Slayed to Rest

So a recent comment I (Leo) made on facebook has been met with some hostility. I don't really feel the need to explain myself but I'm doing this more out of respect for Sam and Joe who don't want to be tarred with the same metal-heathen brush.

"If only all metal bands from the 80s would die already" was the offending statement. Someone accused me of being a troll, which I think is a phrase everyone erroneously leaps to when they read something on the internet they don't agree with. If I wanted to be a troll, I would have put something like:

Q: Who's my favourite member of Slayer?
A: The dead one.

So let's clear this up. 

- I don't really care for 80s metal bands. Metallica were good. Reign in Blood was alright. It has been pointed out that my comment would condemn bands like "Iron Maiden, Death, Bathory, Celtic Frost, Venom, Testament, Exodus, Kreator, Sabbat, Coroner etc". As unpopular as it may sound, I don't care for any of those bands. My decision to play a distorted guitar doesn't mean I have to like them, an opinion I'm entirely allowed to hold whether you agree or not.

- It was a pun about bands ceasing to exist. Most metal bands from the 80s are horrible self-parodies playing songs they wrote 30 years ago because they know everything they write and release now is shit and irrelevant. You keep buying the festival tickets, you keep buying the magazines with cover quotes about how "this is our heaviest album to date!", you keep propagating the tedium and contribute to a world where things like St Anger happen.

Jeff Buckley once said during a concert "Fuck off! Just fuck off! The 60's are bullshit, the 70's almost big big bullshit, 80's... I don't even need to tell you, except for The Smiths maybe. Get out of it! Just get out of it! Shit's happening now, it's all about now, now now now. Bigger, faster, sweatier, skinnier, whiter, blacker, Gracer"

A similarly provocative and sweeping statement that clearly needs to be taken with a pinch of salt, but a viewpoint I wholeheartedly agree with.

Finally, I am not revelling in the death of one man. It's like Thatcher. You're not celebrating the death of a parent, a sibling, a loved one. You are celebrating the symbolic element. As far as I'm concerned, the sooner we can all move on from pandering to all these GODS OF METAAAAL the better.

Leo

PS SORRY IF MY OPINION ON THE INTERNET UPSET YOU