Comments on: In the age of Obama, will heavy metal suck again?

By: What?

What? — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:50:26 +0000

Metal, like punk, signifies rebellion. People who listen to metal typically have more “conformity” to rebel against when Republicans are in office. Jay, you’re an idiot. Stop saying that in the next few years.

Oh, and I listened to two of those bands, “Fan of Japanese metal.” Sorry, but they blow. I live in Japan, and there’s stuff that doesn’t sound like garbage recorded in my shower here. I thought that might be nice to propagate since people could accidentally judge heavy Japanese music by the bands mentioned in your post.

By: Kurt K

Kurt K — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 13:15:38 +0000

What the F. are you people talking about? What’s starting to bother me (I’m a 75% liberal, 25 % conservative- therefore I’m a liberal) is that it’s seems pretty obvious to me that Heavy Metal (American) and your whole Ted Nuge, Van Halen rock folks are all conservatives! It doesn’t bother me too much though, ’cause I mainly listen to European Metal (Opeth, Behemoth…) and they are not conservative at all (by American standards). There are very few American Metal bands I like (musically), but they are Nile, and Nile.

By: Jay Reynolds

Jay Reynolds — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 08:52:13 +0000

I have been saying this for years! The liberals hate Heavy Metal. They tried to kill in under Clinton/Gore and Tipper Gore. Funny how it came back under Bush. I am worried about this! I hope this doesn’t happen under Obama but it’s looking that way. Surprised you voted for Obama.

By: Fan of Japanese metal

Fan of Japanese metal — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 16:51:32 +0000

The author and subsequent commentators have ignored a relatively new source of great metal: the East, and in particular, Japan. Acid Mothers Temple is one of the best bands I’ve heard in ages… They appropriate Hawkwind’s trippiness and take it to absurd lengths. Abigail has to be one of the fastest, meanest bands on the Earth. Boris is both very experimental and truly, truly headbanging. I could name more bands, but it’s up to you to find out about them.

By: maloderous

maloderous — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:15:56 +0000

Infernal Hailz George!

Hell, even Metallica has made some sort of veiled comeback… the last good thing to come out of 2008.

By: J. Saxon

J. Saxon — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 21:15:12 +0000

I don’t see much to disagree with as to the central thesis: I’ve always thought of Heavy Metal to more of a right-wing political form. To be sure, Metal doesn’t really have much of a political slant, but to the extent there is one, it’s decidedly not left-wing.

All the hippy nonsense of the ’60s — and all it’s awful leftish love-in tripe. In fact there have been accusations that Metal acts had a fascistic aspect to it, with imagery and dark subject matter. While fascism has nothing to do with conservatism, they do both reject this one-world U.N. sort of mentality where the America really is the evil of the world.

Metal bands are far more likely to be patriotic flag wavers than the artsy stuff spewing out of the mindset of the Don Henley and Neil Young crowd. In the last gasp of the Bush years we have seen albums from AC/DC and Ozzy. Metal the way metal is supposed to be.

I confess, I’m a Reagan era metal fan, the 90′s saw a splintering of metal into dozens of genres. Don’t think any of them really captured the genius of early Metallica or Megadeth. Hair Metal was a more female oriented genre, but until it devolved into Mr. Big and White Lion, there were even some good natured hedonistic songs, Def Leppard, Motley Crue, and some Ratt and Whitesake. Whether they all qualify as Hair, or developed into or out of it is of question. Still had some good songs.

Just another great aspect of the Reagan Era.

By: Calpico

Calpico — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:20:20 +0000

Well looking at this year’s releases so far I don’t think so. Metal in the US is taking a turn towards experimentation. Sunn 0))), who I originally found to be very boring and inaccessable, just released one of the best metal albums of the year with Monoliths and Demensions. You have Nadja and Pyramids, two of the best ambient metal bands, collaborating on what should be an amazing album. Slayer, the only one of the big four thrash metal bands who don’t suck, are releasing an album and from the few songs I’ve heard it’s pretty solid. Then you have Pelican who are just so fucking good. Wolves in the Throne Room’s latest album was good. I think Metal will continue to flourish even though Obama is in power as long as the wars are still going.

By: T.Jackson

T.Jackson — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 15:05:58 +0000

Agreed, Europe has some very good metal still…. refer to bands like Amon Amarth. Even some bands like ‘doom’ metal band Tristania have lost their emoness. And Rhapsody of Fire (formerly known as Rhapsody) is simply amazing epic melodic fantasy metal.

However, there are some Christian metal bands that are worth listening to…. Living Sacrifice, which has a very dark, almost black metal sound at times…. Demon Hunter, who are a metalcore band, had some very sucky rappish lyrics until about their third album, The Triptych, which had a more pure metal sound… and The Great Commision, a comparitivley new band that actually plays “Heavy freaking worship” (I.E. lyrics like “The Way, the Truth, the Life”… sung in death metal style.)

However, bands like Godsmack do seem a bit… weak compared to the old…

However, hopefully, Christian metal and bands like Amon Amarth will still thrive, even if (as some liberals treat him) Our Father Who Art In The White House, Obama, IS in power.

By: James

James — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 19:37:23 +0000

What has been said about Europe keeping the metal flame alive in the 1990′s is very true. As an 80′s metalhead and traditional conservative, I hated 90′s grunge and was thrilled when the internet came along. It allowed me to learn about great European power-metal bands I had never heard of like Helloween, Gamma Ray and Grave Digger. They played a melodic, sophisticated but aggressive style and had songs which could appeal to a traditional conservative-historical epics and criticism of modern society. Heck, Helloween did the most powerful “Christian metal” song ever on their 1998 album Better Than Raw. The cool thing is its in Latin! Metal can be a very conservative genre of music in many ways, an idea I’m sure surprizing to older members of our brood. But, its true.

By: Death Metal Dan

Death Metal Dan — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 03:24:12 +0000

It’s funny to see this article here as this was somewhat of a worry for me with Obama getting elected. The reason metal does so much better during a Republican administration is easy to point out though. Republicans are typically complete and utter hypocrites who want to shove their own backward moral agenda down your throat. We’ll let Tipper Gore into that crows too. Hypocrisy is spotted fairly easily by younger people. Young people also have a tendency to get pissed and disillusioned but don’t have to skills to channel that into something productive so seek out things like metal. When you having someone telling you you’re going to some miserable hell, and that you’re a piece of crap, and that god hates fags, and you need to find Jesus, and then everyone they look up to gets busted with drugs, hookers, or turn out gay on a regular basis, it’s hard to take them the least bit seriously as rational human beings. Oh, not to mention that starting especially with Reagan that Republicans like to waste our money even faster than Democrats. Republicans can’t win by just making scared overly religious white people afraid of everyone else anymore. What is sad is that most people in this country would really like to have fiscally conservative party. Some people still think Republicans stand for that and some know better. Unfortunately the Libertarian Party seems hell bent on scaring away as many people as they can, not realizing they need to ease people back into freedom rather than campaign on nuking the system overnight. So far though, I’m pretty sure Obama is going to keep metal going strong. The new trend in music and media in general is apocalyptic material. I think the reasons why are obvious.