do you like heavy metal music?

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Unavailable in my country, what's in the video?

The Comic Strip Presents...Bad News!

Basically, another Spinal Tap band/Mockumentary coincidentally released at the same time.

Cool

I used to like some metal but I was turned off by "the metal heads" in high school. Macho, bigoted toward anyone "different," not that bright...Switched to punk instead, which seemed a little more open to misfits in my school. Found out in college though that punk fans could be just as bigoted and as dumb as metal fans.

Only now started listening to some metal, particularly Judas Priest (Rob Halford years.) I find it hilarious and cool that the most "macho" of music forms had a major band that sang pretty obviously about being gay way before the mainstream.

To a point. I now mostly listen to like, pop music, I used to listen to a lot "harder" music when I was younger, more punk rock, metal, etc. Then I just had the change of mind of "you know, the world sucks enough as it is, I don't wanna hear about it sucking all the time" there was just too much negativity in that sort of music. So, I started just getting more and more into pop music, mostly more obscure (in America anyway) pop music, but yeah. But when I was younger, Pantera, Metallica, all that stuff. I thought Pantera was significantly better than Metallica, btw. But now, probably 90% of what I listen to is a girly fluffy poppy love song in one way or another.

However, for metal, I still occasionally listen to 80s metal, to me 80s metal is more metalized pop music, I find it pretty fun to listen to some of that stuff. Quiet Riot, Motley Crue, Ozzy occasionally, etc. That sorta thing.

One metal musical style I LOVE is power metal. Power metal is the best really. One thing too, Fabio Lione, the vocalist for Rhapsody of Fire sang quite a few eurobeat songs, so that's how I got introduced to Rhapsody anyway. Also, at least one other guy from Rhapsody sings eurobeat, too, one of the guitarists. But power metal and me just click. Maybe it's the nerdiest metal? It's not about real life, haha. It gets me pretty pumped, it sounds cool, what's not to like? Sure, it's not all about the most deepest complex human emotions ever, but it's fun music.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99nWITtOp_g[/youtube]

Oh yeah, and I like metal. I don't like thrash/death/black metal, though. I like my organized, polyphonic/polyharmonic stuff, but I can enjoy most everything else outside the aforementioned categories.

There seems to be a lot of stereotyping going on here, that heavy metal is an ignorant, amelodic, angry form of music. That's just not accurate. The term "heavy metal" encompasses an immensely broad spectrum of music, and if you really look closely, you'll find that, in many cases, it defies every single one of those stereotypes.

Lately, every Friday, I've been watching an hour-long program on MuchMusic (although I believe in the States it was produced for VH1) called Metal Evolution. I watched one episode and got hooked. It's something I feel was desperately needed in the heavy metal community, to dispel the negative myths-- an intelligent, scholastic documentary studying the origins of various subgenres of heavy metal, and how each one evolved from an earlier form of music. The very first episode of the 11-part series surprised me, because-- believe it or not, metal naysayers-- much of the episode was devoted to discussing how classical musicians like Paganini and Holst, and blues musicians like Howlin' Wolf, and jazz musicians like Buddy Rich, all profoundly influenced what became heavy metal. Watching Rob Halford and Bruce Dickinson talk about how their vocal styles were largely based on Luciano Pavarotti's was quite an eye-opener.

Heavy metal is not ignorant-- just look at some of the progressive bands like Queensrÿche, Dream Theater and Tool, who produce very conceptual music. Musicians who play metal are often much more well-read than you might assume, with Tolkien and Lovecraft being standard sources of lyrical inspiration, and even Herman Melville's Moby Dick serving as the basis of one of Mastodon's albums, Leviathan. It's not amelodic-- I defy anyone to tell me Yngwie Malmsteen hasn't got a firm grasp on musical composition. In some cases-- Nightwish, for example-- metal is borderline operatic. And it doesn't all have to be angry, either-- there is a whole slew of 80s bands like Def Leppard, Motley Crüe, Bon Jovi, and Poison who were more or less about having a good time. Of course, there's something to be said, even for the ones who are a bit harsher, like thrash and extreme metal. Even among those bands, there's often a great deal of instrumental virtuosity. I personally don't listen to Meshuggah, for example, because admittedly I'm not a fan of the vocal style-- but I still respect the band, because I realize their dabbling with odd time signatures has been immensely influential on today's metal scene.

Tool is metal?
It's an undeniable fact that the "face" of metal is white, hetero and macho. Particularly in Halfords day. You're taking away the subversiveness and genius of Halford by saying otherwise.