Labels

Poor, poor death metal. The term, as it's now used, seems to refer to anything jarring, loud, fast, and probably evil. Casual metal fans reject it for the Cookie Monster vocals, the indie elite concentrate their attention on hipper metal media, like drone doom, and the general public treats any fan as a deeply disturbed individual. Of course these are all exaggerations, but the case remains that outside of death metal fans, the genre gets very little respect.

The saddest thing here is that death metal's lack of mainstream acceptance (if not mainstream appeal) is purely cosmetic. Death - scary, no? And yet, besides being generally abrasive, the concept of death doesn't have much to do with death metal. When the band Death chose to give themselves that name, they may have wanted to reflect the darkness of the genre. Perhaps they even wanted a name that the public wouldn't accept. And yet, I can't really help but wonder how public perception would be different if the genre had come to be known as Chuck metal, or morbid metal, or possessed metal. Maybe then, we wouldn't use death metal to refer to all the harsh noise in our life, or use it as a buzzword for the taste of the aggressive, crazed youth.

Of course, the whole problem goes deeper than death metal. Musical labels serve an important purpose, but they frequently lose meaning within a ridiculously short amount of time. Today, many of us perceive traditional punk rock as fast, short, political, angry, barely-produced and dead. And yet, when we consider the first punk rock, fast and short are the only adjectives that fit. And in the 21st century, punk fans dismiss bands like Green Day and The Libertines as corporate shit, even though they're about ten times closer to New York and early British punk than any hardcore punk. Ever.

And when's the last time you heard someone in real life use techno to mean techno? It's generally all trance, house, eurodance, synth-pop... you get the idea. Pop music made with a synthesizer or a computer. Then you've got your gangsta rap, like Eminem and Ludacris. Essentially scary men who rap about sex.

I suppose there's no real "so-what" here. Oh well. Enjoy some death metal, and take it easy.