Feeling like an outsider

[Hungarino]

On 5/26/2023 at 3:25 PM, AlSymerz said:

Despite (or perhaps because of) my cuz being a pro wrestler whose been through the WWE camp I don't watch any of those fighting sports but I do follow the news which includes such local stories from time to time.

Randomly just saw this, late to the convo as usual these days, but I must say that is super awesome about your cousin.

On 5/27/2023 at 3:34 PM, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Rhea Ripley’s badass moments

And for the record Rhea Ripley aka Mami is definitely badass. Her faction Judgment Day is the closest thing to a metal themed faction these days, albeit very weak kind of symphonic melodeath, but one of them and current Money in the Bank holder Damien Priest is a long-time metal fan.

The worse the world gets the more I like wrestling, but if you don't get it or buy in, like most things, it probably appears pointless and ridiculous. 

[AlSymerz]

6 minutes ago, Hungarino said:

Randomly just saw this, late to the convo as usual these days, but I must say that is super awesome about your cousin.

He thinks so

Nah, credit where it's due he's done alright. Went through Bret Hart's training school, wrestled in the minor leagues in the US for 2 years. But in this country we don't have a pro circuit like the US so he still has a full time job and he wrestles most weekends and gets paid for it so he's a pro!

[z3r0]

18 hours ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

I wonder what experiences you’ve had which lead you to that conclusion. I very much feel like an outsider, living for the days I get to talk metal. I’m sure anyone here, particularly those of us who prefer the most extreme sub genres, feel the same.

 

Of course if you primarily encounter either fans of the more radio friendly bands then sure that makes more sense.

i used to hang out with that metalhead dude from my school for a while who was into 90s and 00s nü metal. we had so much in common that stupid young me asked him one day if he related to lyrics in any way and he said he didn't. that surprised me a lot because nü metal lyrics are just meant for outsider kids to identify with. and at the same time they're pretty easy to catch them by ear as the vocals are mostly clean. he also had many normie friends and quite good social skills, he just fited into society well. where there was me who haven't had any of that. that just killed the image of an outsider metalhead i previously used to have in my head. he also said once that he wouldn't like to go to some show with me because in his opinion people at shows are often smelly, dirty hobos (don't know how to exacly put this into words because of some cultural and language bariers but he puted it in less offensive way)

 

now from an outsider individual perspective such as myself - i personally don't think that it's something wrong with just liking the music as i myself mostly focus on the sound. that doesn't make someone less or more metalhead. but other parts of metal culture like moshing and aggresive, relative lyrics are also very important to me. moshing helps me to release all the anger and pain i keep inside. and lyrics are something i can relate to and identify with, maybe even some part of my fucked up personality, they often show my view and perspective on many things. also personal freedom search is a huge and important element of metal mindset to me.

speaking of mindset - in my opinion, there are many completly different metal mindsets depending on a metal subgenre. when in thrash, hardcore etc. it was all about the angry music and moshing, hating on society, often politicly focused lyrics appealing to lower working class. there was also death/black metal scene with its death/macabre obsession and occult/mythologic/pagan lyrics often used as a metaphor for releasing anger for christian religion which is enforced to many of us since childhood. there was also some kind of a life style attached to it with activities like sniffing dead birds or burying your clothes in the ground before the show which only true black metal outsiders like well-known Per Yngve Ohlin cultivated. you know anyone into black metal doing that kind of shit right now? but jokes aside - in subgeneres like black/viking metal or this kind of shit very important element was also love to nature which can be interpretated as self-freedom searching as well. and ofcourse you have subgeneres like nu metal/metalcore/sludge which focus more on feelings like pain, anger, depression and that kind of stuff and often feeling like an outcast to society as well. back then metalheads were people who didn't gave a damn what everyone thought about them. but there probably was lots of people under the influence or just people who happend to simply enjoy the music.

and one important thing - as you can easily (not always tho) say if vocalist of a band is a misfit while you read some lyrics, most band members just want to make good music and probably not everyone in the band feel like an outsider.

i hate doing monologues like this couse they're always turn out to be so chaotic and i often forget what i wanted to say actually but the point is not many teenagers now are doing this kind of stuff and even if they're into metal they focus mostly on the sound or fashion. at least people i known. it's not the same as it used to be in the 90s or 80s. and i'm speaking of the point of someone who never was able to experience these times but i somehow can see the difference. and another important thing i want to say is that metal always was a youth thing and back in the day people who were into it were mostly teenagers or young adults. it was even invated by teens. it seems like many people seem to forget how it was like to be a teen when they now have stable jobs or families. and most people in metal scene are old now.

but was metal scene always mostly outcasts and misfits if it was popular music for the masses since the begining with bands like black sabbath? a music of a whole generation? from what i know it was listened by everyone back then. same with nü metal in the 90s and early 00s

sure you can kind of be an outsider just by being a music nerd. there are many different ways to not fit in

[Dead1]

12 hours ago, z3r0 said:

i hate doing monologues like this

Great post.  We all do monologues here!

 

Quote

 

back then metalheads were people who didn't gave a damn what everyone thought about them. but there probably was lots of people under the influence or just people who happend to simply enjoy the music.

 

There was but I doubt many such people were attracted to metal except really popular stuff like maybe Metallica.

By the time I was in high school (1993-96) metal, there wasn't many metalheads left.   So if you got into it, you probably were an outcast and didn't fit in with the sporty or nerdy cultures.

Nearly everyone but not all  I've known who became a full fledged metalhead was an outcast and misfit.

It's changed now that the internet has made it so accessible and it's been somewhat "normalised" in mainstream culture which you kind of refer to in this bit of your post..

 

 

 

Quote

 but the point is not many teenagers now are doing this kind of stuff and even if they're into metal they focus mostly on the sound or fashion. at least people i known. it's not the same as it used to be in the 90s or 80s.

It cheapens metal.  The original intent by Sabbath was to scare people and then punk added a whole layer of anti-mainstream attitude.

You read interviews with the originators of extreme metal (including thrash) as well as hardcore and a lot of them were very much counter culture and anti-mainstream.

Stuff's changed and it's for the worse - things like Hellfest turn metal into a circus and consumerisation make it just another throw away product.

Fuck that.

 

Quote

it seems like many people seem to forget how it was like to be a teen when they now have stable jobs or families. and most people in metal scene are old now.

Very true.  I remember it because deep down inside I am still an old school socialist agitator that's lived through poverty, through war (Yugoslavia 1991), through physical and psychological abuse and through alcoholism and because I am aware of where society is going (, fragmentation, hyper individualism that is nothing more than mindless consumerism).   

So even though I crawled out of shit and became middle class, I still remember those old punk and extreme metal attitudes and values and they are a key part of my personality along with aspects of Marxism, Fabian Socialism and anarchist communism.

 

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but was metal scene always mostly outcasts and misfits if it was popular music for the masses since the begining with bands like black sabbath? a music of a whole generation? from what i know it was listened by everyone back then. same with nü metal in the 90s and early 00s

 

It's far more complicated.

Black Sabbath were around when there wasn't an actual metal scene.  Also most of their music is not metal (you have aspects of blues rock, folk, progressive rock, pure blues etc.  You might average 2-3 metal songs per album). Most metal bands then were actually just hard rock bands (AC/DC, Van Halen, Aerosmith etc).

First true metal album was probably Judas Priest's Sad Wings of Destiny (1976).  And even that took time to turn into a scene (really 1980s).

Most people never listened to a lot of metal in 1980s even if they claimed to.  As mentioned a lot of stuff lumped into metal was actually hard rock.  Even a lot of glam bands of 1980s weren't really heavy metal bands.  They were hard or pop rock (and I love Guns N Roses (hard rock) and WASP and Twisted Sister (probably two of the few you could call metal bands)).  Eg Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, Whitesnake etc all got called metal bands but they were really just rock.  Even a lot of Ozzy stuff was glam rock with large chunk of pop music.

All those hardrock bands appealed to mainstream people who had no time for thrash or death or 1st wave black or even much NWOBHM (eg Saxon, Raven, Angel Witch), heavy metal (eg Manilla Road, Cirith Ungol, Helstar) and speed/power metal (Helloween, Jag Panzer, Running Wild etc).  

Your average fan never listened to Metallica until 1991.  They certainly didn't listen to Slayer or Exodus or early Death or Possessed.  

 

There was a bit of a period between 1991 and 1993 when metal was actually popular.  Even Morbid Angel shifted 100,000+ copies of Covenant.  And then metal almost died.  It got oversaturated and was abandoned by both music industry and supposed fans (except for a small handful of us dedicated nutters).

Except for a very few exceptions ala Slipknot, Nu-metal was not metal.  Mainly alternative rock bands that followed on from Faith No More (I loved FNM but they are mainly not metal).  

 

Again most nu-metal fans never listened to anything metal outside of nu-metal except maybe groove metal like Pantera or Metallica.  They certainly weren't listening to real metal which became largely underground (eg bands like Iced Earth, In Flames, Dark Tranquillity, Cryptopsy or leftovers from 1980s/early 1990s scene like Overkill or Death etc etc).

 

 

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sure you can kind of be an outsider just by being a music nerd. there are many different ways to not fit in

Of course, I've known nerdy outsiders who were Star Wars and comic book geeks before it was cool, artsy people, hippies, goths, punks etc.

 

It doesn't really work these days as everyone is so damned inclusive and everything is so sanitised.  Everything is just another marketing gimmick and product set, something to be sold and consumed and hoarded.  

 

Real meaning is lost to the 21st century westerner.

 

[RelentlessOblivion]

22 hours ago, Hungarino said:

Randomly just saw this, late to the convo as usual these days, but I must say that is super awesome about your cousin.

And for the record Rhea Ripley aka Mami is definitely badass. Her faction Judgment Day is the closest thing to a metal themed faction these days, albeit very weak kind of symphonic melodeath, but one of them and current Money in the Bank holder Damien Priest is a long-time metal fan.

The worse the world gets the more I like wrestling, but if you don't get it or buy in, like most things, it probably appears pointless and ridiculous. 

I feel like exactly that sentiment sums up metal, at most other outsider sub cultures. If you don’t get it, you never will, I wonder how many teenagers said exactly those words to their parents when the first discovering metal, or rap in the early 90s, before it became a commercial product, or to a lesser extent, wrestling, UFC, video games, D&D etc

[Dead1]

22 hours ago, Hungarino said:

The worse the world gets the more I like wrestling, but if you don't get it or buy in, like most things, it probably appears pointless and ridiculous. 

I actually enjoy wrestling in limited doses but that makes sense given I am a child of the 1980s.  I also love 1980s and 1990s action films (just introduced daughter to Predator).

 

Going back to my previous post:

Problem is the world is becoming like WWE - plasticky, gimmicky, contrived, mass produced.

And as I mentioned, yeah I like wrestling and enjoy the kayfabe.  But do I want the whole world becoming like that?  No, it's a scary horrific proposition that totally devolves the whole of human existence to mindless consumption without much agency.

 

TL;DR Do I want my metal to be like WWE?  Fuck no!

 

Yet sadly a lot of it is becoming that way - not just Five Finger Death Punch but whole scene with it's "metalheads are berzerkers and are here to destroy" mentality coupled with 50 million items of merchandise. 

[RelentlessOblivion]

Welcome to late stage capitalism my friend, you provide a market, we’ll mass produce the product as long as it’s profitable. Metal isn’t immune to corporate greed. Goes back to my original point really, we cynical few who actively seek out metal, who see kinship in strangers on an internet forum, who desperately cling to the rocks of Absu and Horna lest we drown in an ocean of trivium, are the outsiders.

 

Side note it’s hard thinking of band names which sound suitably like rocks when ripping off the cuff like that.

[z3r0]

good to know somebody else see how plastic this world has become.

[Hungarino]

31 minutes ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

rocks of Absu

Ok, now there has to be an Absu tribute band with this name!

 

1 hour ago, Dead1 said:

plasticky, gimmicky, contrived, mass produced.

But also like the world we inhabit, exponentially flashier, connected, technologically advanced, convenient, entertaining. 

The Wrestling shows of today are technological marvels, with laser light shows, world class sound systems, pyrotechnics and video production. Make-up and costumes are in general way beyond what they used to be. The story lines are all still pretty much the same. Its great for just turning the brain off and going along for the ride.

It is spectacle entertainment, about as good as we can make it, without any real consequences. Guilt free entertainment, juvenile and open for everyone to enjoy without judgement.

I think it is healthy to allow myself the freedom to enjoy the spectacle and get invested in meaningless story lines rather than wallow in the existential doom that is currently hanging over the world in the form of pending WWIII, US political catastrophe, and everyone's favorite the climate crisis. At some point you have to be able to say fuck it and enjoy the marvels of modernity, even with the knowledge that we are likely spiraling into the abyss. Enjoy it while it lasts, I guess?

I am sure there are multiple university theses that draw analogies between wrestling and modern society, and I am sure they received good marks.

[z3r0]

3 hours ago, Dead1 said:

By the time I was in high school (1993-96) metal, there wasn't many metalheads left.   

that probably depends on which part of the world we're talking about. like in my country more extreme metal genres were pretty big at the time, maybe not mainstream but there were many people into it, black and death metal bands had interviews in a public tv, even in small towns like mine there was a local scene from what i know. and now there aren't that many of us to actually make a scene. one old metalhead i known from my temporary work told me that there were black metal shows all around in our town back then and now there's literally nothing. it seems like it's all about social media right now. 

thanks for sharing your experience tho, very intresting read

[RelentlessOblivion]

Hmm I wonder, then again I did once write a Sociology paper analysing subcultures defined by social deviance so folks will write essays on practically anything.

 

Also Rock of Absu definitely only play Stone of Destiny.

7 minutes ago, z3r0 said:

that probably depends on which part of the world we're talking about. like in my country more extreme metal genres were pretty big at the time, maybe not mainstream but there were many people into it, black and death metal bands had interviews in a public tv, even in small towns like mine there was a local scene from what i know. and now there aren't that many of us to actually make a scene. one old metalhead i known from my temporary work told me that there were black metal shows all around in our town back then and now there's literally nothing. it seems like it's all about social media right now. 

thanks for sharing your experience tho, very intresting read

It’s worth noting that most bands don’t enjoy long careers, especially in extreme metal. It’s not really surprising that the local scene isn’t the same now as it was back in his day.

[z3r0]

19 minutes ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

It’s worth noting that most bands don’t enjoy long careers, especially in extreme metal. It’s not really surprising that the local scene isn’t the same now as it was back in his day.

the point is there is no local scene anymore.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

7 hours ago, Dead1 said:

There was but I doubt many such people were attracted to metal except really popular stuff like maybe Metallica.

By the time I was in high school (1993-96) metal, there wasn't many metalheads left.   So if you got into it, you probably were an outcast and didn't fit in with the sporty or nerdy cultures.

Nearly everyone but not all  I've known who became a full fledged metalhead was an outcast and misfit.

It's changed now that the internet has made it so accessible and it's been somewhat "normalised" in mainstream culture which you kind of refer to in this bit of your post..

It cheapens metal.  The original intent by Sabbath was to scare people and then punk added a whole layer of anti-mainstream attitude.

You read interviews with the originators of extreme metal (including thrash) as well as hardcore and a lot of them were very much counter culture and anti-mainstream.

Stuff's changed and it's for the worse - things like Hellfest turn metal into a circus and consumerisation make it just another throw away product.  Fuck that.

Very true.  I remember it because deep down inside I am still an old school socialist agitator that's lived through poverty, through war (Yugoslavia 1991), through physical and psychological abuse and through alcoholism and because I am aware of where society is going (, fragmentation, hyper individualism that is nothing more than mindless consumerism).   

So even though I crawled out of shit and became middle class, I still remember those old punk and extreme metal attitudes and values and they are a key part of my personality along with aspects of Marxism, Fabian Socialism and anarchist communism.

It's far more complicated.

Black Sabbath were around when there wasn't an actual metal scene.  Also most of their music is not metal (you have aspects of blues rock, folk, progressive rock, pure blues etc.  You might average 2-3 metal songs per album). Most metal bands then were actually just hard rock bands (AC/DC, Van Halen, Aerosmith etc).

First true metal album was probably Judas Priest's Sad Wings of Destiny (1976).  And even that took time to turn into a scene (really 1980s).

Most people never listened to a lot of metal in 1980s even if they claimed to.  As mentioned a lot of stuff lumped into metal was actually hard rock.  Even a lot of glam bands of 1980s weren't really heavy metal bands.  They were hard or pop rock (and I love Guns N Roses (hard rock) and WASP and Twisted Sister (probably two of the few you could call metal bands)).  Eg Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, Whitesnake etc all got called metal bands but they were really just rock.  Even a lot of Ozzy stuff was glam rock with large chunk of pop music.

All those hardrock bands appealed to mainstream people who had no time for thrash or death or 1st wave black or even much NWOBHM (eg Saxon, Raven, Angel Witch), heavy metal (eg Manilla Road, Cirith Ungol, Helstar) and speed/power metal (Helloween, Jag Panzer, Running Wild etc).  

Your average fan never listened to Metallica until 1991.  They certainly didn't listen to Slayer or Exodus or early Death or Possessed.  

There was a bit of a period between 1991 and 1993 when metal was actually popular.  Even Morbid Angel shifted 100,000+ copies of Covenant.  And then metal almost died.  It got oversaturated and was abandoned by both music industry and supposed fans (except for a small handful of us dedicated nutters).

Except for a very few exceptions ala Slipknot, Nu-metal was not metal.  Mainly alternative rock bands that followed on from Faith No More (I loved FNM but they are mainly not metal).  

Again most nu-metal fans never listened to anything metal outside of nu-metal except maybe groove metal like Pantera or Metallica.  They certainly weren't listening to real metal which became largely underground (eg bands like Iced Earth, In Flames, Dark Tranquillity, Cryptopsy or leftovers from 1980s/early 1990s scene like Overkill or Death etc etc).

Of course, I've known nerdy outsiders who were Star Wars and comic book geeks before it was cool, artsy people, hippies, goths, punks etc.

It doesn't really work these days as everyone is so damned inclusive and everything is so sanitised.  Everything is just another marketing gimmick and product set, something to be sold and consumed and hoarded.  

It's not untrue to say that "most people" didn't listen to metal in the 80's because metal is and has always been niche. So I'm not arguing that it was more popular than most other genres. But if we're comparing metal to its own performance over several different decades, metal enjoyed more widespread mainstream success and organic growth in the 80's than any other decade. And that's because it was very new and fairly visible/accessible even to the mainstream kids in the beginning, and most importantly there just weren't nearly as many different genre alternatives competing for young people's time and attention back then as compared to subsequent decades.

I would agree that none of that 70's stuff was truly metal as we think of metal today. But as far as what young people were listening to in the 80's, you had the disco/pop/dance/house music MJ/Madonna crowd who were the largest single block, and also rap was a brand new thing in '79/'80 that was starting to catch on quickly. There was the punk, post punk, goth, new wave crowd which was roughly as popular as metal, just the other side of the counterculture coin. Then on the rock side of things (very much an us vs them mindset back then, rock/metal vs everything else) you had all the 70's dinosaur hard rock bands still very popular on the radio and filling stadiums, then a bit later in the decade the 80's commercial hard rock/glam/hair band scene Motley Crue, Ratt, Skid Row, GnR got pretty big too. Then of course we come to our friends the metalheads, who began the decade with Sabbath, Priest, Maiden, Motorhead, Dio...trad metal which developed into speed metal and then a few years later we invented thrash. (I say "we" because that was my generation, people born in the early 60's who invented thrash right out of high school) And then as the decade wore on came all the more extreme metal sub-genres which stayed underground because no one knew how to market those vocals to the masses.

But I would say the fact that we went from Sabbath, Priest, Saxon, and Maiden in 1980 to all the myriad of brand new metal sub-genres by the end of that decade (and the fact that an extreme band like Morbid Angel could even sell 100k copies in '93) shows just how many people really were listening to actual metal (not just hard rock and glam pseudo metal) in the 80's. Extreme metal didn't just become popular in the early 90's out of the blue, most of those fans had gotten started with 80's metal before they graduated on up to death metal. You can't say that "your average fan" never listened to Metallica until TBA becase that perception depends on how old you are. In my generation and even people 10 years younger than me almost everyone listened to 80's Metallica, (and then dropped them like a live grenade after TBA and Load) there's no denying they've been the hot shit top dog metal band from RtL & MoP all the way up until today. 

Anything outside of those genres (like whatever Doc might've been listening to in the 80's) would have been even more niche and esoteric than metal. But we had no alternative rock (unless you wanna count post-punk or new wave as proto alternative) no grunge, no nu-metal and no extreme metal yet (other than thrash) til the very end of the decade. There was no internet or social media yet obviously, so people found new music on the radio, on MTV, in magazines, record stores and by word of mouth. Metal was visible on all those platforms except of course for radio in the 80's. And there was a thriving club scene back then as well (in the states) so I think metal enjoyed a pretty good market share of the total music pie in the 80's (at least with young people) as compared to how it's fared in subsequent decades. And in the states we had that whole PMRC backlash against the supposedly "harmful" lyrics found in metal and rap and the Congressional hearings in the 80's which meant they had to put warning stickers ona lot of metal and rap albums which only served to make those two genres even more popular with young people. I can't speak to how things were in Europe or Australia but I would say that typical young people in the US were more aware of and more interested metal in the 80's than their counterparts of today or any other decade since then have been. Because real metal went underground by 1990 and has basically stayed there ever since. Not that it was ever in any danger of dying because the metal faithul are very loyal. Also young people have many more genres to choose from nowadays, and I think many youngsters see metal as "dad rock" at this point anyway with metal and many of its fans being a good 45 years old now.

[SilenceAwaits]

I enjoy it being an underground thing, to be honest it is what first drawed me to Black Metal, I started learning riffs from De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas and I started to get a feel for it, before that I only listened to Gothic music and Symphonic Metal so it was a pretty exciting change for me, the music being hard to get to is what I enjoyed the most as I remember the first time I heard nothing but nonsensical noise, there's a local scene in my city that plays Grindcore and some other extreme genres so maybe it isn't even that unpopular to begin with, still really fun, don't think most parents would like to listen to it they get scared with rap music with swearing so good luck with that (I don't think my parents care or are worried about it as they have heard me play, they don't like rap, reggaeton, trap and most obscene music though as they think it is really stupid).

[RexKeltoi]

On 3/12/2023 at 4:36 PM, CreepyDarkPrincess said:

Such a bad feeling when you're the only metalhead in your town and have noone to listen some bands with... And even your parents don't fully accept your personality

Really a gross feeling...

 

In the early 70's there were not many people into metal even in big cities, we would congregate in record stores and at gigs , you would know practically everyone by name because it was the same people every time. When I saw Mercyful Fate -Melissa there was less than a 100 people in a bar in Toronto,  we did not even have cellphones or PCs so everything was by word of mouth but it was a tight knit community and not as divisive as it is now. Imagine being a musician and trying to find people to jam with, all my fellow musicians were about 10-25km from each other 

[RexKeltoi]

On 7/6/2023 at 10:31 AM, z3r0 said:

i used to hang out with that metalhead dude from my school for a while who was into 90s and 00s nü metal. we had so much in common that stupid young me asked him one day if he related to lyrics in any way and he said he didn't. that surprised me a lot because nü metal lyrics are just meant for outsider kids to identify with. and at the same time they're pretty easy to catch them by ear as the vocals are mostly clean. he also had many normie friends and quite good social skills, he just fited into society well. where there was me who haven't had any of that. that just killed the image of an outsider metalhead i previously used to have in my head. he also said once that he wouldn't like to go to some show with me because in his opinion people at shows are often smelly, dirty hobos (don't know how to exacly put this into words because of some cultural and language bariers but he puted it in less offensive way)

 

now from an outsider individual perspective such as myself - i personally don't think that it's something wrong with just liking the music as i myself mostly focus on the sound. that doesn't make someone less or more metalhead. but other parts of metal culture like moshing and aggresive, relative lyrics are also very important to me. moshing helps me to release all the anger and pain i keep inside. and lyrics are something i can relate to and identify with, maybe even some part of my fucked up personality, they often show my view and perspective on many things. also personal freedom search is a huge and important element of metal mindset to me.

speaking of mindset - in my opinion, there are many completly different metal mindsets depending on a metal subgenre. when in thrash, hardcore etc. it was all about the angry music and moshing, hating on society, often politicly focused lyrics appealing to lower working class. there was also death/black metal scene with its death/macabre obsession and occult/mythologic/pagan lyrics often used as a metaphor for releasing anger for christian religion which is enforced to many of us since childhood. there was also some kind of a life style attached to it with activities like sniffing dead birds or burying your clothes in the ground before the show which only true black metal outsiders like well-known Per Yngve Ohlin cultivated. you know anyone into black metal doing that kind of shit right now? but jokes aside - in subgeneres like black/viking metal or this kind of shit very important element was also love to nature which can be interpretated as self-freedom searching as well. and ofcourse you have subgeneres like nu metal/metalcore/sludge which focus more on feelings like pain, anger, depression and that kind of stuff and often feeling like an outcast to society as well. back then metalheads were people who didn't gave a damn what everyone thought about them. but there probably was lots of people under the influence or just people who happend to simply enjoy the music.

and one important thing - as you can easily (not always tho) say if vocalist of a band is a misfit while you read some lyrics, most band members just want to make good music and probably not everyone in the band feel like an outsider.

i hate doing monologues like this couse they're always turn out to be so chaotic and i often forget what i wanted to say actually but the point is not many teenagers now are doing this kind of stuff and even if they're into metal they focus mostly on the sound or fashion. at least people i known. it's not the same as it used to be in the 90s or 80s. and i'm speaking of the point of someone who never was able to experience these times but i somehow can see the difference. and another important thing i want to say is that metal always was a youth thing and back in the day people who were into it were mostly teenagers or young adults. it was even invated by teens. it seems like many people seem to forget how it was like to be a teen when they now have stable jobs or families. and most people in metal scene are old now.

but was metal scene always mostly outcasts and misfits if it was popular music for the masses since the begining with bands like black sabbath? a music of a whole generation? from what i know it was listened by everyone back then. same with nü metal in the 90s and early 00s

sure you can kind of be an outsider just by being a music nerd. there are many different ways to not fit in

At the end of the 60's into the early 70's people just referred to us as heads, perhaps meaning potheads, there was Uriah Heap, Deep Purple, Sabbath, Priest was just entering the scene etc.. there was not many of us and we had many friends that stopped hanging out with us because their parents said we were a bad influence so yeah we were outsiders but wore it as badge of honour not being a stiff considering there was shite like Bay City Rollers, The Osmonds and Jackson 5 being the rage with the mainstreamers. Working out and building muscle cars was the way we rolled, if you didn't workout the gino's did as disco had taken the world by force and gyms were the rage and the ginos and ginettes would roam the gyms while the metal heads which we were being called worked out in our homes or in the parking lot doing sets between working on our cars, if you didn't work out you were a punching bag. Metal heads fought with punks tooth and nail. unless at a Motorhead gig. Disco died, metal ruled then hair metal arrived it became the " mainstream " and everybody seemed to have longer hair, then metal heads became divisive, a lot of the pioneers gravitated towards grunge, jazz fusion etc.. and it started a rapid decline similar to disco and it became " uncool "  to identify as a metal head and it has mired in ignominy pretty much til the present day but not in the same manner as the inception when everyone was just a " head ". It had regressed into the labelling stage and unfortunately still is in many ways. The big difference in comparison is it used to be a masculine lifestyle, even the few chicks in the scene would kick your ass whereas now you have neckbeards, comicon types etc.. associated with bad hygiene and anger filled rager's more associated with the hardcore scene that I forgot to mention. If you have ever been exposed to the hardcore scene you would know exactly what I mean. Man if we had forums and stuff like that we could have grown the scene much faster, I find the lack of engagement on platforms surprising to be honest, it seems even modern metal heads have succumbed to the vapidity of main character syndrome on mainstream social media rather than connecting and supporting each other on forums like this. Just my observations from a member of the metal forefathers for what that is worth these days.       

[GoatmasterGeneral]

36 minutes ago, RexKeltoi said:

At the end of the 60's into the early 70's people just referred to us as heads, perhaps meaning potheads, there was Uriah Heap, Deep Purple, Sabbath, Priest was just entering the scene etc.. there was not many of us and we had many friends that stopped hanging out with us because their parents said we were a bad influence so yeah we were outsiders but wore it as badge of honour not being a stiff considering there was shite like Bay City Rollers, The Osmonds and Jackson 5 being the rage with the mainstreamers. Working out and building muscle cars was the way we rolled, if you didn't workout the gino's did as disco had taken the world by force and gyms were the rage and the ginos and ginettes would roam the gyms while the metal heads which we were being called worked out in our homes or in the parking lot doing sets between working on our cars, if you didn't work out you were a punching bag. Metal heads fought with punks tooth and nail. unless at a Motorhead gig. Disco died, metal ruled then hair metal arrived it became the " mainstream " and everybody seemed to have longer hair, then metal heads became divisive, a lot of the pioneers gravitated towards grunge, jazz fusion etc.. and it started a rapid decline similar to disco and it became " uncool "  to identify as a metal head and it has mired in ignominy pretty much til the present day but not in the same manner as the inception when everyone was just a " head ". It had regressed into the labelling stage and unfortunately still is in many ways. The big difference in comparison is it used to be a masculine lifestyle, even the few chicks in the scene would kick your ass whereas now you have neckbeards, comicon types etc.. associated with bad hygiene and anger filled rager's more associated with the hardcore scene that I forgot to mention. If you have ever been exposed to the hardcore scene you would know exactly what I mean. Man if we had forums and stuff like that we could have grown the scene much faster, I find the lack of engagement on platforms surprising to be honest, it seems even modern metal heads have succumbed to the vapidity of main character syndrome on mainstream social media rather than connecting and supporting each other on forums like this. Just my observations from a member of the metal forefathers for what that is worth these days.       

Where did you grow up Rex? Yeah heads meant potheads, but where I was in NY most of the 'heads' were listening to the Dead, the Band, the Who, hippie shit like that. Of course in the 70's pretty much everyone was a pothead to some extent, but those hippies were the overt potheads to where it became their identity. Those dudes didn't think the heavy shit was going to last, they thought it was going to be a passing fad. "Ginos and ginettes" I love this, in NY we called them "guidos and guidettes" same shit, different spelling.

I don't remember metalheads (term didn't exist yet in the 70's) being shunned or anything really, although there were only a very small handful of us in a school of 1,500 kids, so we sort of flew under the radar in the disco era. It wasn't cool or uncool, because the world wasn't even aware of metal's existence in the late 70's. I reckon the normies probably just assumed we were hippies because of the long hair. I was far enough out in the suburbs that we didn't even have any punks yet, I was literally the only punk (Ramones, Clash) fan I knew of in high school in the 70's. Although punk was just getting started then in '76/'77 there was no hardcore or anything just yet, so I identified more as a metalhead than a punk. Even though there wasn't really any actual 'metal' yet back then unless you count Sabbath as metal. But we listened to all those proto-metal heavy rock precursor bands.

Actual metal came along right after I'd graduated in '79, so I discovered all those early heavy metal bands on my own outside the context of school. Was a bit easier to network with fellow metalheads and hear about bands once we could drive and stay out late and go out to club shows 'n shit on the weeknights. I'm a bit jealous of the younger dudes who had metal when they were still in school, and especially the ones young enough to have internet growing up so they could hear any band they were curious about without having to buy the records first. It was fucking hard to find new bands back in the day when you didn't know any other metalheads other than your handful of closest friends, and had no way to sample shit. I was the one my friends looked to to find new bands for us to listen to, so I had to do all the legwork. Every trip tp the record store was a gamble, and money was tight, so to buy one record meant that you couldn't buy another one, so you had to choose carefully.

[RexKeltoi]

20 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Where did you grow up Rex? Yeah heads meant potheads, but where I was in NY most of the 'heads' were listening to the Dead, the Band, the Who, hippie shit like that. Of course in the 70's pretty much everyone was a pothead to some extent, but those hippies were the overt potheads to where it became their identity. Those dudes didn't think the heavy shit was going to last, they thought it was going to be a passing fad. "Ginos and ginettes" I love this, in NY we called them "guidos and guidettes" same shit, different spelling.

I don't remember metalheads (term didn't exist yet in the 70's) being shunned or anything really, although there were only a very small handful of us in a school of 1,500 kids, so we sort of flew under the radar in the disco era. It wasn't cool or uncool, because the world wasn't even aware of metal's existence in the late 70's. I reckon the normies probably just assumed we were hippies because of the long hair. I was far enough out in the suburbs that we didn't even have any punks yet, I was literally the only punk (Ramones, Clash) fan I knew of in high school in the 70's. Although punk was just getting started then in '76/'77 there was no hardcore or anything just yet, so I identified more as a metalhead than a punk. Even though there wasn't really any actual 'metal' yet back then unless you count Sabbath as metal. But we listened to all those proto-metal heavy rock precursor bands.

Actual metal came along right after I'd graduated in '79, so I discovered all those early heavy metal bands on my own outside the context of school. Was a bit easier to network with fellow metalheads and hear about bands once we could drive and stay out late and go out to club shows 'n shit on the weeknights. I'm a bit jealous of the younger dudes who had metal when they were still in school, and especially the ones young enough to have internet growing up so they could hear any band they were curious about without having to buy the records first. It was fucking hard to find new bands back in the day when you didn't know any other metalheads other than your handful of closest friends, and had no way to sample shit. I was the one my friends looked to to find new bands for us to listen to, so I had to do all the legwork. Every trip tp the record store was a gamble, and money was tight, so to buy one record meant that you couldn't buy another one, so you had to choose carefully.

I grew up in the housing projects of Toronto, from my recollection in our circle heavy metal became a thing between 77 and 78. in 78 Halen released their debut, Priest put out Unleashed in the East, Stained Class and Killing Machine, Scorpions Tokyo Tapes and Taken By Force AC/DC If You Want Blood, 77 I had bought Lights Out UFO, Motorhead, Cat Scratch Fever Nugent, and what I considered was changing the direction of metal Sin After Sin. Started playing guitar around this time. We learned songs by the needle drop back then, by the time you learned most of the songs you had to buy a new LP  I remember in the summer we had the bench press int he parking lot working out while the chicks sat around and checking us out, most people wanted to hear Nugent, Skynyrd, Rush and Aerosmith while me and my friend Johnny K wanted to listen to Sin After Sin etc.. Sabbath was going in a direction we didn't particularly like. Rush played at our school and so did Triumph who lit the stage on fire with flash pots, good times.    

[GoatmasterGeneral]

2 hours ago, RexKeltoi said:

I grew up in the housing projects of Toronto, from my recollection in our circle heavy metal became a thing between 77 and 78. in 78 Halen released their debut, Priest put out Unleashed in the East, Stained Class and Killing Machine, Scorpions Tokyo Tapes and Taken By Force AC/DC If You Want Blood, 77 I had bought Lights Out UFO, Motorhead, Cat Scratch Fever Nugent, and what I considered was changing the direction of metal Sin After Sin. Started playing guitar around this time. We learned songs by the needle drop back then, by the time you learned most of the songs you had to buy a new LP  I remember in the summer we had the bench press in the parking lot working out while the chicks sat around and checking us out, most people wanted to hear Nugent, Skynyrd, Rush and Aerosmith while me and my friend Johnny K wanted to listen to Sin After Sin etc.. Sabbath was going in a direction we didn't particularly like. Rush played at our school and so did Triumph who lit the stage on fire with flash pots, good times.    

Yeah, we were all mostly listening to the same stuff back then, there wee only so many heavy bands in those days. I just don't personally consider most of that 70's stuff you listed to be metal. Never could stand 70's Priest, that's all hard rock to me, which would be ok, I like hard rock, except those first 4 albums are just not good. They didn't release anything I liked and would consider metal until Hellbent in '78, which I didn't hear until '79. Love the Scorpions, but I didn't hear them until '79 either when I went away to college. Never really got the hype for UFO, they had a very small handful of decent tunes and the rest of it sucked. I'm a huge Motörhead fan, but I didn't hear them until '81 when Hammersmith came out. Not a Rush fan either, I just don't go in for the prog. But I kept buying their early records thinking maybe this time it'll be heavy. I gave up buying them after 2112 because I never played them 'cause I guess I wanted them to be something they weren't. I did used to like Triumph back in the day though, I suppose you could call them metal, first album I heard was Just a Game '79. Problem with Triumph was each album had 2 or 3 good songs and the rest was worthless filler. I was a big Zeppelin fan in the 70's too but again, not metal. I was born too early. Should've been born about 12 - 15 years later and then I could've come of age in the extreme metal era and skipped all that Van Halen Aerosmith AC/DC Ted Nugent nonsense altogether. Interesting that you don't like Sabbath, I was all about Sabbath in the 70's. Once I heard them the other 70's bands just didn't measure up anymore. I wanted all the other bands to be that heavy and they just weren't.

[RexKeltoi]

8 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Yeah, we were all mostly listening to the same stuff back then, there wee only so many heavy bands in those days. I just don't personally consider most of that 70's stuff you listed to be metal. Never could stand 70's Priest, that's all hard rock to me, which would be ok, I like hard rock, except those first 4 albums are just not good. They didn't release anything I liked and would consider metal until Hellbent in '78, which I didn't hear until '79. Love the Scorpions, but I didn't hear them until '79 either when I went away to college. Never really got the hype for UFO, they had a very small handful of decent tunes and the rest of it sucked. I'm a huge Motörhead fan, but I didn't hear them until '81 when Hammersmith came out. Not a Rush fan either, I just don't go in for the prog. But I kept buying their early records thinking maybe this time it'll be heavy. I gave up buying them after 2112 because I never played them 'cause I guess I wanted them to be something they weren't. I did used to like Triumph back in the day though, I suppose you could call them metal, first album I heard was Just a Game '79. Problem with Triumph was each album had 2 or 3 good songs and the rest was worthless filler. I was a big Zeppelin fan in the 70's too but again, not metal. I was born too early. Should've been born about 12 - 15 years later and then I could've come of age in the extreme metal era and skipped all that Van Halen Aerosmith AC/DC Ted Nugent nonsense altogether. Interesting that you don't like Sabbath, I was all about Sabbath in the 70's. Once I heard them the other 70's bands just didn't measure up anymore. I wanted all the other bands to be that heavy and they just weren't.

Actually I love Sabbath, they were my favourite but didn't get into Never Say Die and Technical Ecstasy, had a friend that bought them but I skipped on them, then got back into Sabbath when Dio joined for Heaven and Hell. Just something about those 2 albums that didn't connect, Ozzy was spent and that last tour in 78 with Van Halen opening blew them off the stage. I even like the Tony Martin era and Gillan material better than the last with 2 Oz. Lucifers Friend had a few good tunes in 70 but that was it. Cirith Ungol had Frost and Fire and were really underground, Sir Lord Baltimore, Budgie, Accept. I think the first tune I considered speed metal was Breaker. Hellbent was Killing Machine here and in the UK, the Christian thing going on in the US at the time made them change the title stateside from what I remember. I actually overlooked Highway to Hell which was also 78 and the first metal-ish offering by AC/DC. The most glaring difference and it is something my son pointed out as well, he is also a musician into metal is that in the beginning it was obvious who the metal heads were as most of us worked out and looked like bikers, whereas these days you can't even tell who is into metal for the most part. A guy who owns a metal record store actually looks like a office worker or door to door salesman and I see this a lot, people always say " hey, I love your Amon Amarth hoodie " and stunned I say thanks I had no idea you were into metal or would even know they were. It is almost like they don't want to be associated openly with the genre whereas for us it was a lifestyle, we all wore muscle cut off shirts, owned Harleys or Stangs, long hair, leather biker jackets and jeans. It's really kinda sad IMHO opinion sometimes you can't tell the difference between metal hards and wrestling fans and not in a good way. We are a rare breed these days it seems.