Sincere questions from a non-metalhead to metalheads: WHY do YOU listen to metal? What do you like about it and what draws you back to it?
Sincere questions from a non-metalhead to metalheads: WHY do YOU listen to metal...
Carter Edwards
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Carson Edwards
I honestly don't know how someone could not like it, especially if you're lucky enough to live close enough to a city to see live shows.
Jayden Mitchell
I like loud guitars and fast drums and screaming. That's about it.
Gavin Fisher
i listen to metal for the energy...thats WHY I listen to metal.
& baka that there are still people with a "satanic panic" reaction towards it.
Aiden Myers
40yo
Listening to a lot of varied genre since being 20, metal still satisfies a need to rock-out/be stimulated by fast~slow~intense shit/fun-techy shit/etcetc
Lincoln Martin
baka
Jaxon Brown
Well, I really like some metal subgenres, but I think the concept of "metalhead" is a bit twisted, as the word suggests someone is obsessed with metal
Wanting answers from people obsessed with metal might give you retarded answers such as "metal is a lifestyle \m/"
To answer your own question, you can literally just think about a genre's characteristics
People yelling/growling loudly, loud drums and guitars, distortion, dissonance, (sometimes) complex time signatures and progressions, etc
You can do that for every genre and you'll know why Genre X appeals to people
David Morris
>draws you back
Oh, now I get it, "growing up" & stuff
Chase Russell
Op here, it was a genuine question without any implications whatsoever. I meant "draws you back" as in "when you are done with your day job and errands and shit, what makes you play metal on your speakers instead of any other music?"
Not everything on Sup Forums is bait, believe it or not
Also, thank you all for the answers, as someone who does not understand metal and is not acquainted with any metalheads, this helps me understand the world of metal and metalheads a lot. Keep posting, I will be lurking
Luke Davis
It is about personal reasons and perceptions of metal from a fans' point of view. Tastes differ, obviously, and not everyone will like same characteristics of a music genre, and that is exactly what I am looking for in this thread: various reasons that fans of metal love it for. You can see in the answers so far that different people like it for different reasons. Generalization is often useful, but that is not what I am looking for here
Angel Bell
riffs
Asher Torres
Got into metal after a slow journey from rock getting heavier.
I mostly listen to prog now and I never really listened to metal for the sake of being 'br00tal' or whatever, I think it's more a case of getting used to the heaviness/growls and then discovering a whole new world of music. It's just a different style and to a certain extent you have to dip your toe in slowly before you can enjoy it, but there's a lot of creative and interesting music within metal that's too good not to pass up because one doesn't enjoy the heaviness.
Eli Jones
i like listening to it, retard
what draws anyone to any kind of music
Luis Fisher
Multiple things for me:
Riffs
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Bass heavy sound
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Catchy
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Ridiculous
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Or just plain stupid and fun
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Groovy
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Mellow and easy going
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Wyatt Taylor
it depends. the basic 'idea' that underpins metal as a whole is the heavy-riff idea- the method of composing songs where the riffs aren't used as hooks (like in a lot of hard rock or blues type stuff) but as the main propelling force of the composition, and where the basic tone of the music is very extroverted and larger-than-life. this or more or less where the appeal of this music comes from, cos it lends itself to making music that feels consequential, with these harsh/loud textures and involved phrasal songwriting giving the impression that there's like this big important thing happening around you.
Brandon Reyes
Could you explain to me, layman-style, what are riffs and what are hooks? English is not my first language and I am unfamiliar with these terms. Explaining those will help me understand your post as a whole
Ayden Mitchell
>riff
Short, repeated pattern of notes, repeated throughout the song.
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Gabriel Campbell
Live shows are better than anything, energy-wise, youve ever been to. also, in terms of the music, nothing comes close.
Henry Murphy
well a riff is like a musical phrase that usually gets repeated. in lots of different kinds of music, you hear riffs being used in lots of different ways.
in a lot of rock or pop music, you hear riffs being used as hooks, and a hook is like a catchy or memorable part (sort of analogous to a chorus). so this is an example of a riff being used as a hook:
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you can see that basically there's that one really memorable riff at the beginning, and that's what the song uses to 'hook' you in. now compare with this:
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this has got a big memorable 'hook' kind of riff, but the song itself is actually a succession of different riffs- the whole thing is made of riffs, it doesn't just 'use' riffs as a catchy chorus. because of this kind of riff-based writing, they can suddenly change key and tempo at 3:10 and still have it make sense, and do it again at 4:38. this is one compelling thing about metal- the whole riff-idea means that you're building songs out of successions of phrases that can progress from one another, that can have these kinds of big changes and feel like they're going somewhere without being restricted to just one tempo or set of notes to work with. just the feeling of a good heavy riff is also very appealing- there's this brute kind of basic pleasure that comes from hearing a band put everything they have into expressing a big fat heavy riff, and metal capitalises heavily on this.
Kevin Nguyen
I listen to metal cuz of the energy and aggressiveness of it. It makes feel like I can kick anyone's ass and that gives me confidence. Also when I was younger I was pissed off at the world all the time, so it functioned as a vessel for me to project all of that negativity and release it from within me. Now I always comeback to it cuz of the sheer energy that it injects in my veins. It's really fucking exciting.
Lincoln Hernandez
this desu
Aaron Lewis
cause it's powerful
Jacob Martin
R I F F S
Daniel King
Because I enjoy how over-the-top it is. It's also energetic and amps me up at the gym
Nathan Campbell
The energy it emits, mostly. I listen to punk for the same reasons.
There's also mental images that the music can help paint like listening to the The Sword describes Conan like scenes, Trivium has a song entirely about Cronus and his genitals getting cut, Converge has a song that's basically about losing your dog. I dunno, man. It's varied but the thing I keep coming back to metal for is the aggressive sound. It sounds lame as fuck but it can be therapeutic sometimes.
But I feel you can still apply a lot of this to other genres.