Hear This, Not That! - Metal Edition
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How many metalheads does it take to change a light bulb?
100. One to change the bulb, and 99 to name light bulbs that are better.
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Name a metal band (or a drummer), and metalheads will line up to tell you umpteen others that are “better”. Do fans of other kinds of music do this? If I say “Toby Keith”, would country music fans say, “You’re an [insert epithet], Tim McGraw and Vince Gill are better”? Why do people do this???
Sometimes, though, a gentle intervention doesn’t hurt. Your 15 year-old nephew is walking around in a Suicide Silence shirt, and it’s breaking your heart. “At least check out Dying Fetus”, you plead. “Or Suffocation or Cannibal Corpse”. After all, the future looks bleak in the hands of a generation of Suicide Silence fans.
Borrowing the popular “Eat This, Not That!” format from Men’s Health magazine, can you make good “Hear This, Not That!” suggestions for metal? Here are some guidelines:
- To keep things civil, your audience is your hypothetical 15 year-old nephew, not some faceless Internet person whom you’re calling names.
- Compare apples with apples, not oranges. Saying that one should listen to Pig Destroyer instead of Dimmu Borgir is not helpful. Saying that one should listen to Roky Erickson instead of Ghost is.
- Avoid generalities. Saying that one should listen to X subgenre instead of Y subgenre is not helpful.
Got it? Good. Go!
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