Lately I’ve been thinking of the role heavy metal has played in my musical tastes. Years ago, as a kid, I couldn’t care less. But what about the games I played. The music I said I’d like before I turned 18. I thought I was just an alternative/indie rock person. Turns out, hard rock and heavy metal have had a good role in my tastes. And can you imagine those two going together? For instance, when I was the Sonic the Hedgehog games during the 2000’s, I wouldn’t have known they put hard rock, metal, and industrial metal tracks to go with the games. Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, which I have played as a teenager, also has hard rock and metal in its score, which it mixes with techno elements. I give credit to metal nowadays, when as a kid I wouldn’t have had any idea.
Heavy metal just has an awesome sound, and a philosophy I can relate to. For starters, heavy metal was always rebellious, some metal songs sing of reproach for the establishment (this includes thrash metal). I believe it can be associated with an important desire in human nature. The desire to erupt. To unleash your repressed rage.
Think about it, you’re in a coffee shop or Starbucks or something, and you hear the sound of people grabbing their sugar and milk, and taking so long. And then you think to yourself “Why? Why’s this have to fuckin’ take so long? If only I could just blast ’em out of the way.” Or when you’re waiting in traffic, on a bus or in your car, you think “Why the fuck is this taking so long? Why can’t I just blow up all the cars in the way, then I can get home?” We can never express this rage as long as we are bound by certain circumstances which undermine this desire. But heavy metal, much like video games, lets you feel what it’s like to unleash that subterranean flame you contain, which you would otherwise have to be a superhuman or a god to be able to unleash and be free to do so.
It’s lately that I am on the realization that metal is so involved with my tastes, and relates so well to me. Therefore, I follow heavy metal a lot more nowadays, because the way I see it, there are few greater services I could do for my soul, and my self, and self-identity. Heavy metal is a part of me.
Aleph's Heretical Domain 