Metal Ain't No Fuckin' Placebo!
Metal and psychology. Quite the combo, huh? Well, when it comes to us metalheads; a day without metal is a day that's akin to a day of missed medication for a depressed bipolar. It's a fact that a fanatic of any music feels an intense need for their preferred brand. But there's a certain fix that comes with being a metalhead and getting just the right tunes into your skull when the urge arises. We are a different breed.
Catharsis is typically something applied to the person creating the product. And, as a musician, I can say whether creating or indulging - us metal folk receive a brand of cathartic emotions that's foreign to your average music-listener. Call it vicariousness, visualization, or just plain fantasy, we simply inject ourselves into the world of whatever tune fits us at the time. An angry composition might calm rage. It could very well do the more usually suspected thing as well...which would be to pump us up. A murderous death metal track could act as a vicarious deed of violence that we'd never perform in the tangible world, relieving our inner-malice, living out our darkest desires, keeping us sane in a world full of supression and disappointment. A demonic black metal hymn could be a darkness bleeding out, murdering our need to be degenerative and destructive. It could also give us the strength to accept that having an enemy within is okay, as the musicians themselves came up with the darkness afterall, and in one way or the other; we relate. A melancholic song might make us happy, reaching us in the way of a best friend telling us a story of how they come to feel what you feel, thus identifying with you through empathy. And our music IS our friend. It's undeniable.
Metal requests for us to actively be true fanatics and to indulge. In a world where music is scarcely something you can literally hold in your hand anymore (regarding digital media and radio), metalheads collect the physical pieces of their beloved bands, cherishing the covers, the pictures inside, the liner-notes. Many extreme recordings have layer-upon-layer of attributes for us to dissect, study, and delve into, especially lyrically - since we wouldn't be able to "sing" along without opening the pages and reading the poetry presented beneath the mask of indecipherability. No, metal is not satisfied with us merely getting a recording of the material and putting it on for an accompanying noise on our drive to work. Us metalheads set aside hours to relax with nothing but whatever piece of our brutal, dark, involving world we choose at the time. Metal is a relationship unto itself. This pill is medication, not a fuckin' placebo.
Metal music, in particular, takes everyday life's incessant and diversified stimuli and spreads it to allow more room, cleans a plot, and simultaneously buries and builds over and below. A horrifying happening can sprout blossoms of beauty to decorate it with life's meaning. A wonderful day in the park with loved ones can become an epic adventure through transmutated eyes. Death can appear poetic and tolerable to ponder. Something bright and whimsical in our day might form an element of nightmarish mystery. The relative reactions and combinations of person-to-situation-to-composition are literally endless. We are a complicated entity, us humans. One should never look at something like metal as literal and simplified as "the dog bit the child who cried soon after". An aggressive song might not birth an aggressive outcome, likewise with a sad one, an "evil" one, and so on and so forth.
This world is full of black and white, and our race of beings do many things to find grey areas to manipulate. It's a healthy thing for us metal warriors to take something that is open for interperatation and creative thought-process, bend it to our heart's desires, and grow stronger from it's existence. Now go take your medicine.
Metal and psychology. Quite the combo, huh? Well, when it comes to us metalheads; a day without metal is a day that's akin to a day of missed medication for a depressed bipolar. It's a fact that a fanatic of any music feels an intense need for their preferred brand. But there's a certain fix that comes with being a metalhead and getting just the right tunes into your skull when the urge arises. We are a different breed.
Catharsis is typically something applied to the person creating the product. And, as a musician, I can say whether creating or indulging - us metal folk receive a brand of cathartic emotions that's foreign to your average music-listener. Call it vicariousness, visualization, or just plain fantasy, we simply inject ourselves into the world of whatever tune fits us at the time. An angry composition might calm rage. It could very well do the more usually suspected thing as well...which would be to pump us up. A murderous death metal track could act as a vicarious deed of violence that we'd never perform in the tangible world, relieving our inner-malice, living out our darkest desires, keeping us sane in a world full of supression and disappointment. A demonic black metal hymn could be a darkness bleeding out, murdering our need to be degenerative and destructive. It could also give us the strength to accept that having an enemy within is okay, as the musicians themselves came up with the darkness afterall, and in one way or the other; we relate. A melancholic song might make us happy, reaching us in the way of a best friend telling us a story of how they come to feel what you feel, thus identifying with you through empathy. And our music IS our friend. It's undeniable.
Metal requests for us to actively be true fanatics and to indulge. In a world where music is scarcely something you can literally hold in your hand anymore (regarding digital media and radio), metalheads collect the physical pieces of their beloved bands, cherishing the covers, the pictures inside, the liner-notes. Many extreme recordings have layer-upon-layer of attributes for us to dissect, study, and delve into, especially lyrically - since we wouldn't be able to "sing" along without opening the pages and reading the poetry presented beneath the mask of indecipherability. No, metal is not satisfied with us merely getting a recording of the material and putting it on for an accompanying noise on our drive to work. Us metalheads set aside hours to relax with nothing but whatever piece of our brutal, dark, involving world we choose at the time. Metal is a relationship unto itself. This pill is medication, not a fuckin' placebo.
Metal music, in particular, takes everyday life's incessant and diversified stimuli and spreads it to allow more room, cleans a plot, and simultaneously buries and builds over and below. A horrifying happening can sprout blossoms of beauty to decorate it with life's meaning. A wonderful day in the park with loved ones can become an epic adventure through transmutated eyes. Death can appear poetic and tolerable to ponder. Something bright and whimsical in our day might form an element of nightmarish mystery. The relative reactions and combinations of person-to-situation-to-composition are literally endless. We are a complicated entity, us humans. One should never look at something like metal as literal and simplified as "the dog bit the child who cried soon after". An aggressive song might not birth an aggressive outcome, likewise with a sad one, an "evil" one, and so on and so forth.
This world is full of black and white, and our race of beings do many things to find grey areas to manipulate. It's a healthy thing for us metal warriors to take something that is open for interperatation and creative thought-process, bend it to our heart's desires, and grow stronger from it's existence. Now go take your medicine.
TTSNSN 7 -7-13