I love Heavy Metal.
When I write that, however, I’ve come to realize that I don’t really know what the reader will take away from the term “Heavy Metal”.
Growing up as I did in the 1970’s and 1980’s it was a clearer, or perhaps just simpler picture. I was introduced to this particular genre of music by a friend from around the corner - Chris. He loved it, and he his older brother Jeff, who also happened to be in a band, had what seemed to me at the time a voluminous collection of music, almost entirely in vinyl (as was the fashion at the time). And what appeared in that collection were bands with a characteristic set of sounds. Found ensconced in that music library was the likes of Judas Priest, Ozzy Osborne, Iron Maiden, Sammy Hagar, and Mötley Crüe, among others.
This music immediately spoke to the early-teenage me. Hard driving guitar work and pounding drum lines gave direction to an otherwise unfocused (and unfounded) adolescent male need for rebellion and and conflict. This was further bolstered by lyrical content that was often focused on themes of science fiction, fantasy, and historical events that spoke to me in ways far more relevant at the time than the vacuous topics of love gained, lost, or unrequited that dominated music played on the airwaves.
Those stories were typically told in a voice falling in the tenor range - first tenor, to be specific - often with an emphasis on the operatic, often wailing heights those tenors could reach. Consider, for example, Rob Halford and Judas Priest in the title track of Screaming for Vengence:
Or perhaps Geoff Tate and Queensrÿche on Queen of the Reich:
But in the intervening oh, say, 35+ years there have been changes in the heavy metal format, particularly in that vocal approach. Here I am specifically referring to the emergence of the _Death Growl_. This is a vocal approach that is now apparently prevalent enough to warrant its own Wikipedia page, and which is the auditory equivalent of listening to an octogenarian try to clear out half a century of backed up phlegm while also trying to sing (not that I have an opinion...).
Wikipedia suggests that the Death Growl is primarily associated with death metal, and this makes sense to me stylistically. It would also be fine with me, as far as it goes, because that’s a sub-genre of metal I have no need to delve into. The problem is that the Growl appears to be spreading like an itchy rash.
I am a regular user of Apple Music. This is, of course, Apple’s offering for a music subscription service in the vein of Pandora and Spotify. When I set that service up it asked me what my music preferences were so as to offer suggested songs and artists. At that time I included heavy metal among my choices and looked forward to getting recommendations for artists similar to those mentioned above; anticipated discovering the next Ronnie James Dio, as it were.
Apple Music offers up a weekly new artists playlist that appears to be modeled, more or less, around those specified preferences. It’s a mixed bag, within that algorithm, of stuff that I find I really enjoy, and other things that are utterly unlistenable. And in that last category is where virtually all of the new heavy metal it sends my way falls.
Virtually everything that has a true, hard pounding baseline and guitar crunch that Apple Music offers up to me has the non-melodic, throat destroying grunting within it. If I’m lucky it occurs right up front, within the first few seconds of the song, allowing me to dismiss it quickly. Sometimes, tho, it’s hidden away, saved for the chorus. I’ll be sitting there, banging along with the pounding bass line and starting to groove along with the lyrics and then... BAM! Hit in the face with a guttural slap.
Now, I understand that a fair amount of music appreciation is subjective, and just because I don’t find vocalists singing in a style of a 17-year old student post voice change trying too hard at his German pronunciation to be a desirable thing, I’m sure that others do. My objection here is more directed towards Apple Music’s insistence on continuing to foist these examples on me. I can assure you there is virtually never an example of a song with a growling vocal in it that, when appearing on a recommended list, I don’t give a thumbs down. Yet they still continue to appear.
This also occurs, incidentally, with songs that use detectable auto tune - each and every recommended song with this is routinely and summarily rejected (as is indeed right and salutary), and yet that effect also continues to pervade my recommendations. It’s like Apple thinks I really haven’t given these vocal variations enough of a chance and that, like a dry red wine, I just need to develop a taste for them.
In actuality my fear is that these vocal abominations are simply becoming so pervasive that Apple Music just doesn’t have anything else to offer me in the way of new music. In which case, I’d frankly rather simply be given a shorter list.
What I’d truly like to see is a list of options on Apple Music that actually screens out specific features of music. On that list I would obviously check off the Death Growl and Auto Tune, and I wouldn't mind having buttons for obviating pedal steel guitar and anything on which Mick Jagger sings.
Sadly, there does not appear to be a way to revisit the choices made when I first set up Apple Music, and Apple’s support on this topic suggests my only means of input is to either love or "dislike"a song.
Incidentally, "dislike" is not the opposite of "love", by a long stretch, and not nearly strong enough to adequately reflect my feeling about these songs. Still, it’s better than the change for iOS 13, which jettisoned "dislike" in favor of "suggest less like this". Apple wants to know what you "love", but clearly would rather not invite the expression of any negative opinions or ask why I’m disliking or (or asking to "suggest less" - and we’ll set aside the fact that it should be "suggest fewer").
Ugh.
All of which suggests it will be a cold day in hell (or, in new Apple parlance, a cold day in some place other than heaven) before I see anything like the options I’m suggesting.
But hey - a guy can dream, can’t he?