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My sister is 17, so we have a large age gap. We have lived apart from each other all our lives. Whenever I see her, something’s different – she’s taller, has glasses, has contacts, and so on. Hoping to influence her tastes, I’ve given her various albums over the years. Some have been hits (Ken Burns’ jazz box set, Stolen Babies); some have not (Pink Floyd, Northern State).
Recently she visited me. I was delighted to discover that she liked the Cynic and Dead Can Dance CD’s I gave her. Since I last saw her, she had started liking some metal – Metallica, Slayer, Iron Maiden. I asked her what Maiden she liked. “‘Alexander the Great,’” she said. “And some other song.” Her knowledge of Metallica, too, was only several songs deep. It turned out that she did not own or listen to albums. Instead, she downloaded random songs from P2P networks.
I was horrified. She did not know what the cover to Somewhere in Time looked like. I marched her over to a computer to rectify this. She seemed unimpressed. “There’s a lot going on,” she said. Kids these days! I asked her what Slayer she liked. “‘Angel of Death,’” she said. Good! But she didn’t know what the song was about, because she had heard the Apocalyptica cover first. Bad! (Actually, the cover is shredding. Headbanging to cellos sans drums is in fact possible.)
She also liked Disturbed. This, of course, disturbed me. In no uncertain terms, I tried to nip that in the bud. I felt like I had been derelict as a big brother. What is the job of a big brother, if not to train younger ones in the ways of metal? Still, my 17 year-old sister in 2009 likes Queensrÿche (or three songs, at least). She didn’t blink when I put on General Surgery. I can’t be doing that badly.
I have a similar deal going on with my little brother. I have to live with the fact that he loves Gojira but also drum and bass
Still, could be worse I guess.
My theory is that you gotta get ‘em early. My three-week-old and I listened to that new Blut aus Nord this morning in its entirety, and he seemed to be digging it. Meaning he slept through it without fussing.
I’ve tried and tried again to get my younger sister to come to the dark side, but to no avail. Even such tactics as starting off lite and trying to progress to the heavier and heavier were of no use. Now that she’s gone off to college, my influence has waned even more, and I’m ashamed to say I’ve somewhat given up. More ritual sacrifices may be in order.
slowly but surely. I should try to influence my older siblings. I’m not sure if they have the patience.
I was on the opposite side of that. My sister is about 6 years older than me and she got me into a lot of metal.
I still remember fondly her birthday present to me in 1990. Taking me to see Judas Priest, Megadeth and Testament at the Miami Arena.
I remember being enthralled by that Iron Maiden cover. What is with the kids today?
We’ve got to keep the faith and hope the metal brotherhood will continue over each new generation. My brother who is not into metal brought his three month old daughter at my parent’s home recently so I played her some music including some Sigh and she didn’t mind. In fact, she didn’t mind any music and I hope it will stay that way. It would be nice if the kid can bring some good music into her parent’s home instead of the pop stuff they both listen to.
Holy cow, floodwatch! Shouldn’t you be sleepless and stressed out, not, say, reading metal blogs? Good to see you here.
Kay – There are a lot of connections between dnb and metal (sometimes I post on them). Maybe your brother is onto something!
Man, we are playing kids some brutal s**t – Blut aus Nord, Sigh. *Excellent* [in Burns' voice, rubs hands together evilly]
What a GREAT post! I wish I had such influence on my younger sister when I had the chance, but she stayed in Normal Land and her kids now love Hannah Montana. I lost that battle…
What a GREAT post! I wish I had such influence on my younger sister when I had the chance, but she stayed in Normal Land and her kids now love Hannah Montana. I lost that battle…
I’m the youngest in my family. My brothers did not influence me in metal, but they did influence me towards rock. My oldest brother had the best taste (Pink Floyd, Zeppelin and the Police). The next liked The Police, Chicago (old) and Mannheim Steamroller. The one just older than I liked (and still does) Steelheart, Def Leppard, Warrant, Shania Twain, Richard Marx, Chicago (new), and Weird Al Yankovic. Maybe I have my brothers to thank for my extreme taste in music. They gave me something to rage against. Fuck, they listened to some horrible shit!
I wish I had a younger sibling to influence.
My younger brother’s into some metal – when we were kids, I was the Judas Priest fan and he was the Iron Maiden fan, but I borrowed his vinyl copy of Live After Death enough that the lines blurred. This past summer, he and I took his 10-year-old son to the boy's first concert – the Metal Masters tour (Priest, Heaven & Hell, Mot
My small brother is only 4 years younger than me and I’ve clearly influenced his musical taste. He borrows any album he wants from my collection and, fortunately, is far away from the Internet kid stereotype of our days: actually, it is me the one who downloads any album if it’s neccesary, and that’s what we listen to, FULL ALBUMS.
We both buy a lot of music (it’s not strange to see the same album on both collections), and sometimes his feedback makes me appreciate some albums I already knew from a different point of view. I’m glad we share all these experiences throughout music, but if we didn’t I couldn’t care less as I think he has the right to listen to whatever he wants to, as that’s exactly what I do.
Just kidding. If he didn’t like In Vain I would fucking rape his ass off.
My three younger brothers are always fending off my attempts to increase their metal awareness. Interestingly, I have been decreasingly successful as the age gap widens – 4 years difference: likes death, ok with black; 6 years difference: only likes specific bands; 9 years difference: has to be held down to listen to metal!
I agree with Anonymous above, I think there must be a path to metal that Works Every Time (TM), taking baby steps. I mean, you can get the excitement of a distorted guitar on some Beatles records! The power of the drumkit shines through everywhere in popular music. What is metal but the intense celebration of these factors?
Well put, Matt.
Indeed, older siblings have a duty to introduce their ignorant kin to good music. I recall gazing in wonder at my older brother’s Eddie flag, which spanned several feet of wall space. Who was this skeletal beast with shining eyes, I wondered. I’d rifle through his cassettes and be afraid to listen to any, since friends’ parents warned that heavy metal would transform us impressionable children into animal-murdering Satanists. Thanks to years of hearing Sabbath, Maiden, Priest and so many others rumbling my brothers’ bedroom walls, my friends and I finally bought our first metal cassette: Metallica’s newly released And Justice For All. I thought it couldn’t get any heavier or more sinister- until my older brother giddily showed me his freshly purchased Carcass “Reek of Putrefaction” tape.
You’ve touched on something that i’ve noticed in the last long while–albums, as a whole, are going the way of the dodo bird. Bands are under pressure to deliver 3-5 minute doses of the album, and we’re in a singles world to the point where it’s almost 1955-1963 all over again.
The Who started making concept albums because Townshend knew that unless you did so, you’d never really have the respect, you’d just be a singles band. The bands that have lasted the longest are album oriented bands, if you think of it–Beatles (Sgt Pepper’s), Who, Zep, etc. When you take the power of the complete album away from a band, you’re setting them up to fail, IMHO. It will be difficult to get an audience to believe that a band is about more than a song or a few songs, and that’s where the failure for bands is imminent. You can’t have a larger career unless you prove that you can provide more than singles, but if people are just going to listen to the singles anyways, then you’re doomed.
…also, throw Sabbath in there too. “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” (as you noted Cosmo), was that type of album that started to define them as being more than just a heavy band. If they had to just be heavy on every possible song (the singles), you’d never get to a “Fluff”, or even a song like “Planet Caravan” or “Orchid”/ “Solitude” on past albums, where they don’t sound like they do on the obvious heavy singles songs.
Producers are under this pressure to deliver more of the same, too. It’s why you’re getting more and more triggering and more metal albums that sound exactly like the typical genre. Maiden, if they were around today, wouldn’t be able to work their magic. Nor would Metallica–they’d be playing clubs and would have to rely on the exact same things as every other band to get noticed. Just a guess, but it’s my hunch.
…correction–if Maiden started up today, heh.
if it wasnt for my older brother , iwouldnt listen to metal. or be very awesome at all for that matter. i now have a 6 month old girl, and im passing along the metal. she falls asleep to nile. so obviously, im fucking stoked
Damn, it's been a while since I've been through my RSS feeds!
Anyway, this entry struck me as interesting, so some thoughts: though I think influence of an older sibling or a parent does help a lot in terms of metal taste. However, I think what you are attempting with your sister is futile. She sounds like my sister (who just turned 16)–she'll say something is cool, but I suspect she says that more to placate me than anything else. If she was really into it, she'd ask me about it way more, do research on her own, and she sure as hell wouldn't own a Metro Station CD right now. You just can't make someone a fan unless they want to be one themselves, no matter how many CDs you share over the years.
onerode – Good to have you back! I suspect you are right. I hadn't heard of Metro Station until you mentioned them. I still prefer Taking Back Sunday to whatever clones they spawn.