BY MIKEY MIGO
You've seen that guy across the room from you. He looks like a completely tool and you wonder why he's there at all. He's wearing a shirt of your favorite band. Then within a flash the first time you heard the band, the hours spend letting the music take over your soul, and the place in your heart is threatened. Is this stranger REALLY a fan? Do they share a similar love for the band you knew about "back in the day"? Did they JUST jump on board because of the single that you don't really like all that much? Is it because the shirt was on sale or looked cool enough to just wear?
I'm sure you've been there before. All music snobs have dealt with the doubt of a stranger. In most cases you'll never say a word to them and forget about it. Some times you'll be at a party or somewhere social and have to speak to this person. Then the test begins. You start off simple and then start throwing some random B-Sides or how many times you've seen them in concert to test the waters. If they bite the bait and go back and forth with you with random facts, songs, or knowledge; then great. You've just made a new friend. If not, your snob senses will annihilate them and you'll move on.
Sure some people will discover a band before others. It's going to happen and there's nothing we can do about it. There are people who are just assholes about being a snob, some who think the "underground" should remain underground, and some who are just selfish dicks when it comes to sharing the music they love. Unless the musician is stupid, the point of art is to share it as much as possible. To get your vision out there and to have it effect as many people as it can reach should be an objective when creating any art.
Metal is the genre I'm specifically thinking about, but surely it's the same with any of them. With metal it's more of barbaric ritual than a musician appreciation in many of the cases. It's the loudest, the fastest, the evilest, and the most "bad ass" you can find. The music is shunned by your parents, teachers, and your respected religious leaders. It's brutal, in your face, and dirty. Yet still sometimes it's commercialized chaos. Sometimes you find someone across the room or venue wearing your favorite band's shirt and you begin to wonder.
How does a band you love get onto the shirt of a stranger? Sometimes it's because of a hit single, word of mouth, or just purely because the music got in the ears of that stranger and has effected them in a similar way than you. Then again, maybe it's to fit in with their friends, trying to impress a girl, or just to "look cool". With the recent trend of retro tee's it's become even harder to figure it out. How many Led Zeppelin, Doors, Rolling Stones, and AC/DC shirts have you seen the celebri-trash wearing in the tabloids? How many "hipper than thou" assfaces have you seen wearing one of these shirts with their girl pants and overly "unstyled" hair? Lots. But this is METAL! There can't be anything commercial or mainstream out there? There just can't be!
Yes, there is. In fact, if you go to a metal show this summer or upcoming fall you will see at least one of them. The Rockstar Mayhem tour, the lone Ozzfest date, as well as many other regional festivals and shows all feature bands that are "household names" inside AND outside of the metal world.
Here's a few of the more mainstream accepted metal bands out there from different eras:
Ozzy Osbourne:
We start with Ozzy. There's no reason we can't talk about the crazy old fuck that still rocks as hard as he did back in the day. Getting his start with the iconic band "Black Sabbath" (see retro-tee trend) and then moving on to an iconic solo career, his career has been nothing short but iconic. The horrid MTV show and all the other appearances have brought him back to the public eye, but he'll always have his controversy to fall back as that fizzles. Musically, you may or may not enjoy his brand of metal, but to deny his influence on the genre would be unwise.
Iron Maiden:
This is another one of those "tee shirt" bands due to the crazy amount of cool and bad ass shirts and album covers they've had. When you watch a movie and they want to show someone as being "metal", but still remaining "edgy" (not like Beavis and Butthead) they put them in a Maiden shirt. If you're of a certain age, you might be a fan. In most cases they're before your time and you don't nearly have the appreciation as those "who were there" had.
Metallica:
Oh how I admire those in the faded and sleeveless Metallica shirts. You all know the guy or maybe you ARE that guy for all I know. Metallica was brutal shit back in the late 80's and early 90's and they made themselves household names. I'm sure any metal head will agree that Metallica's singles like "Enter Sandman" or "Sad But True" are badass tracks, but so will your local frat boy or sorority girl at the kegger. This musical entity has provided us with some of music's greatest songs and yet many people will continue to bash them or hate them. So be it, you STILL know their names, their music, and you've probably given them YOUR money at some point in your life.
Rob Zombie:
Rob Zombie is known by many for his horror movies like ‘The Devils Rejects' or his remake of the ‘Halloween' movie, but that's just part of his metal notoriety. From back in the day with "White Zombie" to his solo work, Zombie has made a nice living off of being a freaky bad ass. You don't see Rob Zombie on a lot of retro tee shirts, but on a modern scale you WILL see him doing interviews on talk shows and making special guest appearances. Zombie is probably only another two or so hit albums and/or hit movies from cementing himself into the same iconic status as the likes of an Ozzy or an Alice Cooper.
Slipknot:
If I had to pick one "semi-new" metal band who has gained the most widespread love its Slipknot. While their first really big single was "Wait and Bleed", a more slow and melodic track, they have undoubtedly "broken through". Slipknot gains mainstream radio air play and they plaster the covers of any rock magazine when they have a new album or something going on. The lead singer Corey Taylor has actually "broken through" with his hard rock band Stonesour as well. I guess it's just something about a guy who can growl with the best of them and actually throw some actual singing behind his tunes that might actually appeal to more than a small metal audience. On top of their music, the different masks the band members wear make them marketable, which is always helpful in getting in the public eye. I've seen Slipknot shirts on some people that I don't think REALLY listen to their music, but it's edgy and like the Iron Maidens of the past the entertainment world will almost always absorb anything "edgy" they can.
Disturbed:
It's hard to believe these guys had the number one album a few months ago. I've been hearing their music for years due to being so close to their hometown, Chicago. They're still considered "edgy", but the bite of their bark has dulled down to just barely above "hard rock". Still, outside of Slipknot they're holding it down for the early metalist of the past decade. The acceptance of Disturbed is no where near the level of Ozzy, Maiden, Metallica, or even on the same as Slipknot. They are still a good example that a metal band can top the charts. That's commercial success for sure.
Of course AC/DC, Slayer, Alice Cooper, Motorhead, Megadeth, Judas Priest, Motley Crue, Poison, Guns N Roses, Tool, Pantera, Van Halen, Marilyn Manson, RUSH, Thin Lizzy, and other iconic artists and bands could easily be discussed here. All of them have had some level of mainstream success and acceptance. The real debate here is what one considers "metal" and how pure to the genre you want to classify bands as. It's all up to the ear and preference of the listener and fan. The debate on what constitutes "mainstream success" is another whole set of devil horns.
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