Admit it: this picture makes you SO FUCKING HAPPY.

Recently, my friend sent me a YouTube link to a Bee Gees cover group. Excuse me, tribute band. That is the proper way of addressing them, as Mark Wahlberg taught us in Rock Star. I don’t like the Bee Gees. I don’t like disco. Disco is kind of terrible. Disco blows dogs for quarters. Disco is never amazing, especially not when KISS attempt it. To say I was a little confused would be an understatement. But my friends aren’t totally clueless to what I listen to, so I gave it a shot. It turned out it was a heavy metal Bee Gees tribute band. Okay, it was a little bit awesome. Weirdly enough, it worked. I only like thin-voiced men screeching when accompanied by equally high-pitched guitars, and that’s basically what heavy metal “Stayin’ Alive,” was. I turned it off about halfway through because, well, I still have my limits, but it kind of makes you stop and go, “Huh!” Metal just makes everything sound better.

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Cosmo Lee of Invisible Oranges has written up a thought-provoking editorial (inspired by Metal As Fuck) that takes a look at the differences between metal culture in the U.S. and in Europe. We’ve touched on this topic before here, but never really delved into it.

Take a look at Sammy O’Hagar’s recent review of Skyfire, Satan Rosenbloom’s interview with Kellhaul drummer Will Scharf (in which Scharf laments, “I don’t know if it’s a cultural difference or there’s less Clear Channel over there so people actually have to seek out shit for themselves, but it seems like Europe embraces weird bands like us more than the States.”) or my writeup of unsigned band Dynahead (from Brazil, but the point stands); there is a tangible difference between metal culture in U.S. and the rest of the world. When Axl and I went to Download Festival in 2006 is was readily apparent; any local metalhead we talked to was likely to be a big fan of both Korn and Opeth and think nothing of it.

Here’s a sample from Cosmo Lee’s breakdown of the differences:

Epicness/tolerance for cheese

Bands like Sonata Arctica and Hammerfall don’t come from the States. Being a secondhand culture, US metal is too self-conscious to engage in the unabashed frilly shirt-ery that pegs bands as “European, probably on Nuclear Blast.” American bands like Pharaoh and Symphony X that have a European sound are usually more serious. This doesn’t just apply to happy power metal. Even a “death metal” band like Arch Enemy has blatant “billowing hair/wind machine on 11″ moments that are patently European. Americans are too busy grinding on one note and cursing their lack of health care.

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