In Defense of Heavy Music
When I was twelve years old, my sister showed me the song “STARSTRUKK” by 3OH!3 feat. Katy Perry since I was a diehard Katy Perry fan. Something about the song made me become a full-throttle 3OH!3 fan. In the landscape of 2013 music streaming services, Pandora was king. After my sister showed me the song, I immediately made a 3OH!3 radio. Through that radio, I was introduced to the likes of Fall Out Boy, Panic! At the Disco, My Chemical Romance, and Paramore and entered the depths of my emo phase. That same year, Bring Me the Horizon released Sempiternal and my taste in music was forever changed the second I heard it on Pandora.
What struck me about Sempiternal was purely the anger behind the music. Though emo bands like My Chemical Romance and Pierce the Veil had screaming vocals and addressed heavy subjects like suicidal ideation, self-harm, and social isolation—all things I was neck-deep in due to bullying—they simply did not have the same anger behind them that Bring Me the Horizon did. At that point in my life, I attended a school where almost every day I was called fat, labeled a terrorist for being Iranian, told the food I brought to school was weird, made fun of for my thick eyebrows, told that my visual disability was scary, had kids explicitly tell me they did not want me on their team in PE, and even almost slammed into the lockers. I had attended that school since second grade, and never once felt anger over how I was treated simply because I believed everything people told me was true. I fully believed that I was a hideous monster who ate disgusting food and that my disability was an abomination. I never once felt anger towards those who harassed me simply because I convinced myself that they were correct. If I felt anything, it was only shame and deep sadness.
It was not until I heard Oli Sykes scream lyrics like “For the love of God will you bite your tongue / before we make you swallow it? / It’s moments like this where silence is golden / And then you speak” that I understood what anger felt like… and I got angry. I realized that there really was nothing wrong with me and that everything I had internalized was false and just others’ way of asserting themselves over me for the sake of social hierarchy. Though Sempiternal was intended to be addressed from Sykes to himself regarding his drug addiction and rehab, it deeply resonated with me. The pain that Sykes caused himself, others had caused me.
Soon after, I met a friend because he was wearing a Bring Me the Horizon shirt. He introduced me to the likes of Knocked Loose, Periphery, Turnstile, and beyond. I am happy to say I am now a fully-fledged hardcore kid and metalhead, spending my teenage years cutting my teeth at DIY thrash punk and hardcore shows. Though as a 5’2” woman who lives in sundresses, very few people would guess that I once had my lip busted open at a Year of the Knife show, heavy music is central to my life and to who I am as a person.
All too often, I feel the assumption is made that people who listen to heavy music are inherently aggressive and monstrous people who are constantly looking to pick fights. This is far from the truth. Many people—including myself and many of my friends—are drawn to heavy music simply because it encapsulates the anger that for so long we have not allowed ourselves to feel. It brings the pain of trauma to the surface and gives one the means to work through it by diminishing feelings of guilt and self-hatred and enabling feelings of anger towards those who have taught us that we do not have a right to be angry while they continue to crush us with their words and actions.
All too many times I have been asked why I do not listen to “happy music” if I am in pain. The answer is simple: it’s annoying. When I am dealing with trauma and grief and depression, I do not need to hear upbeat pop music about parties since it is so far from my reality it feels like bragging. I—alongside many others—gravitate towards heavy music because it stands as a testament to the fact that agony can sublimate into something both powerful and beautiful. The screams that I muffle into pillows while reliving trauma at night are echoed by the screams in metal and hardcore; it is empathetic music.
There are of course exceptions. I would be hard-pressed to find a deep emotional connection to “Cowboys from Hell” by Pantera since it simply is meant as testosterone-fueled power music (made by horrible people, I might add). Just like any other genre, metal and hardcore come with exceptions to the emotionality I have described. This is not to discount less emotional music, but simply to say that just like other genres like pop, metal and hardcore are broad. That being said, I firmly believe they are worth exploring, or at least not portrayed in a negative light.
For anyone reading this article now interested in exploring heavy music, I have a few recommendations of places to start. I found that metalcore was a very accessible genre since it was not as heavy as other metal genres and is overall rather melodic. I would highly recommend Beartooth—their newest album Below is absolutely golden. Loathe is a shoegaze metal band I have also gotten into recently and am really enjoying. When it comes to hardcore, I would absolutely recommend Knocked Loose, Turnstile, Result of Choice, and Gouge Away. Postcore bands like La Dispute, early Movements, and Touche Amore are also very dear to my heart and quite lyrically powerful.
Heavy music takes the sadness of pain and allows us to pinpoint its cause, metabolize it into anger, and release it from ourselves. It is healing, not hurtful music.