Punk and Metal political differences
 

Because it's a seemingly obvious question, the fact is that I think the difference between the two mindsets is actually quite big, and maybe that's good.
I think most metal artists tend to condemn less people who demonstrate a different political opinion, I mean, I've never seen Dave Mustaine punch someone because he thinks getting vaccinated is normal, and even Dave Grohl accepts republicans on his shows, And then there's Hetfield who made it clear that metallica doesn't care who you voted for, Henry Rollins demonstrates a very different behavior
The average Leftist can pretty much enjoy the sound of metal, when instead approaching the punk rock that it is inherently political Is Like "More painful".

And someone will probably say that music must necessarily have some ****ing political content, that it is somehow something that must necessarily be liked AND INSEPARABLE from music, don't you think that someone can also not be like political rants and be anyway a good person? it seems to me that this concept of the coexistence of music and politics seems to be a Western thing only, it seems to me that Japanese artists, for example, ignore politics.

Maybe it's just me, but compared to past times Music, movies, books, art in general condemned the right less,
It Just Seen that music industry Is a left wing Thing, and everytime i want to listen Something It makes me feel uncomfortable because you Can't really have a different Opinion and listening to punk

If I was your English teacher, I would have failed your ass.

Cause your dick was too small?

No criticisms other than my grammatical errors? Cool
Sorry for my bad english btw

Punk doesn't really offer much besides just lashing out and screaming. There's some aesthetic appeal to not being able to play your instruments because to learn music theory is somehow classist. Punks tend to exemplify the Dunning-Kruger effect. They know something about politics, and that makes them think they understand everything, and in their infinite wisdom, they've made the sage determination that the whole system should be burned down.

The difference between a punk band and people who make music is the ability to read and a months worth of therapy. Mind you, I like some of the punk I've come across, but I mostly wrote this because the players on this forum love to attack someone elses position without taking one of their own. And I thought I'd give them something to chew on for a week.

i 100% agree
better this forum than Reddit tho :D

I agree. Without getting political, and admitting that I don't associate with as many people anymore - every punk fan I've known has been anarchist or major leftist leaning. They also all had some sort of major malfunction which would necessitate dependence on the state eventually, or a yearning to have someone else pay for and take care of them. Naturally, if they can't acquire their own wealth and believe the acquisition of wealth is somehow bad - they would expect to use somebody else's until that utopia finally gets built. Or pool their resources together, because that's how humans should live.

Meanwhile most of the metalheads I know seem to lean libertarian or republican. Could be because I tend towards metal genres that have more people of a higher age demographic though - 'boomers'. And people tend to lean more right wing as they get older or become more successful in life, especially if they had zero handouts or assistance getting there. They want to protect what they've worked so hard for and care less for changing the world.

There's obvious friction between these two viewpoints. I guess it's obvious where I fall and I apologize to all the loser punks that I view you that way. No, you can't borrow any money.

There's always exceptions, of course. But you're right, many subgenres at least tend to attract people of similar political viewpoints.

Plenty of punks are edgy dip****s but plenty of metalheads are man children who have a simplistic view of politics because they never mentally or emotionally developed past high school, the peak libertarian years.

I don't have too much to add about the politics part because I don't wanna make sweeping judgments about all punkers or all metalheads and I kinda feel like the setting for this scenario is american culture which I don't know intimately in any case. But now that I've crossed into the 40s, similarly aged men sporting a colorful mohawk or covering their fat bellies with black, evil metal t-shirts, well. It does scream loser.

So I guess that either way, it's something you should grow out of and perhaps that also goes for any associated political views.

Metal was a dominant force in mainstream music for a long time, so those who became metalheads during that time tend to reflect other hegemonic norms of the time, which includes conservatism. We're seeing metal lose its relevance, so there's also the nostalgic losers pining for the status quo of the past taking up a big part of the metalhead demographic, and that mindset is integral to conservatism. With the younger crowd, metal's tendency toward hypermasculinity coincides with neofascist strongman rhetoric so you see a great deal of conservative listeners there as well.

Punk's largely being in the underground after its first wave explosion combined with its general philosophy of acceptance and freedom would attract less publicly accepted views like leftism.

With all that said, they're both so diverse now that those trends aren't so distinct. Metal's got hella leftists and punk's got its own brand of blind reactionaries.

Yeah that's literally the opposite of anarchism. Those benefiting from the status quo are dependent on the working class to pay for it and government protection of that dynamic, so you might be confusing anarchists with liberal centrists attempting half-measure reforms because they're more concerned with performative activism than actual change.

I don't know, we have some anarchists here that somehow came into possession of a chunk of land and they're trying to sell plots to set up a kind of anarchist commune. Noone's in charge, of course.

The guys behind it are druggies who kinda burned out in the 90s or early 2000s, scarred brains infected with conspiracy thought and other drivel.

If left completely alone in their anarchist realm without the larger society's protection, they would perish, so they are dependent on it.

Ja, anarchists living under a state still rely on the powers monopolized by the state, much like anyone else required to abide by that structure. The misnomer is framing reliance on the state as a core element of anarchism.

Oh right. I didn't get that from her post.

More just that these guys tend to end up relying on the state more so than other people who play along with the system more.

I think we all agree that OP does in fact make a good point, and musical interests can certainly coincidence with political tendencies. Why exactly, though, is what needs to be drilled into. I think subgenres matter here. For example - fans of black metal I've known tend to be left leaning more so than fans of NWOBHM. Why is that?

My own primary disinterest in politics or exact definitions therein aside :laughing: I'll admit I don't know much and never cared much about the political subgenres. Maybe it would be needed for this conversation. But that's what you're all here for.

I don't care much for politics myself because there's so many idiots and tediousness involved.

We have a lot of different parties here, so when there are elections, I just go through the usual survey where I am asked how I feel about political issues. That survey tells me which party has the largest coverage of my political interests, so I don't have to go through the bother of finding out myself. Then I just vote for that party.

Party affiliations / loyalty undermines democracy anyways, so this works well for me. I end up somewhere on the left in this spectrum which, by american standards, probably means I'm more or less a communist.

I occasionally and intentionally listen to both punk and metal, but not as much as I listen to jazz.

In general punk is way more political than metal when it comes to lyrical themes.
Metal attacks religion (Christianity) much more than punk, while punk attacks
government/political system much more than metal.

From the 70s/80s? Probably because they're older?


I don't think that's true. Take this stanza from Dragonforce

The chants inscribed on the ancient walls
[the tickertape of the Wall Street crawlers]
The screams of the past echo in the halls
[The 2008 financial meltdown]
Now the wizards arise from their watchtower in the sky
[The G7]

Metal is very political, I just think it's more subtle. When power metal talks about slaying the dragon, I think that's a metaphor for the consumer price index being too high.

:rofl:

Lol this is basically what I do re: the surveys. I tend towards freedom, but more aggressively in finances. That labels me a conservative usually.

In the u.s. a lot of these surveys are distributed by the parties themselves where the results are rigged to show them as the beat representative no matter the answers. Do you account for that or do yall have some cool survey distribution system out there where it's not an issue?

It's probably based on the Ho Chi Minh quote ("when the prison doors are opened, the real dragon will fly out"), they're clearly advocating for capital punishment.

We have NRK which is a bit like Norway's version of the BBC. It's a whatchacallit.. Television and media house? With the mandate to provide entertainment, news, information to everyone. So for example they make programs for sami people and other ethnic minorities, deaf people and so on - things that a purely commercially driven media might not be able to or incentivized to do because it wouldn't generate enough income.

There are no commercials on their platforms. Instead, NRK's income comes from a fee imposed on TV owners. By and large, people support it.

For reasons kinda mentioned, NRK also has no political affiliation and so creates these surveys / questionnaires when it's election time.

That's kinda PBS for us and right wing talking heads have been trying to tell people it's communism for years but nobody cares cause nobody watches it anyway.

Metal is less political and more escapist than punk which means it attracts more nerds who would rather play video games than keep up with politics and those types are much easier to radicalize into the far right.

Progressive rock is not immune to this either, most prog fans are aging hippies so a lot of them tend to be libs but I've seen some that are conservative, ironic given the name of the genre.

Since punk is a much more actively political genre the political views of musicians and their fans are more relevant. It's easy to not give a sh*t about the political views of a band whose songs are mostly about wizards and dragons and whatever.

Unless you're an Iced Earth fan of course.

A Narrative Soundscape is a masterpiece of outsider music. The audible mouse clicks changing the presets are pure artistry.

:laughing: Even as a right leaning individual.... what an absolute dumbass he is.