Editorial: MetalSucks is More Metal Than You’ll Ever Be

Dear stupid dumb fucks who have recently taken to asserting that the founders of MetalSucks do not understand, like, or care about heavy metal,

We’re normally not ones to gloat, but we feel compelled to point something out:

We are more fucking metal than you will ever be.

Allow us to elaborate.

MetalSucks is a completely DIY business. We started it ten years ago. At the time, we had horrible jobs working for The Man. Socializing, fun, and sleep all took a backseat to coming home from a long day at work and then creating content for the site and/or going to shows and passing out MetalSucks stickers (and taking time to explain to angry fans that the name was tongue-in-cheek while hoping not to get our asses beat). We did not have any outside financial sponsors. We remain the site’s only full-time staffers, and we still don’t have a corporate parent. In other words, MetalSucks was built with love, hard work, and perseverance, and, furthermore, is 100% independent. And we should not have to explain to you that independence and perseverance are a big part of what metal is all about.

MetalSucks is uncompromising. You know what we wouldn’t do if all we cared about was money and traffic? CONSTANTLY TALK SHIT ABOUT EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME. If you think that has somehow endeared us to advertisers and has never ever cost us a cent, you think wrong.

Additionally, if you think that has somehow endeared us to readers and has never ever cost us a cent, you also think wrong. Fans of relatively mainstream metal bust our chops for spending too much time on underground shit; fans of underground shit bust our chops for spending too much time on mainstream stuff. It seems like people expected us to choose a side, so to speak — like we couldn’t possibly enjoy the bands covered by Revolver and the bands covered by Decibel. Thing is, we actually DO like both kinds of bands, so we continue to cover both types of bands. That may not be the most wise business strategy, but it’s what we want to do, so pppffffftttt.

We would also be 100% less-likely to discuss metal through the filter of our political views, because to paraphrase a famous, apocryphal Michael Jordan quote, “Conservatives buy metal, too.”

So why do we do these things?

Because we care so goddamn much.

We honestly believe that everything we do is in metal’s best interest; that we need to hold metal to a higher standard than other genres of music, and that if we allow the genre to become oversaturated with shitty bands and/or hateful people, it will kill the music we love. Obviously, you’re free to disagree with our views on music and/or politics, but we’re speaking from hearts. And speaking from the heart is metal AF.

Oh, and one other thing: if anyone ever tells you that blogging on the Internet about a niche genre of music is a good way to get rich, laugh directly into that person’s face. Even if we wanted to take payola, there’s no payola to take (although it’s funny to imagine how that offer might go: “Write five-hundred nice words about Gojira? There’s two whole dollars in it for youuuu…”). We’re not complaining, we’re just saying, if money was our only concern, we’d work at Goldman Sachs with all the other criminals.

MetalSucks is transgressive. And nobody seems to disagree that being transgressive is metal. Yet, somehow, a good portion of you miss that you cannot be conservative and transgressive… and that being intolerant is conservative.

Let’s take a brief detour now to discuss what it means to be transgressive. The literal definition is “involving a violation of accepted or imposed boundaries, especially those of social acceptability.” Now, if your IQ is smaller than your shoe size, it’s easy to see how you might interpret that to mean that being a racist or a misogynist or militantly ‘true’ or whatever is transgressive, because it’s not socially acceptable to drop an N-bomb right before pipe bombing a mosque and sexually assaulting a woman.

This interpretation of what it means to be “transgressive” is, however, total horse shit. People have been mistreating other people based on their sex, race, and/or religion for as long as anyone can remember, and if you think our society doesn’t tolerate it, well, let us know how the weather is on your planet.

Because actions speak louder than words. Our society may say it doesn’t tolerate bigotry or sexual assault, but our actions suggest otherwise. For example: we can say our law enforcement doesn’t have a racism problem all we want — as long as we keep letting predominantly white police officers off the hook for shooting unarmed African-American citizens, we are sending a message that it is, in fact, okay for those officers to kill minorities regardless of whether or not the situation called for lethal force.

Being intolerant and violent doesn’t make you a rule breaker. It makes you part of a long, systemic tradition which we all allow to continue by not taking a stand against it. Way to fall in with the other sheep, sheep! You’re so brave! BAAAAAAAA!!!

MetalSucks is progressive. And we’re not just talking about our politics or our love of Dream Theater.

In the always-wise words of the mighty Clutch:

The industry is changing. The music is changing. The fans are changing. Everything is always changing all the time, and there is absolutely nothing anyone can do about it. The Internet isn’t going away. Physical media isn’t coming back. Slayer will never be underground again. We’ve been saying this for years (remember how much shit you gave us about Spotify?). It’s fine to look back at “the way things were” with some nostalgia, but we can think of few things less metal than pining for the days of tape trading, ‘zines, Headbanger’s Ball, and mainstream celebrities who wouldn’t be caught dead in an Anthrax shirt. To borrow your language for a minute… shape up, you fucking snowflake.

And so, in conclusion, MetalSucks is inarguably more metal than anyone who has ever declared us “not metal.” Feel free to keep screaming into the winds of the Internet that we’re wrong. We’ve been here, doing what we do. We’ll be here, doing what we do.