I was introduced to metal when I was young. To be honest I don’t remember when that exactly was, but it was not until about a year ago that my interests in metal truly started to mature.
I am an avid fan of Adult Swim on Cartoon Network, and one of my favorite shows is Metalocalypse, an animated show about a metal band that dominates the world through their immense level of popularity. Because of this show, I started to listen to metal more frequently, and for Christmas last year, I got an Iron Maiden CD (which I picked out over a Metalocalypse CD), consisting of live recordings of songs from their Flight 666 Tour, and immediately took to it. For the next six months I listened to almost nothing else. The summer after, I saw them in concert, bought a couple more CD’s of theirs, and before I knew it, I had all of their material, with the exception of some of the songs they did with Blaze Bayley after Bruce Dickinson left to start a solo career.
I loved the larger than life aspect of the band. In Metalocalypse, people travel across the earth just to see the band and most fans die gruesome deaths doing so. They were willing to die for metal, and even though I knew that this was a cartoon and nothing in real life was actually like that, I saw similar aspects in the presentation of Iron Maiden through videos of concerts on YouTube. Iron Maiden was all about playing ill music and putting on an awesome, and I mean awesome, show for its fans. I absolutely loved it!
Later I became interested in other metal bands, like Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne, Dio, Motorhead, Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and many others. My newly revived interest in metal also revived my interest in punk. I have recently become a fan of the Ramones, and beforehand, I liked music by Iggy Pop and the Stooges, the Sex Pistols, and a cousin of mine got me into the Clash, which may seem odd given my interest in metal.
I never gave it much thought that metal and punk music were all that different; I just knew that I liked both of them. I saw both as adrenaline-driven, fast, heavy music that you could not help but head-bang to. However, recently, I have noticed many differences in the styles of these two genres of music.
One of the things I love about metal is the sheer epicness of songs, specifically in the case of Iron Maiden. Songs like The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Paschendale, and Dance of Death all tell awesome stories in long, epic formats filled with awesome imagery, sick riffs, and gnarly guitar solos. Punk music doesn’t do that. It’s pretty rare to find a punk song that is longer than four minutes if you can even find one that long. The longest song of the 23 Ramones songs that I have is 3 minutes and 20 seconds, which pales in comparison to the 13 minutes of song that is The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
Another major difference is the role of instruments in the two genres. In metal, there is a much higher level of skill involved in the instrumentals. Iron Maiden has three guitarists, all of whom are excellent guitarists. The Ramones on the other hand are fast, loud, and less talented, but that works for them. They sound sick and put on a great show. They don’t need as high a level of artistic ability to please their fans.
Regardless, I am excited to be a part of this class and cannot wait to learn more about the evolutions of metal and punk music and the subcultures that surround them and develop my critical understanding of these genres.
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