Saturday, April 13, 2013

Rage Days

Andrew W.K., whom sometimes seems like the happiest person in the universe, recently tweeted "Sometimes the angriest music makes us feel the happiest." (His previous post was "PARTY TIP: Start your day with a big dose of Pantera.") To metalheads, generally the best-tempered fan base in all of music, those insights are no surprise, but fans of less extreme music tend to be shocked by this.

AG doesn't listen to a lot of metal or punk, but she told me that sometimes she has "rage days," something that I don't understand the point of having if you don't listen to a lot of punk and metal.



Rage Days
  1. Metallica, "Battery"
  2. Converge, "Dark Horse"
  3. Nine Inch Nails, "Wish"
  4. Black Sabbath, "War Pigs"
  5. Faith No More, "Falling to Pieces"
  6. The Stooges, "Search and Destroy"
  7. Sepultura, "Refuse/Resist"
  8. Slayer, "Angel of Death"
  9. Lamb of God "Now You've Got Something to Die For"
  10. Minor Threat, "Filler"
  11. Suicidal Tendencies, "You Can't Bring Me Down"
  12. Nirvana, "Heart-Shaped Box"
  13. Mastodon, "Blood and Thunder"
  14. Marilyn Manson, "The Fight Song"
  15. Rage Against the Machine, "Killing in the Name"
  16. Stiff Little Fingers, "Suspect Device"
  17. Pantera, "Fucking Hostile"
  18. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, "Stagger Lee"
As with any good introductory mix, I've included a few standards--I can't imagine anyone disliking "War Pigs," "Search and Destroy" or "Heart-Shaped Box." But I've also been making gateway metal mixes long enough to know that everyone who hears "Falling to Pieces" seems to enjoy it, or that most people in the 2000s seem to get into modern metal through Mastodon and Lamb of God. Maybe after this, AG will be ready for Goatwhore.

One thing I learned from putting together a specifically rage-based mix is how happy a lot of the best metal bands are. Even at their most belligerant, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, AC/DC, Van Halen, High on Fire, Motörhead, Ozzy and Amon Amarth are too gleeful to follow up songs like "Angel of Death" or "Dark Horse." Thus instead we get Metallica at their fiercest, Pantera at their most hostile and topping it all off, Nick Cave, to show that some of metal's most raging tracks can even hold up against "Stagger Lee."

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