The positive effect of metal music on today's youth

It saddens me to see nowadays, in the dawn of the twenty-first century, when all of today's leaders and role models talk to us about peace, tolerance and mutual understanding, that metal music is still seen as something that is "corrupting the minds of the young"

It's true that this way of seeing things is predominantly adopted by worried parents and you can't blame anyone for worrying about something he or she perceives as "potentially dangerous" and the least of all blame a parent for worrying for the wellbeing of his or hers child.

But what if they're heads are filled with lies, misconceptions, misleading ideas or exaggerations of the truth? What if they worry for nothing or at least way, way more then the actually should? And this is exactly what this is about; opening the people's eyes to the truth. I won't try to make things what they are not, so I won't call metal calm, relaxing, or soothing music that fills the listener with a warm feeling inside...because that it isn't, and no one could believe that, but I'll go on ahead and call it beautiful, because that it is.

For those who love metal, like I do, that is the undeniable truth. But for the rest that watch us from afar in disgust, or disapproval that is a lie.

So the big question stands: "Metal music is beautiful" true or false?

Let's take a closer look to that. One might say that it's not beautiful because he or she hasn't seen anything beautiful in it. Or it could even be that he or she has tried to find beauty in it but without results. So now, if you are one of those people let me ask you this: just because you haven't seen any beauty in it are you ready to say that none exists?

Look around you, yes right now! Can you see the air surrounding you? No! Can you hear it? Can you smell it? Can you feel it? Can you taste it? The answer to all these questions is "No". But you dare not deny its existence. Now looking back to the beginning of your life, when you were only a little child, you did not know that air existed even though it was all around you, but at some point you bumped into the concept and someone explained it to you and now you fully understand it and you can, in turn, explain it to others.

Now, returning to metal music, things stand exactly the same. As I see it, the reason for so many people not liking metal is that they don't see its beauty and they probably don't see its beauty because they don't know where to look for it. So where should people look for beauty in metal music?

That's simple: IN THE LYRICS

This is not to say that the music itself isn't any good, far from it, metal music not only is great but is very versatile. While some gothic and melodic metal can be characterized by the stillness and calm rhythms nearing classical music, the heavy and the death take a more solid, powerful approach to music and then there's even more, there's the black and the brutal metal that take sound to a level of power that no other musical genre can reach.

I could be exaggerating when I say that "there is something for everyone in metal" but I strongly believe that if people would take the time to find out more, they would find a band or an album or at least a song or two that would fit they're own tastes.

And all of this is about the music itself but there always is going to a concert, and if one of your favorite bands is playing, and if you can get close enough to the stage...that can be a magical night. Going there with a random t-shirt and coming back with one with your favorite band on it...just great, and it's not even about the product, because after all it's just a t-shirt with something drawn on it, but it's something to remind you of that band, of they're performance and of your state of mind that night... But I digress.

I was talking about the beauty of metal music and how it lies in the lyrics. I get the feeling that for the true fans of metal all these words are pointless, because they already know all of these things and understand them way better than my words could ever express them. But for those that don't particularly enjoy metal music something must be pointed out.

What I am getting at is that metal lyrics hold great wisdom within them. Some people are fooled by the fact that at first hearing the vocals can very easily be confused with nothing more then chaotically screams. But they probably haven't heard that a book shouldn't be judged by they're covers. And just a simple reading of the lyrics could prove wrong this misconception; unrevealing the true wisdom of the lyrics. And all of this is as easy as going to DarkLyrics.com (or any of the other sites that host lyrics) and doing a simple search that takes no longer then a few seconds.

Beyond these people there is another category, those that actually know a bit about metal music, the bad bits. I mean yeah let's face it it's true there are some bands out there whose lyrics have no deep meanings, with little to offer to the listener, and that on top of everything else promote racist and discriminating messages as well as pointless violence. I get it, as anyone caring about someone else, but especially as a parent caring about his or hers child's wellbeing seeing them falling into the hands of this "evil music" might be worrying, even painful. But all I am asking is not to cut down an apple tree just because it has a few rotten apples.

Once again I am getting the feeling that my explanations are not good enough...so you know what? I am just going to share with you some of my personal experience and give you some examples. These may not even be the best examples, but they are the first that come to mind.

Many, many more other great examples can be given, but why do it? Why give more? Everyone should be let to find his or hers own, and besides I think that these examples are enough to illustrate my point; the depths of some metal lyrics are phenomenal. Some words (names of people or of places for example) or entire concepts can be true jump starts for self education, in various fields: history, literature, philosophy, psychology, mysticism, esoterism, mythology, religion and much, much more.

Questions old as human kind itself can be found in some lyrics; questions of the sky and the sun, of the moon and the stars, of this life and of the next, of what's truly important and what's trivial. These are the true questions to which every individual must find the answers for himself in order to grow stronger and wiser...

It is my strong belief that listening to the music, and reading the lyrics, trying to understand them at they're deepest meaning can be a very powerful experience. But I must make this absolutely clear that when I say "they're deepest meaning" I don't refer to what the artist was trying to say or what anyone else understands by them, but I am rather referring to what each and everyone understands for him or her self.

All of this begins with the reading of the lyrics and with the listening to the music, once, twice...how many time one feels like it. And if one bumps into unknown words, terms, names or concepts what naturally fallows is looking them up into dictionaries, encyclopedias, databases, search engines or other sources and digging up as much as one can on them and on things, ideas and concepts in close connection to them. And after all this searches and after the understanding comes the integration of all this newly found knowledge, the understanding of the whole, the making sense of things.

But all of this isn't a three step process that is done in this particular order it's rather an organic process in which these three kinds of activities are weaved amongst themselves, where things that were previously considered to be understood are questioned again and rewritten in a different manner, understood to a deeper sense or seen in another light. And this isn't something chaotic, quite the contrary it's something that makes more and more sense, beautiful, mind stimulating and thought provoking.

So if I were to sum up in as little words as I could I would say that this entire process is: "a great journey of discovery from which the human mind comes out empowered and enriched"

And I'm convinced that this great and truly benefic trip can be put into motion by just about any metal band, album or track as long as it has a certain spark to it. But what that spark is mainly depends on the listener.

For me the greatest trip was the one I embarked on because of listening to Wintersun's first album. And that experience was such a powerful one for me that it actually gave birth to the first book that I have ever written.

Bottom line there is no one or two words that I can say in order to make you understand the outstanding power of this experience. So whether you want to learn more about metal music or not is really up to you.