None So Vile
So maybe I can consider this somewhat of an intervention. Maybe not so much that as a sanity check. I went to the record store to buy some Mountain Goats tickets. Okay, cool, mission accomplished. Unfurl the banner on the aircraft carrier, right.? not quite. I realised that I had left the store with 5 CDs in tow, all bought used. Nothing unordinary there - I like buying music. Call me one of the Great Old Ones if you will. 4 metal CDs and one Jazz. I got home and realised, holy crap, of the array of albums strewn around my room, a full 80% of what I have been regularly listening to lately is heavy metal - stop, pull back. Is this a problem?
I mean, I love heavy metal, but I am afraid I may be turning into 'heavy metal guy.' I mean, I like to think I keep up eclectic enough appearances and company and the like to avoid falling down that pit, but maybe I am wrong. I don't actually own a Goatsnake or Lair of the Minotaur T-shirt, but I would probably wear one if one came my way. I think that gist of it is is that while I like heavy metal and even some of the underlying values it epitomizes, I am not one with its culture, and I don't think I ever will be. I think I will be comfortably safe as always seeming like an outsider to the subject, even if I listen to it with a majority of my music time.
I was a lot more amped up when I started this post, but that;s faded, so I'll leave you with a post I found on the internet. It pretty solidly sums up why I like heavy metal. It is not just the songs (which slay, I'll admit), but also an underlying philosophy. A framework, if you will, that all good metal follows in some way or shape.
I like the Nile quote because it articulates rather well what to me it seems it's all about, without already being down the metal rabbit-hole: the moment of annihilation, when you aren't the killer or the killed but yourself a part of the spirit of destruction. Surrounded by death on every side, you don't suffer helplessly but become part of the terrifying host itself. Senseless destruction is metal. Tornadoes? Metal. Tidal waves? Metal. People being crushed underneath the juggernaut as they throw themselves at it in devotion? That is metal. Glaciers slowly and inevitably coming down from the mountains, laying flat the earth before them, crushing all in their path, carving valleys as they go? Glaciers are God's way of making the sign of horns. Christ the Redeemer hanging broken from the cross, the sky splitting in anger at the blasphemy - that is pretty fucking metal: being Jesus, being Longinus stabbing the Saviour in the side, being the lamenting believers seeing their Lord become God by suffering before them, any one of these roles screams metal. Unfortunately, Christians don't embrace this very often (the lapsed ones do), so they don't join the party. Not metal.
Metal is not about taking sides, it is certainly not about winning. Cuchelainn tying himself to a post to stay upright and stop his guts falling out of his slashed belly, taunting the army arrayed against him to come and fight, that's what it's about. Desparation, destruction, death. Metal is being caught in a lose-lose situation, and mking something out of it. It's not glorifying the circumstances, but it is revelling in the awesome powerfulness of the forces against you even as you are about to be crushed, admiring the sheer forcefulness of the situation that would be a closed book to you if you were trying to get out alive. Regret is not metal, abandon is.
- credit to a poster named Good Intentions
I mean, I love heavy metal, but I am afraid I may be turning into 'heavy metal guy.' I mean, I like to think I keep up eclectic enough appearances and company and the like to avoid falling down that pit, but maybe I am wrong. I don't actually own a Goatsnake or Lair of the Minotaur T-shirt, but I would probably wear one if one came my way. I think that gist of it is is that while I like heavy metal and even some of the underlying values it epitomizes, I am not one with its culture, and I don't think I ever will be. I think I will be comfortably safe as always seeming like an outsider to the subject, even if I listen to it with a majority of my music time.
I was a lot more amped up when I started this post, but that;s faded, so I'll leave you with a post I found on the internet. It pretty solidly sums up why I like heavy metal. It is not just the songs (which slay, I'll admit), but also an underlying philosophy. A framework, if you will, that all good metal follows in some way or shape.
I like the Nile quote because it articulates rather well what to me it seems it's all about, without already being down the metal rabbit-hole: the moment of annihilation, when you aren't the killer or the killed but yourself a part of the spirit of destruction. Surrounded by death on every side, you don't suffer helplessly but become part of the terrifying host itself. Senseless destruction is metal. Tornadoes? Metal. Tidal waves? Metal. People being crushed underneath the juggernaut as they throw themselves at it in devotion? That is metal. Glaciers slowly and inevitably coming down from the mountains, laying flat the earth before them, crushing all in their path, carving valleys as they go? Glaciers are God's way of making the sign of horns. Christ the Redeemer hanging broken from the cross, the sky splitting in anger at the blasphemy - that is pretty fucking metal: being Jesus, being Longinus stabbing the Saviour in the side, being the lamenting believers seeing their Lord become God by suffering before them, any one of these roles screams metal. Unfortunately, Christians don't embrace this very often (the lapsed ones do), so they don't join the party. Not metal.
Metal is not about taking sides, it is certainly not about winning. Cuchelainn tying himself to a post to stay upright and stop his guts falling out of his slashed belly, taunting the army arrayed against him to come and fight, that's what it's about. Desparation, destruction, death. Metal is being caught in a lose-lose situation, and mking something out of it. It's not glorifying the circumstances, but it is revelling in the awesome powerfulness of the forces against you even as you are about to be crushed, admiring the sheer forcefulness of the situation that would be a closed book to you if you were trying to get out alive. Regret is not metal, abandon is.
- credit to a poster named Good Intentions