Why do all metal bands like skulls and darkness?

What's with metal music and their skulls, death, long dyed black hair, etc? Every album cover I see of a metal band has that kind of stuff. Does all metal music have to relate to anger and darkness, or is there any positivity in the themes of these songs? I mean I understand the appeal on Halloween, but why is it a trend? I'm actually just wondering, no other intentions. :P

Not "all" metal bands are like that. Your looking at the stereotypical metal band trends.

This is so not true. There are a variety of Metal bands with different styles out there that don't involve darkness and skulls or long black hair. Tetrarch9

[QUOTE="Tetrarch9"]This is so not true. There are a variety of Metal bands with different styles out there that don't involve darkness and skulls or long black hair. rubber-chicken

Anthrax is a band that comes to mind right away from the 80's era.

Well, metal isn't exactly about sunshine and lollypops.:P

Metal music is inherently hard, fast and unforgiving. Death usually is a fair fit for said genre.

Having said that, metal is what it is and the general imagery is irrelevant to the music's purpose.

shock value, thus attention.

[QUOTE="Tetrarch9"]This is so not true. There are a variety of Metal bands with different styles out there that don't involve darkness and skulls or long black hair. rubber-chicken

Savatage - Power of the Night. Its not all skulls and anger. Is all rap about sex, drugs, b****es, clubs, and bangin' under a gang banner? :P

I find a lot of good metal is usually when they're talking about real events or mythology. Or its 80s metal :D

Not even close...

[QUOTE="Tetrarch9"]This is so not true. There are a variety of Metal bands with different styles out there that don't involve darkness and skulls or long black hair. rubber-chicken

You clearly have no idea what you're talking about, read up on this thing called 'Power Metal'

lol

We Butter The Bread With Butter sings about german nursery Rhymes. The Devil Wears Prada sings about salvation and christ and stuff as does Crimson Armada.

lol

Gibsonsg527

What's with metal music and their skulls, death, long dyed black hair, etc? Every album cover I see of a metal band has that kind of stuff. Does all metal music have to relate to anger and darkness, or is there any positivity in the themes of these songs? I mean I understand the appeal on Halloween, but why is it a trend? I'm actually just wondering, no other intentions. :P

rubber-chicken

I find your assumption mildly offensive. I understand that the general slant is towards darkness, but not all metal bands are preoccupied with death and skulls and **** Here are some:

Judas Priest

Mastodon (one of my favs)

Tool

There are many others. Depends on your idea of what metal means. Buckethead, Audioslave, Floater ... ect.

I'd also like to add that metal might be generally dismal or demonic; in a sense very "black", but why is that such a bad thing? I feel most music tends to be a little too chipper and deliberately uplifting. If you look at the landscape of music, it tends to be disproportionately "light" and airy. I feel you can't have light without dark, or know pleasure without knowing what pain is. Metal is the counterweight to keep things in balance.

It's like a ying-yang thing, ya dig?

You clearly have no idea what you're talking about, read up on this thing called 'Power Metal'

applesxc47

Yes this Is a metal band

Also this one.

Because their hipsters and they think that shorts are comfy and easy to wear.

I guess I'll add one too. :P

Because it's the br00ta1 thing to do dude!

But seriously, not all metal is like that, just like not all hip-hop is about cars and money and women.

hmm

Why do all rappers, where conflict diamonds and drive bently's and where all white clothing?

Why do scream-o rock stars all wear crap loads of plastic bands on their wrists and dye their hair black and wear ironic t-shirts?

Why do all soft rock bands now wear thick frame glasses and try to pull off a sophisticated grunge look?

Why do pop stars.... well you get the picture, its a genre and a style for the genre.

Sup TC?

Not all metal is about "darkness" and "skulls" and "long black hair."

Actually, metalbands have some of the most varied andartistic album covers out there.

because metal is the music of satan zidan4000

I really hope you are being sarcastic.

anyway some album covers I like

No skulls or darkness

Very uplifting albums

[QUOTE="zidan4000"]because metal is the music of satan YoshiYogurt

No skulls or darkness

Yeah, but they'd be way more cool with skulls, darkness or Satan. Maybe even all three.

Electric Wizard's Dopethrone is my favorite (metal) album cover; it's a man with horns, a beard and elongated features smoking tobacco out of a water pipe.

BTBAM is soo skulls and darkness.

MORE stereotypical nonsense O_O... Now I'm worried...

BTBAM is soo skulls and darkness.

This a good example of one not having any of those things you speak of

because metal kick ass!!!

I know what you mean and I do agree, but there are lots of bands that aren't like that.

Dream Theater. The darkest thing they have is Train of Thought, and that's nothing compared to what you're describing.

Tool. Though they have some dark themes in their music like Dream Theater. It's more aout deep thinking and creativity.

Rainbow. 70's progressive metal. Most of teir stuff is fantasy themed.

Korpiklaani. No darkness there, It's all about alcohol and having fun with them.

Ensiferum. Their music's about Vikings and Norse Mythology.

Blind Guardian. They write about fairy tales and fantasy themes.

Demons and Wizard. Name might not suggest it. But their a side project of Blind Guardian and Iced Earth. They write about various different things, though similar songwriting to Blind Guardian.

But now I'm going to agree with you:

Just about every Death metal band on the planet

Just about every Black metal band on the planet

Most Thrash metal bands

Many Metalcore bands

And then there's also Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath and Iced Earth. These bands have all been pretty big on the skulls and satan references. I'm sure there's MANY more. But take into account some metal's actually creative.

No metalhead wants to listen to a death metal band who writes happy, inspiring lyrics.....it's pissed off music......which is why it's fun to listen to :P

Why do all non-metal fans like to generalize and stereotype metal bands and the metal community in general? See what I did thar? ;)Messiahbolical-

Its hardly an unfair assessment considering even the examples borught by people here are relatively few compared to the large quantity of music that DOES fall into the steroetype.

And besides, its why hes asking, and not proclaiming.

[QUOTE="Messiahbolical-"]Why do all non-metal fans like to generalize and stereotype metal bands and the metal community in general? See what I did thar? ;)XaosII

Its hardly an unfair assessment considering even the examples borught by people here are relatively few compared to the large quantity of music that DOES fall into the steroetype.

And besides, its why hes asking, and not proclaiming.

[QUOTE="Messiahbolical-"]Why do all non-metal fans like to generalize and stereotype metal bands and the metal community in general? See what I did thar? ;)XaosII

Its hardly an unfair assessment considering even the examples borught by people here are relatively few compared to the large quantity of music that DOES fall into the steroetype.

And besides, its why hes asking, and not proclaiming.

It's as fair as proclaiming that all pop music sounds like Justin Beiber. A lot of it is, but a LOT of it isn't. Let's look at some of the releases in the last few months that don't fall under that, at this point, dated stereotype.

Amon Amarth - Surtur Rising

Born of Osiris - The Discovery

Across the Sun - Before the Night Takes Us

myGRAIN - self-titled

Mercenary - Metamorphosis

Blackguard - Fireflight

Becoming the Archetype - Celestial Completion

Protest the Hero - Scurrilous

Defeater - Empty Days and Sleepness Nights

The Human Abstract - Digital Veil

The Color Morale - My Devil in Your Eyes

Kvelertak - self-titled

Darkest Hour - The Human Romance

The Gun Show - Discontentment

The Haunted - Unseen

Onward to Olympas - The War Within Us

Obscura - Omnivium

Tesseract - One

Dr. Acula - Slander

Arbiter - Collosus

The Famine - Architects of Guilt

Times of Grace - The Hymn of a Broken Man

Ava Inferi - Onyx

Architects - The Here and Now

Overcome - The Great Campaign of Sabotage

Omnium Gatherum - New World Shadows

Amia Venera Landscape - The Long Procession

After the Burial - In Dreams

Agalloch - Marrow of the Spirit

Lionheart - Built on Struggle

Sea of Treachery - Wonderland

Farewell to Freeway - Filthy Habits

Gideon - Costs

Motorjesus - Wheels of Purgatory

Straight Line Stitch - The Fight of Our Lives

Weedeater - Jason...The Dragon

So, a considerable amount that doesn't really fall under that category and that's within the last few months of releases. So I'm not really buying that as a legitimate stereotype. Maybe 20 years ago, but not now. (Note, I don't like a lot of these bands, I'm only saying that they don't fall under the stereotype.)