Seltzer

I love the Beatles... But in all seriousness, you'd be surprised how many open-minded metalheads there are. To be honest, it's just as easy for me to imagine a funk, punk, classical, hip-hop or jazz fan who doesn't like the Beatles compared to a metalhead. Well, maybe not as easy for the jazz fan but you get my point.


As for metalheads... most of them can fit in several categories. Before reading this, understand that you can be open-minded in music, yet still listen to a narrow range of music. It just depends on how much you prefer your favourite genre, your upbringing, how much time you put aside to listen to music in your life etc. For example, I haven't heard a folk/ambient rapper from Greenland, but even though I don't listen to it, it doesn't mean I wouldn't be open-minded enough to like it.

1.) They are open enough to appreciate metal which is an extreme form of music (some metal anyway), and this open-mindedness leads them to having open music tastes, or at least being quite open-minded in general.

2.) They were open enough to appreciate metal, but somewhere along the way they got so into it that they don't listen to much else and the developed the elitist attitude that more accessible music (mainstream) sucks, making them close-minded.

3.) They were tormented as kids or have some dark side which they seek to satisfy by listening to metal. In this case they won't listen to much else but metal, but they probably won't hate other music. They'll be indifferent. Maybe in another life (or the same life), they would have discovered other dark music to satisfy them before metal... Nick Cave, Joy Division, Tom Waits etc.

4.) They listened to nu-metal as kids because angry music was a novelty - it was cool. Gradually they would have discovered other angry/aggressive metal (say thrash) and delved into that. Given their aging by then, and expansion of taste, they will be less stupid and probably more open-minded than they were but still only listen to metal. But if you ask them whether they like the Beatles, they'll say they won't, because they were too rebellious as kids to like them when they heard them and haven't heard them since. But if they heard an album by them again, they might actually like them given the lower level of stubborness.


There are some more categories, but they're irrelevant for now. My point is, there's a good chance that even the close-minded version of metalhead (number 2) likes the Beatles due to earlier experience before he started to listen to metal. He may now be so engrossed within metal that he doesn't listen to them anymore... but he could still hold a place in his heart for them. So don't assume the black metal fan or the guy in the Maiden shirt doesn't like the Beatles, even if he doesn't talk about them.

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