Have you ever yelled or screamed to express an emotion other than anger? Have you ever cheered on a sports team or screamed in sheer excitement, or maybe sheer terror? Me too.
When you hear a father screaming "Go, go go!" at his kid's Little League game, do either you or the child conclude that his dad is mad at him? Well maybe if the kid is autistic, but - yeah, me either.
Of course, screaming is usually a reflection of intense emotion, but the specific emotion itself can result from any number of different feelings - some good and some bad. We all understand this, at least most of the time.
But when you hear music with someone screaming the lyrics at you, what is your initial reaction? Many people find it disconcerting and unpleasant, and interpret it as anger. And though it certainly can come out of anger, the yelling is more a reflection of intense emotion than any specific feeling. It's conveying something too packed with emotion to sing in a gentle three part harmony, the same way you wouldn't whisper "This is the best day of my life! I'm the king of the world!" or "I can't stand this job another day - I quit!".
Take the screaming however you want. Art is in the eye (or ear) of the beholder. And if you don't like heavy metal, that's cool. This really isn't about taste. I'm just very confused as to why so many people take this certain sound to mean anger every time, when in other areas of life we all understand it is a way of expressing a multitude of different emotions.
The ironic part is that metal is the most inclusive genre of music I know, and yet it's arguably the most shunned by the rest of the music world. Personally, I like music with variety - bands who mix many different influences and genres together. Some of my favorites are "metal" bands who play a little bit of everything - jazz, southern rock, pop, dance, R & B, blues, and folk to name a few. I wish the the jazz bands, pop groups, and all the rest would mix in some metal every once in awhile. Now that's a show I'd go to!
But many people contend that metal is very static - always loud, heavy, and fast. And maybe they've never heard metal with a wide dynamic range, music that transitions from gentle instrumentals to funky abstract jazz, to grinding electric guitar, to doowop. Like any other genre of music, there's plenty of bad metal out there, and most of it makes its way onto the radio. But I would argue that pop, jazz, and the rest are far more static styles of music, genres that bind musicians to a certain style and dynamic range.
The metal I'm talking about runs the gamut from soft and gentle to loud and heavy and everything in between, but chances are you're not going to hear pop artists break into a hardcore breakdown. Singer-songwriters may make it down to the soft and gentle end of the dynamic range, but aren't going reach the top of the energy spectrum. They're bound by convention and are basically prohibited from venturing that far.
But metal bands are free to go anywhere they want because they've already broken convention. They're already running around like crazy people, banging out what is often quite complex, technical music and screaming "BRING ME THE HEAD OF ANDY WARHOL!" in one song and then following it up with an R & B tune. And that is precisely where their true freedom and power lies - in their lack of inhibition.
Like I said, it doesn't really concern me whether you like metal or not. That's not what this is about. I'm just so very perplexed as to why most people have this uniform reaction to screaming in the context of heavy metal, a sound they understand can have any number of different meanings in different situations. I find it very strange how something which seems so simple could be a mystery to so many.
When you hear a father screaming "Go, go go!" at his kid's Little League game, do either you or the child conclude that his dad is mad at him? Well maybe if the kid is autistic, but - yeah, me either.
Of course, screaming is usually a reflection of intense emotion, but the specific emotion itself can result from any number of different feelings - some good and some bad. We all understand this, at least most of the time.
But when you hear music with someone screaming the lyrics at you, what is your initial reaction? Many people find it disconcerting and unpleasant, and interpret it as anger. And though it certainly can come out of anger, the yelling is more a reflection of intense emotion than any specific feeling. It's conveying something too packed with emotion to sing in a gentle three part harmony, the same way you wouldn't whisper "This is the best day of my life! I'm the king of the world!" or "I can't stand this job another day - I quit!".
Take the screaming however you want. Art is in the eye (or ear) of the beholder. And if you don't like heavy metal, that's cool. This really isn't about taste. I'm just very confused as to why so many people take this certain sound to mean anger every time, when in other areas of life we all understand it is a way of expressing a multitude of different emotions.
The ironic part is that metal is the most inclusive genre of music I know, and yet it's arguably the most shunned by the rest of the music world. Personally, I like music with variety - bands who mix many different influences and genres together. Some of my favorites are "metal" bands who play a little bit of everything - jazz, southern rock, pop, dance, R & B, blues, and folk to name a few. I wish the the jazz bands, pop groups, and all the rest would mix in some metal every once in awhile. Now that's a show I'd go to!
But many people contend that metal is very static - always loud, heavy, and fast. And maybe they've never heard metal with a wide dynamic range, music that transitions from gentle instrumentals to funky abstract jazz, to grinding electric guitar, to doowop. Like any other genre of music, there's plenty of bad metal out there, and most of it makes its way onto the radio. But I would argue that pop, jazz, and the rest are far more static styles of music, genres that bind musicians to a certain style and dynamic range.
The metal I'm talking about runs the gamut from soft and gentle to loud and heavy and everything in between, but chances are you're not going to hear pop artists break into a hardcore breakdown. Singer-songwriters may make it down to the soft and gentle end of the dynamic range, but aren't going reach the top of the energy spectrum. They're bound by convention and are basically prohibited from venturing that far.
But metal bands are free to go anywhere they want because they've already broken convention. They're already running around like crazy people, banging out what is often quite complex, technical music and screaming "BRING ME THE HEAD OF ANDY WARHOL!" in one song and then following it up with an R & B tune. And that is precisely where their true freedom and power lies - in their lack of inhibition.
Like I said, it doesn't really concern me whether you like metal or not. That's not what this is about. I'm just so very perplexed as to why most people have this uniform reaction to screaming in the context of heavy metal, a sound they understand can have any number of different meanings in different situations. I find it very strange how something which seems so simple could be a mystery to so many.
