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17 July 2010

Follow-Up to Some Thoughts on Music Appreciation

subtitle: "The Anger in Aggressive Music"

Another argument levied against metal music is that it’s angry to which any metalhead will quickly answer, "Duh!" Like many genres, heavy metal has been a protest music of youth against its elders. It is also more than that, though. It has been a religious protest, in most cases specifically a caricaturized, absurdist response to pre-Vatican II Catholicism. It has been a class protest of the working poor against elites. The music of the Baby-Boomers was in large part anti-establishmentarian as well. Heavy metal was a response to what were seen by many as the excesses of those Baby-Boomer movements. Peace and love were replaced with hate and fear. More generally, the form of rebellion, as reaction, is ironically a reflection of that which it is protesting.

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