Word: metallic
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Most metal bands still must rely on concerts and word of mouth to sell records. "It's a cultlike audience," says Geoff Mayfield, director of retail research for Billboard. "A record like Metallica can sell without airplay and without MTV. So there is a voracious appetite...
Musically, heavy metal has evolved somewhat, from a monotonous barrage of frenetic tempos and slashing guitars toward richer aural textures and even an occasional ballad. Metallica is typical of the metal bands that have renounced their raunchy roots and polished their music, if not their image. Gone are the crude lyrics and blaring wah-wah guitars that marked its sound in the mid-' 80s. Many of the tunes on Metallica could almost be called reflective, like Holier Than Thou: "Gossip is burning on the tip of your tongue/ You lie so much you believe yourself/ Judge not lest...
...Metal musicians play to the alienated fantasies of a mostly white, young and male audience by portraying themselves as disillusioned outsiders who have turned their backs on a corrupt civilization. Dressed like renegade bikers, they sing anthems to the rebellious and the wild, or wild at heart. Outrageous behavior is more than a pose for many of them, notably Skid Row's lead singer, Sebastian Bach (ne Bierk), whose on-the-road antics have included tearing up hotel rooms and striking a concert spectator with a bottle that he hurled into the audience...
...Things have come full circle," says Bach, a Canadian who sang in church choirs before finding his true calling in the Toronto club scene. "In the '70s pop was more hip, and now the energy of punk has come into heavy metal. Punk was a socialist thing, and metal was a capitalism thing." Yet both are sneeringly anti-Establishment. In Slave to the Grind, Skid Row proclaims, "Can't be the king of the world/ If you're slave to the grind/ Tear down the rat racial slime...
...like the mainstream," vows Bach. "The kids can see through the phoniness." No doubt. Which could raise a ticklish problem for bands like Metallica and Skid Row, which presume to voice the disaffection of middle-class youths while earning fat-cat salaries. To stay on top of the heap, metal's messiahs may have to figure how to keep both their millions and their edge -- or risk becoming long-haired rebels without a cause...