So now they start selling some commercial extreme metal at the big box stores and we're all supposed to start freaking out about how the barbarian casuals are storming the gates and how they're going to ruin everything, rape our women and kill our babies? Do we want to make it easier for new young fans to get into metal or not? Should we hang up a sign saying sorry we're closed, filled to max capacity, no new fans needed?

Remember the Amazon forum days Surge? How far removed were we back then from listening to Metallica or Maiden or melodeath or nu-metal or butt rock or whatever the fuck we used to listen to before we found extreme metal? One could have called you and me "casuals" back then in 2008 and not been entirely wrong. Or maybe not casuals in my case because I had already been a hardcore metalhead for 30 years by then, but we were outsiders or n00bs to the extreme metal scene for sure.

Did welcoming us in and taking us under their wings ruin extreme metal for the older more seasoned metalheads? Or did we put in the work and learn about the history and follow up on the recos and get ourselves up to speed? Everyone has to start somewhere man. The real metalheads will want to assimilate into our culture and bolster our ranks, while the casuals will lose interest and move on. This is the way it's always been with any scene for any genre of music. Or with any online forum or corner dive bar or car club or MMA dojo or knitting circle for that matter. Doesn't really matter what the hobby or activity is. New people come and check it out, some like it and stay while others inevitably lose interest and move on.

[FatherAlabaster]

12 hours ago, Dead1 said:

Thing with metal (and hardcore) is it's not just music.  It's a culture, a community and a value set. 

Over commercialisation and making it mainstream destroys all that.

 

It's actually the same as that awesome little lake side country town snuggled under some picturesque mountain.  They're happy living a quiet life with their own values.   Then all of a sudden mainstream discovers it and in come the Starbucks and hipster Poke Bowl joints  ( :D) and a million mainstream types who like the "quaintness" of it but want to change it to reflect their own horrid plastic world and who in the end will turn it into a glorified circus run purely for money.

I think it's understandable that you feel the way you do, based on the bands you post about here - a lot of well-established older bands and legacy acts, and stuff that was underground 30 or 40 years ago and has since become commodified to the nines. The segment of metal you're into really has been ruined by commercialization, or just grew up swimming in it and has never known anything else. It's a little ironic that you hate commercialization so much but love the music you do - Pantera, Iron Maiden, Slayer, Lamb Of God, Machine Head, Faith No More, etc - and lament the death of the underground but don't seem to listen to anything new that's coming out of it. I'm not taking a crack at your music tastes, I like a bit of the same stuff you do, but it looks to me like you're drawing too general of a conclusion based on your own very specific and unique experiences.

I also disagree about metal being a culture, community, or value set. Shared interest in the music is pretty often the only thing I have in common with other metalheads once we start talking. That's still cool, it brings people together who might not ever meet otherwise, and it's been the start of some good friendships for me, but it's not like a gated community... just a shared subculture that coexists with a lot of other disparate elements of everyone's life: their work, their families, their living habits, their politics, and maybe if you're lucky, a circle of friends. It's possible to find community within metal but it's not something intrinsic and it's not a given.

Having said all of that, I get annoyed by some of the same things you do - the fake BM t shirt logos, Metalocalypse, shallow "extreme metal" made by people who pretty obviously don't have much of a connection to the music they're emulating. I feel like I can hear it when it's lacking. Maybe that's just in my head and they're doing something cool that I'm missing. I know I've been on the other side of that criticism as a musician, so I don't want to throw stones. What annoys me the most with most of the stuff I hear is how conformist it is - shitty DM clone #592, band that just discovered Transilvanian Hunger #819, local band that's been trying and failing to write interesting 90s melodeath since the 90s #75. But what are they in it for? It's not "commercialization" as such. They're looking for status within the group. Status is its own reward. And it's easier to get that by proving your worth through an already established format than risking rejection by doing something that strays too far from established boundaries. So people get up there and do their Incantation impression or the same stupid tremolo-picked chord progressions every vaguely melodic BM band of the past 30 years has stumbled across, and if they strike an ok balance and pull it off without looking dumb, we laud them as worthy bards and say "nice set dude", or proclaim them the flavor of the week on the forum. That's most local shows I've been to for the past 20 years and lots of the bands I run across online. That's not the death of the underground, though. That's the nature of the underground. You made the point in another thread recently that there have always been a ton of C-list imitators. Some of them are even pretty good, you know? And then there's a ton of good stuff (albeit stuff that you probably hate) that's a lot more creative and interesting, and in very little danger of getting polished out of existence.

So of course I can see how in principle, commercialization can spoil something great, and I can see why you feel the way you do, but I think you've overgeneralized and drawn the wrong conclusions.