Earlier this month, Taylor Swift launched her 1989 World Tour, her largest and most elaborate spectacle yet. Tens of thousands of Swifties will pack the arenas and baseball stadiums of these United States to see pop’s reigning princess. Swift’s fanbase is diverse, ranging from the usual menagerie of rabid teenagers to adults who flooded the same arenas a generation earlier to see Britney Spears. The message is clear: America has finally learned to stop worrying and love pop.
Fifteen years ago, when Spears was doing McDonald’s commercials with *NYSNC, this kind of multi-generational appeal was unheard of. Mainstream pop music was something people obsessed over in middle and high school and then quickly relegated to their parents’ attic in favor of a hastily purchased Bob Marley poster for their college dorm room.
This newfound poptimism extends to media coverage. Swift, Ariana Grande, Charli XCX, and Beyoncé all have several tracks in Pitchfork’s Top 100 Tracks of 2014 (as they should), the latter making the top 10. As great as Destiny’s Child were, they would never have been mentioned in the same breath with "serious" artists like the War On Drugs and Run the Jewels when "Survivor" was blasting out of every passing car window back in 2000.
But alas, there is a dark cloud upon the candy-coated poptopia that we have built for ourselves. A dark cloud that has never gone away, despite the countless obituaries and benedictions it has been given since its inception in the early 1970s.
Earlier this month, Spotify released analytics that revealed heavy metal has the most loyal audience of any genre. This should not be shocking to anyone, but nevertheless it spawned a bunch of think pieces that either seemed unmoored that heavy metal was still a thing or chided the mainstream for not acknowledging that heavy metal was still a thing.
The question should not be metal’s validity as a genre in 2015, because that isn’t even an argument. The question should be this: Why hasn’t heavy metal gained validity as an adult genre?
Admit it—the kid in the zebra spandex from Heavy Metal Parking Lot just popped in your head, didn’t he? Even at the height of its mainstream popularity, heavy metal was for scruffy young men of a certain age. It’s a genre for hanging out on the hood of your Trans Am debating the finer points of Bruce Dickinson's oeuvre. As much as metal and pop portray themselves as mortal enemies, they are much closer than any devotee would be comfortable to admit. Both genres thrive on spectacle and suspension of disbelief. A kid may be disaffected and invisible during the school day, but when he or she throws on a Ghost, Slipknot, or Machine Head record, they are the most powerful person in the world. A great riff or a face-melting solo hits the same pleasure center as a Max Martin-penned Katy Perry earworm.
When metal was, briefly, the predominant form of mainstream rock'n'roll 30 years ago, it eventually became so watered down and faceless that it turned off an entire generation of kids. Metal and hard rock is just as diverse and interesting as pop music in 2015. Six Feet Under, Rest Among Ruins, Faith No More, and Napalm Death have all released exemplary records. There is nothing faceless about Deafheaven’s wall of noise. Later this year, Slayer will release a new record encased in an actual metal eagle, and the Biters will remind us that Suzi Quatro haircuts are still a fantastic look. Unfortunately, the image of Warrant in matching white leather outfits (or those years when everyone was feeling Korn and rocking a braided goatee) is difficult to rinse from one’s mind.
While the defenders of the faith often beat their chest and proudly proclaim their outsider status, the lack of critical respect often stings a bit. There is no other way to explain the annual uproar over Judas Priest being snubbed for the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame. The remedy: The media needs to step and embrace their hesher past. Because deep down inside, in the darkest depths of our souls, at some point every single one of us has loudly proclaimed that metal rules and all that punk shit sucks, anyhow.