originally written by Craig Hayes
This is the fourth installment in a five-part series. In Mainstreaming Metal, LR scribe Craig Hayes looks back on his experiences as a beacon for underground heavy metal within the confines of a mainstream-centric publication.
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In the last couple of posts in this Mainstreaming Metal series, I’ve been looking at how critical bias in the mainstream and metal media could both be seen as misrepresenting and undermining metal’s true strengths. I am aware that all of that might sound dry as toast, and it’s definitely not as much fun as calling writers covering metal in the mainstream fuckin’ hipsters and posers.
Hipsters and posers seem to be the bane of the metal community, and, obviously, I’ve been called both for writing about metal in the mainstream. The only thing I can say in response to those charges is: Thank you.
Hanging a hipster or a poser tag on an old fogey like me is instant anti-aging and waist-size-reducing cream. Although, sadly, it hasn’t meant my long-lost mullet has returned, that I’ve managed to fit into my bullet belt again, or that my grey pubes have disappeared.
Still, it seems to me that the generally accepted theory of the hipster involves a metal fashionista, while a poser seems more akin to the attention-seeking metal tourist pretending to be a native. Sightseeing writers unashamedly aiming for hit-rate highs obviously exist, and writers who adhere to that descriptor certainly write about metal. But, the only writers covering the metal scene that I’ve ever met are metal fans–however large their glasses’ frames may be.
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THE FEEDING FRENZY
There’s often a thinly veiled suspicion that some background machinations are occurring in the mainstream, where hipsters and posers lurk, just waiting to appropriate metal bands when they reach a certain level of attractiveness. Well, all the metal writers I dealt with in the mainstream media had different motivations for being there, but the overriding rationale I encountered–and, you know, disagree with their opinions or find their personalities irksome all you want–was simply to write about a genre they were genuine fans of. (Exactly as it is in the specialist metal media scene too.)
Obviously, someone choosing to wear a Burzum t-shirt “ironically” might be your first clue that some writers aren’t always fully aware of exactly they’re doing; but then, metal’s had fly-by-night fans writing about the scene since its birth, and that’s not something we need to be remotely concerned about.
Metal’s always attracted writers to feast on its supposed controversy or rebelliousness, and sure, some of those writers do grasp onto bands and indulge in a feeding frenzy while they’re visiting. But, if you’re feeling like hipsters or posers are somehow pillaging the underground, keep in mind that they’re only likely to hold on to those bands deemed safe for fairly unchallenging consumption. Let them take Deafheaven, Satyricon, or whoever is the razzmatazz luminary of the day. We get to keep Slough Feg, Thrall, and countless other hyper-acidic bands who are apparently indigestible to the masses. So victory is ours, in the end.
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KVLT KIDS
Obviously, it can be a painful process to watch your favourite underground band turn up in the mainstream media, and I’m guilty of turning that into a reality. However, like many writers, I covered underground bands with the full awareness that they weren’t going to get “picked up” at all.
I mean, sure, it probably seems to be contradictory to some bands ethoses to see them on a mainstream site, but I knew that those bands weren’t going to be palatable to a large audience. It was simply about acknowledging their work, and exposing them, however briefly, to a larger audience. I don’t see metal fandom as being a closed club, so if I can recruit one new member, or if those bands sold an extra album, or if someone went to a show, brought a t-shirt, or paid for some gas in the touring tank, then that’s about all the justification I needed to write about them.
I’m aware of the joy in loving a band, in part, because they’re secretive kvlt kids, but in this multi-platformed, interconnected, and globalised day and age we don’t get to hoard our toys anymore–and nor should we. Who are we to decide how any bands audience is defined or limited. Unless I’m mistaken, they’re making music to be heard.
Sure, there’s nothing more groan-inducing than an article on a mainstream site that’s written by someone whose knowledge of metal is rudimentary, but erroneous errors are routinely taken care of in the commentary box, with a rapidly delivered shot of hot-blooded repartee.
The good news is that the hipster is an endangered species anyway, although the poser presents somewhat of a different issue. Every genre of music is infested with short-term and apparently instantaneously knowledgeable fans turned writers. But, you never know, today’s poser might well turn into tomorrow’s long-term fan. Maybe they’ll end up writing something enlightening, after discovering treasures hidden in metal’s past. Or, maybe they’ll just give up and move on. Either way, win-win.
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THE FRONT PAGE
Even though “hipster” and “poser” are really just trolling designators for the more complex issues of who is representing metal in the mainstream right now, the impact of those deemed as such isn’t something we need concern ourselves with in the long run.
Metal might be filling space in the mainstream today, but the mainstream’s ceaseless drive for fresh bait means that metal’s rise will also be followed by a fall. That’s not me being cynical. That’s simply the nature of the mainstream beast. We all know that. We’ve all seen publishing trends come and go, and when metal isn’t a hot topic hit anymore, hipsters will certainly die off, like the parasites they are.
Admittedly, it’s a brave new world of open media, and those changing dynamics have meant that the mainstream media has responded by broadening the range of music it covers. However, after 30 years of listening to metal, I’ve watched the genre ascend, get cut down, and then turn up on the front pages again–and its place on those front pages is at the whim of popular opinion.
Plenty of writers and editors are dedicating themselves to providing engrossing content about metal today, but, overall, the mainstream doesn’t have a commitment to or an investment in metal, aside from closely monitoring its hit-rate attraction. Obviously, there are mainstream sites more in tune with the notion that metal is a long-term game, and metal’s not ever going to disappear entirely from the mainstream, because it’s the goddamn cockroach of the music world. So, while the mainstream chooses to focus its gaze on metal right now, as a writer, there’s a clear choice in that situation.
You can leave mainstream writers with little awareness of metal to pick and choose its (easiest to digest) representatives, or you can make fucking hay while the sun shines.
Like many other writers operating in the mainstream, I chose to write there because I was all in favour of taking advantage of that latter opportunity. I thought, as mainstream coverage of metal has clearly been on the rise for a number of years, then let’s at least put some really interesting bands under the spotlight, before its dimmed or switched off.
Obviously, that was a problematic decision. Because that automatically draws the hipster and/or poser tag for writing about an underground that’s sacred to many. Of course, griping about ownership of the underground seems a little odd when the keys were handed out to anyone with access to the internet already, and the underground has been doing a fine job of advertising, promoting, and exposing itself on every social media and web platform for years.
Keep in mind, if you’re really concerned about hipster and poser writers ruining metal, it’s not the sole purview of the mainstream to (sometimes) talk about metal with seemingly little awareness of its actual history either. Metal’s always attracted misreporting–mainstream or otherwise–but hey, its still here, stronger than ever.
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IGNORING TOURISTS
I’ve been writing about music for close to two decades, and I’ve yet to stumble upon the official rulebook that explains who can write where or what the dress code is. That said, I can appreciate that someone might be seen as speaking out of turn by lifting the lid on the underground, and I’ve cringed when reading ill-informed articles about metal.
I’ve certainly thought “hipster” or “poser” while reading half-baked tripe, while also, as mentioned, being accused of writing that very same tripe. But, while we’re right to complain when flawed writing turns up, I think we should give up worrying about labelling anyone a touristy writers.
They’ve always existed, and even in times of metal’s front page bounty they buzz about doing little real harm. When the fodder they sustain themselves on disappears from the front pages, they’ll starve and die, and if we’re going to be concerned with anything about metal writing, it’s a lack of diversity in the writing scene as a whole that’s far more important.
Forget hipsters and posers. We really need to be welcoming and encouraging of even more female voices, the opinions of writers who don’t live in the northern hemisphere, and ideas from outside metal’s white, heterosexual audience. A fuller, more complete, representation of thoughts from the entire spectrum of metal’s audience can only be a good thing, and it seems, to me, that it makes a lot more sense to dedicate our time to ensuring that happens, than worry about whether some fly-by-night writer’s pants are too skinny.
Anyway, if you thought hipster and posers were bad, in the next Mainstreaming Metal I look at the ultimate villain: The utterly mercenary and unforgivable Judas known as The Sellout.
