Heavy Metal: Now and in the Future
The state of heavy music and where it’s headed.
A Quick Recap
Heavy metal is a relatively new genre of music. In its brief history, it has represented cultural movements, embodied aspects of better and worse social scenes, and diversified into almost countless sub-genres and sounds. To properly discuss the present and future of metal, we need to spend a (very) hurried moment remembering the past.
Metal has roots in 1960’s British rock and roll, finding inspiration from bands like The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, and The Who. In the late-60’s to early-1970’s, metal fully emerged with Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Judas Priest among others. The music was steeped in jazz and rock and roll, but explored darker, moodier tones and lyrics. Distortion, extended guitar solos, and massive (read: loud) atmospherics were primary characteristics of early metal.
The late-1970’s and the 1980’s were the truly explosive years for metal, both in popularity and in diversity.
During what would eventually be dubbed the “New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM),” a catalyst for innovation and interest in metal music emerged in the U.K..
Bands like Motörhead, Iron Maiden, Saxon, Diamond Head and Def Leppard incorporated energy, aggression, and speed that had been prominent in British punk rock at the time. Along with a newfound identity, the NWOBHM brought a theatrical element to live shows, giving life to lyrical themes of fantasy and mythology. By the end of the 1980s, heavy metal would be widely accepted across the world.
On the other side of the Atlantic, American heavy metal took inspiration from the bombast and showmanship of British bands in two wildly different directions.
In the mid-1980s, in an attempt to one-up their British counterparts, American acts like Mötley Crüe, Alice Cooper, Ratt, and others amplified theatrics, often incorporating sex and drugs into lyrics and concerts.
Alongside the “glam” and “hair” metal acts, thrash metal developed, which took the musicianship of NWOBHM bands to a new extreme. Inspired by the wizardry of guitarists of the NWOBHM era, including mega popular Eddie Van Halen, many American thrash metal bands sought to bring fury and seriousness to metal through their instruments. Several gained widespread appeal, but the biggest bands earned the title, “The Big Four” of thrash — Metallica, Anthrax, Megadeth, and Slayer.
While heavy metal was becoming more palatable for mainstream audiences, a glut of sub-genres emerged at the same time, each adding a different layer to a familiar sound or creating whole new ideas from increasingly obscure influences. Among these sub-genres to gain traction were: death metal, black metal, doom metal, and power metal.
The Modern Era Begins
The early days of heavy metal are well documented, and while the modern era is happening as I type, it’s still important to look at recent history to see how the genre has evolved, and to anticipate where it may head next. First, we need to discuss where the modern era began.
Mega-popular acts like Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, and Iron Maiden had drained headbangers worldwide of their enthusiasm for heavy music.
Behind the success of late-1980’s metal, Grunge and Alternative Rock began taking center stage in the early and mid-1990’s. Heavy metal was growing stagnant — at least for a mainstream audience. Mega-popular acts like Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, and Pantera had drained headbangers worldwide of their enthusiasm for heavy music. It wasn’t until the late 1990’s and early-2000’s that metal surged seemingly surged from its own ashes.
Heavy Metal Expands
While heavy metal sank away from the mainstream spotlight, musicians stayed diligent, exploring further depth and nuance to an ever increasing range of sub-genres. However, there’s a good chance much of the innovation and creativity metal was experiencing at this time may have gone unnoticed if not for one small technological advancement: the Internet.
The Internet has been a boon for the entire world. Information travels from San Diego to Toyko in an instant. A mother in Stockholm, Sweden can buy a toy for her daughter from Anacortes, Washington, a riot in London can be broadcast live to the International Space Station, and families in Idaho can send holiday greetings in real-time to soldiers in Afghanistan. The Internet has connected cultures and people in ways that were completely unfathomable.
The power of the Internet has not been lost on the arts, especially music.
In the early days of the Internet — Usenet, message boards, IRC chat rooms, and AOL Instant Messenger — one service dared to contradict the recording industry, and socialize music: Napster. Napster allowed users to share music with one another through the Internet, much in the same way people would in the days of the compact disc and the cassette tape. MP3 files were easy to distribute and Napster created a global market for any musical act.
Though record labels, producers, and musicians (notably, Metallica’s infamous lawsuit against Napster) fought this change in business, listeners became exposed to an entire world’s worth of music. Before Napster and the Internet, radio, television, movies, and word-of-mouth were the only ways to be exposed to a wide audience. The recording industry has since embraced the Internet, and music’s accessibility continued to grow.
A Heavy Rebirth
As the Internet expanded, sub-genres that were becoming popular in smaller pockets of the world had become available to anyone interested. Fans of heavy metal, elated by the sudden outbreak of music, began to categorize and differentiate according to rhythmic structure, regional origin, cultural influence, subject matter in lyrics, tempo, vocal style, and many other criteria. Experimentation and avant-garde composition has diversified metal even further.
Author Garry Sharpe-Young credits the New Wave of American Heavy Metal with returning metal to a mainstream interest.
At the tip of the surge in the late-1990s and early-2000s, the American heavy metal scene began to bring together sub-genres the Internet had exposed to them. Their influences were coming from all across the world, and bands took advantage of a collective knowledge-base to create a wide-swath of music for every taste. Heavy metal was experiencing a renaissance.
Though the range of styles and sounds were becoming more and more diverse, the movement has become known as the New Wave of American Heavy Metal (NWOAHM). Author Garry Sharpe-Young credits the New Wave of American Heavy Metal with returning metal to a mainstream interest.
Bands like Korn, Killswitch Engage, Avenged Sevenfold, Coheed and Cambria, My Chemical Romance, System of a Down, Slipknot, and others have reinvigorated mainstream audiences, selling-out arenas and festivals in ways that echo the New Wave of British Heavy Metal in the 1980s. With so many sub-genres, metal has garnered an appeal for nearly any listener, making it easier to be fan and find a scene that fits for them.
Metal, What is it Good For?
Beyond the way sounds and rhythm affect a person emotionally, lyrics touch the heart and mind in a similar way. Metal has never been the first genre in the discussion of great and meaningful lyricism, but that doesn’t preclude listeners from finding songwriters whose words affect them.
Early on, metal was a bastion for the working-class in England, exploring themes of oppression and neglect. Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs,” — among others — was fairly explicit in its criticism of the times:
Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor, yeah.
Metal has continued its support and representation of the downtrodden and battered, speaking often of political attitudes and governmental criticism. Many songs having a political bent to them, and metal songwriters generally aren’t subtle in their views and criticisms.
Iron Maiden penned a tune about the displacement of native people, System of a Down argued against what they called senseless war, and Lamb of God explained how military aggression could breed terrorism.
Now in the modern era, metal isn’t afraid of approaching a wide variety of topics, from personal to global subjects, broad and specific.
Emotional themes once eluded metal, but have recently emerged as a powerful force to relate. Boston-based metalcore pioneers Converge, through their magnum opus Jane Doe in 2001, had singer Jacob Bannon draw on the pain and confusion of divorce and relationships. Jane Doe was remarkable for approaching a sensitive subject with a maturity that is commonly missing in metal.
French death metal group Gojira is a proponent for environmental conservation and protection. Frontman Joe Duplantier has even worked with activist group Sea Shepherd Society to create music for the preservation of whales and other sea life.
Gojira isn’t the only group to support animal rights. Death metal band Cattle Decapitation exposed the harsh realities of the food industry:
Stranded, bolted to the floor
to later be basted in its own fluidsChopped in half
collapse from exhaustion
Caligular method
of food preparation
Rusty nail-driven hooves
thrown in for texture and tenderness
Denatured and quartered!
The recipes complete
Lambchopped carnage/appetite for death
U.K.-based act Architects preached the benefits of respecting animal life:
If we’re gonna survive on this planet, we have to
Respect the rights of all those species to survive.
’Cause we need them more than they need us.
and progressive metal troupe Protest the Hero questioned logic of demonizing the American Pit Bull Terrier:
In relation to temperament, they pass with an overwhelming percent.
The American pit bull v. the American dream.
The task is ours to keep our dogs and children safe.
Disregard the media, or the province, or the state.
With a different target every decade or so…
Wonder What’s Next?
With any genre of music, listeners want to know or speculate where the soundscapes, lyrics, community, and culture will go. As difficult a task that may be for other forms, it’s equally vexing for metal.
For pop music, a homogenization is occurring. Elements of electronic music and hip-hop are pervasive in pop, and radio singles are becoming increasingly similar. Of course, each artist and group have their unique talents, quirks, and idiosyncrasies, but on the whole they’ve tapped into the same well.
Metal sub-genres are no different. Once a formula has been established, breaking the mold is not only sought after, but often times demanded. The pace of metal album releases is blistering, and a band has mountains to climb on their way to separating themselves from perceived norms.
As of writing, one of the more popular sub-genres is “djent” — characterized by an emphasis on palm-muted sounds and poly-rhythms. Popularized by Swedish group Meshuggah, djent has exploded in the progressive metal scene. Unfortunately for musicians inspired by the playstyle, the nature of it can constrain songwriting in favor of following “guidelines.” Some over-achievers have managed to expand and build upon Meshuggah’s lead, rather than simply following it — Sikth, Periphery, Animals as Leaders, and Architects, among others.
Derivatives of black metal are rising in recent years also. Black metal has always been atmospheric and brooding, but rooted in instrumental heroics and walls of sound. Bands like Deafheaven, Oathbreaker, and Weakling have broken new ground and have attempted to push black metal to new extremes.
For Deafheaven, shoegaze and post-rock mingle and create an almost radio-friendly version of black metal that has propelled the band to a level of notoriety and popularity rarely given to extreme metal acts. Not only critically acclaimed for their efforts, Deafheaven has performed at mainstream music festivals Coachella, Pitchfork Festival, and Bonnaroo. This might not seem special for fans of hip-hop, electronic, or folk music, but for a black metal band to be accepted like that is monumental for the wider acceptance of the metal genre.
And there lies the true mystery: will heavy metal ever be as mainstream as other music genres?
There’s no way to know if any metal bands will hit the same levels of stardom their predecessors did in the beginning. Metallica continues to sell-out arenas, Iron Maiden, Megadeth, and other forefathers are still in the limelight, still beloved, but the same can’t be said of many metal acts of the modern era. A few groups have come close: Avenged Sevenfold, Deftones, and Slipknot are at the top of that list. But, it remains to be seen if there will ever be a metal band that reaches the same heights of mainstream popularity.
One thing about heavy metal fans, though — they’re the most loyal fans of any genre, according to streaming music service Spotify. Taking that at face value, one can be sure that heavy metal will never die.