Listening to Heavy Metal is like watching Olympic Figure Skating

I had this insight last night: listening to heavy metal is like watching Olympic figure skating. Figure skating and heavy metal have a lot in common: they are both fully-explored art forms. It's very difficult to do anything "new" in figure skating; most of what the human being is physically capable has already been mapped out in both endeavors, and while it's possible for someone to do something new in either, it is exceptionally rare. What most afficiandos of either are really looking for is technical excellence and precision.

Both figure skating and metal are also easy to get into, and extremely difficult to master. Metal, especially, seems to be obvious-- you grunt, you scream, you make the guitars loud, and that should be it, right? Well, yeah, if you want to do bad metal. Metal has its artforms, however, and you have listen closely. There's a clarity to good metal that most up-and-coming bands don't quite know how to master. And then there are the lyrics. An example of this is on the Dickinson album I've been enjoying, The Chemical Wedding, in the song "The Tower"-- which is what led me to this analogy. I was listening to it and I started to tick off the components-- music's good, but the drums are unimpressive. Guitars are excellent and vocals, well, hey, it's Bruce! Lyrics-- well, you've got your D&D setting, your dark religion, your violence, what's left? Well, there's still no sex, no, wait, there it is! Yes, and it's subtle too, and then it's over the top! Oh, yes, that's going to get a 9.0 from the judges, yes it is!

You can just hear the self-important Olympic sportscasters with their British accents, now can't you?

Another sign that metal, as an artform, is "fully explored," is the proliferation of genres. It's a sure sign that an artform has reached maturity when artists start to define themselves not in terms of what they are and can do, but in terms of what they're not. The genres of Metal, such as "Death," "Extreme," "Thrash," "Speed," and so forth are less about what the bands capabilities and more about their incapabilities, what they can't and don't do on stage. "You won't hear any slow stuff" or "You won't hear any melody." They are no longer trying to create a new kind of music, but instead carve out definitive niches within the landscape of existing metal.