Music

Metal Isn’t Hip, Nor Should It Be

Or How Pitchforkmedia Is Ruining Yet Another Genre of Music

Within the past year or two, indie rock has taken heavy metal under its star-tattooed wing. A number of bands playing music which is unmistakably metal–downtuned guitars, double-bass drumming, apoplectic pacing–have gained popularity largely due to support not from fans of metal but from fans of indie rock –Wolfmother, Early Man, Pelican and The Sword being prime examples. These bands have been tagged variously as hipster metal, irony rock, or meta-metal. Other bands such as Mastadon and Sunn o))), already appreciated by metal fans, now receive acclamation in Pitchfork Media reviews. Hipsters wear Slayer shirts as one of many half-ironic fashion statements. And concertgoing-friends around the country have relayed stories of local indie bands incorporating elements of heavy metal into their music and performances. It’s true. Metal has entered the hipster community.

This development caught me by surprise. A metal listener since high school, an indie rock fan since college, I have always taken a certain joy in the fact that metal was a musical world unique from indie rock. This has been particularly useful for me in recent years when I have perceived a decline in the quality of indie rock and a failure of many of my once-favorite indie bands to continue releasing quality albums (see: The Strokes, Hot Hot Heat, Daft Punk, Metric). So for example when indie ‘failed’ in 2005-2006, there was plenty of metal available for me to discover. Apart from the classic bands (Black Sabbath, Megadeth, Metallica) and the mid-90’s metal with which I came of age (Sepultura, Pantera, Fear Factory) before nu-metal tainted the genre, American metal has actually experienced a rebirth in recent years, with bands combining the best elements from the metal tradition but still adding something fresh and new (Unearth, God Forbid, Lamb of God, Trivium).

Hipster metal ruined this beautiful dichotomy. But at the same time it has been hard for me to identify exactly why I have a problem with indie metal. For one thing, the bands in question are unmistakably metal. Mastadon stands out among them, effortlessly combining unrelenting aggression with technical proficiency and creativity in songwriting. Wolfmother and Early Man sound like Black Sabbath; I have no problem with a band unabashedly trying to sound exactly like Black Sabbath and succeeding. The Sword sound like European metal roughened by the grit of stoner-metal guitar tones of a band like Kyuss. Overall there’s nothing wrong with the way these bands sound; if they be poseurs, they posture perfectly.

Another consideration is that it would be at least hypocritical if not absurd for metalheads to accuse indie rockers of inauthenticity, since what genre is more mannered and postured than metal? Sure, metal artists and listeners pontificate endlessly about authenticity and bucking trends. But what fraction of metalheads actually live the life described in metal lyrics? Apart from anecdotes of puppies thrown into mosh pits to be killed, assisted suicides occurring on stage, and bass players cannibalizing drummers (I did not make up any of these), few metalheads are truly metal.

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With that said, I can identify three problems with hipster metal:

1. Ideologically speaking, metal must not be co-opted by another genre, for its existence depends on its distinctiveness. The current wave of indie rock has really not developed any new sounds of its own, but has borrowed the sounds of previous moments in the history of rock and arranged them in a musical bricolage. Everything from The Smiths to disco has been cut-and-pasted by indie bands in recent years. Metal is just the most recent of many genres to be affected by this process.The problem is that from its origins metal has marked itself off by clear, irreconcilable differences between itself and other genres. From Black Sabbath’s early songs concerning Satan and slighted robots murdering their creators to that convention most insurmountable for would-be metal fans — the use of screamed cookie-monster vocals — there has been, at least in theory, a distinction between metal and non-metal. In practice this distinction does break down (are AC/DC metal? Rage Against the Machine? Evanescence?). But conceptually metal identifies itself in part by making clear what it is not.Thus, the mere affiliation of these bands with indie rock taints their credibility. This does a disservice to these bands, who as I said above are, musically speaking, metal through-and-through. It especially hurts a band like Mastadon, who are not only entirely metal but are actually innovative and original. Furthermore, hipster metal is not merely affiliated with a non-metal genre, but specifically with indie rock music associated with fey intellectuals with thick-rimmed glasses who disdain the senseless aggression of a mosh pit and dislike Slayer because they sound “angry.”Thus no matter how metal hipster metal may sound, its affiliation with such an audience is inherently problematic. * * *
2. Many of the hipster metal bands are not innovative. I speak here not of a band like Mastadon, whose originality merits praise, but of something like Wolfmother’s emulation of Black Sabbath. This criticism again can break down in practice, since metal is in many ways especially resistant to innovation. The trait I mentioned in (1) above, that metal in part defines itself by what it is not, results in metal artists being particularly cautious about innovating, lest they innovate themselves into being non-metal.That being said, the best metal bands, especially the current wave of American metal bands, are able to remain within metal conventions but nevertheless push those conventions to new extremes and create new metal sounds. The ways in which this is done evade description and must be heard to be understood, but the result is something thoroughly new and thoroughly metal. A band like The Sword sound thoroughly metal, but in no way new. Emulation of the greats of the past makes for fine listening. But I worry that this could stifle metal’s growth, as emulation of vintage rock sounds has stifled indie rock’s growth. As Simon Reynolds succinctly put it in his 2005 book “Rip It Up and Start Again”, speaking of the demise of post-punk he says, “Post-punk’s essence was its vanguard mind-set of constantly looking forward . . . What changed in the mideighties was that bands increasingly signposted their reference points and that spotting these allusions became an integral part of the listener’s aesthetic response and enjoyment.” When spotting allusions to metal’s past becomes its sole enjoyment, its demise too might loom near. * * *
3. Indie rock fans with no prior familiarity with metal are not prepared to jump into hipster metal. There are two reasons for this. First, it would be like reading T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land without picking up the poem’s references to the canon of Western literature. The poem remains good, but a thorough appreciation requires deep familiarity with its contexts. Hipster metal can certainly be enjoyed on its own terms, but it seems to me that a genre so dependent on a set number of conventions is best enjoyed when one has real familiarity with those conventions. The only way to do this is to become familiar with Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, and Iron Maiden before ever hearing Mastadon or The Sword.Second, for better or worse, metal fans believe that familiarity with metal over time earns status as a true metal listener; as a corollary, metal fans bear a certain resentment to those who pretend to enjoy metal without having familiarity with much metal. Metal is not alone in this; punk and hardcore purists seem to do this as well, and certainly there are many fans of particular bands who because of greater familiarity may claim a band as their own and frown upon less dedicated fans. But again, metal’s mentality that its very essence is predicated upon its distinctiveness intensifies this attitude among metal fans. Therefore someone who listens to The Bravery and The Killers one month, then buys Mastadon’s album the next, and then claims familiarity with heavy metal, is rightfully suspect in the eyes of a long time die-hard metal fan.

I would be more favorable to hipster metal if I believed that its fans, liking what they heard in The Sword and Pelican, decided to investigate Slayer and Pantera. I doubt this happens much. Indie culture is definitionally a dabbling culture, full of artists and fans who have no shame in trying a little bit of one thing and a little bit of another in fashion, music, film, literature, and art. Hipster metal is the latest example of such dabbling; I expect that indie culture will quickly lose its taste for metal and move on. This is unfortunate, because to broaden its fanbase metal needs to find ways to get people to understand and appreciate its more difficult conventions; to convey the appeal of downtuned guitars, double-bass drumming, screamed vocals, and hardcore breakdowns; to show that listening to truly “angry” music every so often is fun and cathartic. Metal needs something to facilitate this outreach. But unfortunately, hipster metal is not the ambassador that metal needs.

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Mark Cichra was working on his PHD at the University of Chicago. He wrote about Tyra Banks recently.

© 2007 Obsolete Vernacular.