Metal: Music for Jerks?

Part of Stephen King's It (the book) stayed with me almost as much as the image of the clown pulling the small child down into the gutter. The image of the violent, hot-headed school-dropouts who throw a gay guy off of a bridge stayed in my brain because the assailants were described as typical uneducated, homophobic, small-town troublemakers, and they listened to Judas Priest, Twisted Sister, and some made up band called Dead Bugs (is that really a metal name? Sounds more pop-punk, but I digress).



The image of the bullying, senselessly violent jerk has been linked to metal in movies and lit for too long. It's pretty easy for most people to think of some cackling nitwit blaring Pantera as he dissects a live animal, or some kids blowing up a school with Slayer on their headphones. The antagonist of Toy Story has a poster on his wall that says Megadork, and while that's not the name of a real band, it's unlikely that the Pixar writers ever thought of using the name Dork 182 instead.

So why is bullying affiliated with metal? In general, metalheads are by far the nicest music fans that I know--they start up friendly conversations with total strangers at shows, have no pretenses about who's more metal than who, and never pretend that they're not having a good time or that they're too cool to headbang or flash horns. Anyone who gets knocked down in a mosh pit is immediately picked up by his peers, as is anyone who falls from crowd surfing. Anyone who gets too violent is escorted to the door. Most people who I thought were jerks in high school listened to emo. So where did the stereotype that metal is the soundtrack to the lives of assholes stem from?



I don't think people are impressionable enough to believe the bad name that the media gives metal. It's all but ignored in mainstream music publications, and most news coverage metal gets is from Tipper Gore-esque dimwits clamoring for censorship, Geraldo-esque attention -seekers investigating "Kids who Kill" (4 out of every 5 listen to Venom), or some distraught parents claiming that their daughter was killed by some guy in a C.O.C. shirt, so now they're suing Pepper Keenan. Most people would tell you (incorrectly) that Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were metalheads, and I'm guessing that many people would consider the hardcore bands that dominate skinhead rallies to be as metal as Iron Maiden. Maybe I'm overestimating the public's BS detector, but we use terms like "Religious Right" because we can tell that both religious people and right-wingers are not all completely kooky--just people like Pat Robertson who the media can't tear themselves away from. Metalheads and metal bands should get the same benefit of the doubt that Christians and Republicans get.

Another possibility as to why metalheads are stigmatized is that people don't like the music and affiliate it with people they don't like. Along with rap, metal is the most polarizing music in the world. It's hard to think of another kind of music that's so deeply and widely reviled, and this may have something to do with why it's affiliated with jerks. I mentioned earlier that I disliked the emo kids that I knew while growing up. Emo music itself absolutely makes my skin crawl. I don't detest emo because I don't like the fans--there are plenty of nice kids with bad taste in music. But it's not hard to affiliate what's annoying about emo with its fans. The same goes for people who find metal music scary, ugly, and cacophonous. They probably view the fans the same way.

I'm not saying that Stephen King thinks that metal is scary, ugly, and cacophonous--in fact, I've heard that he enjoys Rob Zombie. But he does have a great sense of what scares the public, and I'm sure he knows that (sadly) most people view metal fans as behaving the way they do in his book. But can't someone write a book where the bad guys listen to Bryan Adams?

The Greatest Evil Laugh in Music History

A great evil laugh is freaking hard--try one, right now. Any time I hear a good one pulled off, I'm duly impressed. The rest of the world seems to feel the same way--the Joker is probably the most popular comic book villain of all time, and a good evil laugh has catapulted some of rock's most compelling figures into the spotlight. Johnny Rotten put punk rock on the map with a callous snicker at the start of 'Anarchy in the U.K.,' and Ozzy Osbourne established his solo career (and validated his insanity) with a goosebump-inducing "ALL ABOAAARRRDD, AH HA HA HA..." Few others have pulled it off as well as those two, but when it comes down to timing, cultural relevance, and flat-out scariness, the voices at the end of 'Master of Puppets' by Metallica takes the cake.



'Master of Puppets' is deservedly the best-known song off the groundbreaking album it shares a name with. At eight minutes, it gives up more hooks than most bands do in their entire career. From the stop/start beginning through the ringing final chord, the composition itself is a fretboard adventure that's as much a guitar/bass/drums (and sometimes more) symphony made up of several movements as it is a kickass piece of thrash metal.

Like much of Metallica's canon, 'Master of Puppets' is as potent lyrically as it is musically. Metallica's portrait of drug use was a far cry from the romantic depictions in songs like 'Dr. Feelgood.' "Taste me you will see/More is all you need/You're dedicated to/How I'm killing you," barks Hetfield in the voice of an all-controlling addiction, right before the now-infamous chorus:

Come crawling faster,
Obey your master.
Your life burns faster,
Obey your master--Master!

Master of Puppets I'm pulling your strings.
Twisting your mind and smashing your dreams.
Blinded by me, you can't see a thing.
Just call my name, 'cause I'll hear you scream.
Master!
Master!

The sense of reality that James Hetfield incorporated into his lyrics is often brought up when contrasting Metallica with the escapist, party-hearty outlook favored by hair metal bands. Before Metallica arrived, most metal bands either wrote about sex, drugs, and rock n' roll (Judas Priest, Motorhead, etc.) or Satan, demons, and voodoo (Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, etc.) Metallica's ability to capture such harrowing internal conflict was all but unheard of in metal, and it made even the very best metal bands seem a little campy in comparison. When Metallica finally decided to conquer the mainstream after years of shunning it (Lars Ulrich famously called Headbanger's Ball "a fucking joke"), they did so with their first-ever music video, and they utterly shamed pop-metal.

An immensely popular Headbanger's Ball video, circa 1987:



Enter Metallica, 1988:




Still, the lyrics to 'Master of Puppets' wouldn't be nearly as compelling were they not backed up by such incredible music. Like the all-controlling drug trip that the song conveys, 'Master' is a musical rollercoaster running off the tracks. At one point it even drifts into a melodic, dream-like interlude, only to distort and fall under the relentless assault of Hetfield and Kirk Hammett's power chords, depicting the constant mood swings of a trip as well as lines "End of passion play/Crumbling away/I'm your source of self-destruction." The mind-bending chord changes keep the song more interesting and worthy of repeated listens than almost any other rock song of its length (yes, including 'Stairway to Heaven'), and it builds up to the greatest evil laugh in music history.

At about 8:15 in the song comes a deep, highly-processed evil laugh that may leave you shaking in your boots. As soon as the guitar cuts out, an inhuman-sounding laugh comes seemingly out of nowhere; a dark "Muah-ha-ha-ha" that sounds like it found its way from your nightmares into your CD player. Almost as suddenly as it appears is in the song, it's soon crushed by the final smattering of chords, the last of which rings out like the after-effects of a punch to the face.

And then...Metallica laugh.

The cackling that James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett, Cliff Burton, and Lars Ulrich break into at the end of the song is so terrifying upon first listen that it's almost impossible to convey. Prolonged, haunting, and not the least bit cartoonish, it sounds more like gas-huffing hyenas than actual human beings. Most importantly, it is infinitely scarier than the laugh that precedes it. The unrestrained, bellowing guffaws that Metallica dish out seem like something that would come from an institute for the criminally insane, and in a matter of seconds the Disney-villain aesthetic of the previous laugh is banished from your memory. Metallica reminded the world that reality is far darker and scarier than any witchcraft or Satanic imagery that previous metal bands had sung about, and they never articulated that thought better than they did in the two contrasting laughs at the end of 'Master of Puppets.'

You'll have to get the CD to hear what I'm talking about, but here's a killer live take...

Korn is a lot like Rod Stewart

Reminiscing about Korn in the mid-90s reminds me of something Nick Hornby wrote about liking Rod Stewart in the early 70s--"although it didn't make you the coolest kid in your class, it was certainly nothing to be ashamed of."



It's sometimes hard to believe that Korn were once too cutting edge for radio, too scary for Wal-Mart, and more likely to share fans with Rage Against the Machine than Godsmack. Many years, MTV contests, Calvin Klein ads, and mediocre albums later, Korn seem satisfied to blend in with the nü metal bozos that they previously distinguished themselves from. Most egregiously, they've enlisted Avril Lavigne/Britney Spears producers the Matrix to work on their newest albums, and this year's Family Values tour sees them sharing a stage with Evanescence, Trivium, Hellyeah, and countless other posers who tread on the ground that Korn broke on their debut and Follow the Leader. Like just about every great band, Korn were bound for the inevitable artistic decline, but the problem lies in how they went about it. Hence the Rod Stewart comparison.

Korn's recent free show at South Street Seaport did nothing to counter their aesthetic downward spiral, but at best it served as a reminder of how pivotal this band once was. Korn were promoting their most recent album, and their 30-minute set focused on newer songs which sounded like watered-down (and at worst, self-parodying) versions of their best music. The new material still sounds different from their nü metal peers, mainly from Fieldy's slap and pop bass technique and Jonathan Davis' vocals, but there's no denying that it's Korn by numbers, slickly produced mallcore meant to sound dangerous to kids who haven't yet discovered thrash metal. Needless to say, Korn's untitled new album seems no more exciting now than it did before the show started.

Despite the supbar material, there's no denying that Korn are a great live band. Davis is still one of the most compelling frontmen in the world, and his surprisingly melodic vocals effortlessly lept from whisper to scat to scream as he jumped around, flailed his arms, and headbanged like the crazy man he really is. Current drummer Joey Jordison (on loan from Slipknot) made Korn sound more metal than David Silveria did, and the band's impassioned performance almost made up for how boring the new songs were.



About twenty minutes into their set, Korn ripped into 'Got the Life,' the infectiously aggressive single that struck a chord with millions of Clinton-era middle schoolers who didn't want to hear Live or Matchbox 20. It was if a completely different band had taken the stage--hip-hop-influenced nü metal has been run into the ground over and over, but Korn showed that their brand was scarier, funnier, and heavier than anything that followed. Driving the point home, Korn finished with two songs from their debut, including 'Faget,' which enthralled the old-school fans and shocked the newcomers in the audience more than any show I've been to since seeing Liz Phair play 'Fuck and Run' four years ago. Come to think of it, The Matrix worked on her bad new album as well--can't someone just take away their music-production license?

"I know you all know this one," said the mostly taciturn Davis as the opening chords of their final song, 'Blind,' rang out from behind him. It was comparable to hearing Aerosmith play 'Back in the Saddle' amidst a set of Diane Warren-penned atrocities. Korn may never again make a good album (and at the rate that they're selling, they won't have to), but anyone who can't tell them apart from their irrelevant peers on the Family Values tour is strongly encouraged to steal their older brother's copy of Korn.

Arrrrrrrrrreee youuuu readddddy??