Metal, like most music, is a form of art. Now before you throw this work away in disgust, humor this notion. Let’s go at this from a rational direction, although art is hardly rational. The term art is very broad. So much so that for years there have been discrepancies as to what is to be considered art. Plato, in The Republic, advocates that which is an imitation of reality, although in the modern society, that definition has been expanded to include anything which elicits and aesthetic response within the individual. It is this second definition which is most useful, for it has been around longer than metal itself, and metal as a form of art is created with this definition in mind. Whether you’re listening to Lamb of God or Bach, you’re listening to art. I know this can be hard to understand, but think of it in terms of other artworks. Michelangelo and Andres Serrano are both artists, and yet The Mona Lisa and Piss Christ have drawn very different emotional responses. While one may not agree with the substance, art gives an emotional release for the artist, and oftentimes the audience as well. Hell, what you’re reading right now is art in a sense.

Perhaps you’ve said it before, or heard it said, “I don’t like metal because it’s all angry.” That is hitting the nail on the head as far as this topic is concerned. Anger, love, sorrow, loss, joy, gain, all these feelings can be encompassed within music, particularly metal. A whole rollercoaster of emotion is available at the click of an ipod. It is this feeling that music causes that is what makes it irrational. After all, feelings are the least rational aspect of human nature, and yet these govern more decisions than logic and thought.

Metal has a far different audience than other forms of music because of this insistence on feeling. What other genre’s speak directly to feeling? Rap? Not as much. Pop? Not at all. Metal has roots in three sources of music, although two of these take root in the third. They are Country, Blues, and Classical. All modern music takes at least some root in classical music whether it is in Gregorian Chants or Baroque Period or Neoclassical movements. Blues and Country both rose before metal, and many bass lines in metal are based around the blues scales discovered in this period. And without such straightforward music as early Country, no one would have dared to see what boundaries could be pushed, resulting in no Elvis, no Beatles, no Hendrix, and certainly no Black Sabbath.

Is this a digression or does it prove a point? Mostly its background to explain some aspects of what draws metal fans to the genre. One can’t know why bees are attracted to flowers without first understanding something about the flowers themselves. But in this case, the pollen is feelings, the range of feelings that come from listening to metal. If you are a metalhead, can you deny feeling powerful as James Hetfield screams “Master, Master, where’s your dream that I’ve been after. Master, Master, promised only lies”? Or do you feel the loss and despair in Tool’s Aenima? Of course.

I started listening to metal around the sixth grade. I would have been twelve or thirteen years old at the time. I wasn’t as deep into the music as I am now. Kid Rock, Limp Bizkit, Papa Roach, and the rest of the Nu Metal bands were my transition. Sad to say, I probably still have an autographed picture of NSync in my parents attic from when I was in elementary school, back before I looked to music for feeling, for meaning. It was something to listen to while I played video games after school. But the transition to middle school, combined with the instant desire to feel rebellious that all teens get around that age caused a change in me. It didn’t help that my mother, who I hadn’t seen in almost a year, died that year as well. I was looking for something to make myself feel like I wasn’t alone in the world. Metal artists sang about the very things that 

I was going through. The sadness, the powerlessness, the rebelliousness. It gave me company within my soul. It asked for a response and it received a resounding guttural growl(as guttural as a boy going through puberty can muster that is). When I broke up with a girlfriend after three years of dating, Corey Taylor and his 8 friends in Slipknot knew exactly what words and sounds I needed to hear to get back on my feet and get back into the world, right after J. Loren and Hurt soothed the wounds by sharing some of what they have been through.

But this is just a part of the journey of one metalhead. The culture is made up of millions across the world. Some come to metal for emotional responses or for empowerment, others are raised with the sounds. It doesn’t matter how they come to listen to the music, what they all share is that they all feel while they listen to the music and that that is what keeps them listening to their music of choice. Every single metalhead I have every spoken to has used that “feel” word at least once in a conversation in the effects of the music.

Now that you have a very basic and general understanding of what it is that makes metalheads listen to the genre, we can look deeper into the genre to see what unites them, what divides them, and just what it is about them that pushes them away from the spotlight, and yet draws attention at the same time.