Challenge
On the island of perfection, maybe they do feed you ice cream at every meal. Beautiful men/women sashay past, ripe for plucking. There’s all the TV, every video game, every drug and every gadget you can imagine. You have everything, but the satisfaction of the chase in getting these things.
In turn, probably these things as goals are not enough to satisfy you, since you’ve got your wits and a soul. You’re not high maintenance just for wanting more out of life, knowing that death will come, or even more terrifying, that you will live forever and might experience a boredom so profound suicide will have a refreshing sound to it.
Challenge is what makes us strong. In musical genres, it’s what makes some music be more compelling than the rest. Some album dashed out over a few beers, with nothing to say except how clever it is, will be fun for two weeks; a great album like Pure Holocaust might keep you listening for a lifetime. In metal, we’re strongest when the world hates us so much the only people who get a break are those who stand strong by their vision, overcome multiple adversities, and have to stick with it for years before they get a chance. This is why first albums are usually better than fifth albums, and why when metal gets social acceptance it usually becomes the same simpering stuff that tries to please while trying too hard to be different.
One of my professors, a gentleman whose opinion I respected, never cared about metal music, and in fact dismissed it: ”I don’t listen to popular music.” At the time, I thought: what a prick. Over the intervening years, I’ve seen his point. Popular music is part of the same gunk that makes life terrible, the steady stream of fool-fascinating movies and television and video games and drugs and ”sexy” celeb-prostitutes who have the depth of a saucer of air. Popular culture is part of this same disease that oppresses us, and what he was saying was that he wanted it out of his life.
For some time, I’ve realized that this attitude helps metal. If we take the outlook that all popular music is shit, and include metal in it, we only make room for the exceptions, and the truly brilliant works. Our praise is not cheap. We have held the music to a higher standard, instead of accepting nearly everything that comes our way because ”it’s metal.” Yes, there’s less to listen to, but what you do listen to leaves a greater impression on you. Such is the poetry of challenge, the genius of natural selection, and the reason why if you love metal you should love it like a clandestine tryst, in rare moments of clarity and not suffocating your life in the mediocrity of the mundane.
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