What is it about this type of music that is so popular. Extremely loud, relentless drum beats with heavily distorted guitar and dark screaming vocals speaking of death, destruction, and terror.
Do most people who listen to this have some sort of underlying darkness within them such as childhood trauma, emotional instability, self hatred, etc, for which this music provides release? What would compel someone to listen to this stuff, other than wanting to put up a front of 'hardcore' masculinity?
Well, death, destruction, and terror are very prevalent aspects of reality, so in that sense one might say death metal is about facing reality head on, which is appealing for its honesty and relevance. Though, you could say all genres 'face reality' in their own way -- the better question might be: "why focus on the unpleasant parts of reality?" My answer would be that the process itself is pleasant despite the subject matter. People wouldn't listen if they didn't enjoy it.
I enjoy alot of metal, but I also don't understand why someone would
only listen to metal, though they have their reasons I'm sure. I really don't even care about genre and don't get why some people get religious about it. Alot of metal makes me feel good, for various reasons, but so does alot of rock, rap, pop, etc. I also don't get why people nerd out about subgenres so much. I mean, yeah, it's interesting to see how many styles can be done but ultimately the only thing I'll care about is how a song makes me feel, the rest is just academic.
But yeah, I don't much doubt that certain aspects of personality correlate with certain genres of music. I think alot of people get into metal because they can relate to its 'darkness', because they see it in themselves, perhaps for reasons you listed. What I mean is... that initially helps them get into it, makes it appealing, but may not be the only reason(s) they like it as time goes on and they get deeper into it. Heck, alot of people who only listen to pop could probably enjoy metal if they could just get into it first. In my experience getting started with things is the difficult part, because it's easy to be too turned off by surface impressions to ever go deep enough to truly appreciate something. I'd say this is the case with most judgments humans make.
hmmm, perhaps genre matters after all, because there are certain things a person just can't 'get into' and it's useful to identify them. Who am I kidding, those teeny boppers aren't ever going to like metal, just like I'm never going to like
crunkcore.
