Your Scene Sucks & It’s Your Fault
The Scene, the Scene.
Ah yes, “The Scene.”
Everyone talks about “the scene.” For some, it seems, “the scene” has become a sort of dirty phrase, being frowned upon with some sort of bullshit hipster elitism, as if suddenly it’s uncool to be part of a scene anymore. It’s almost like people need to be so “different” and “individual” that they need to stigmatize words and core concepts in order to do so. Vain attempts at trying to stand out, if you ask me. But since you did ask me (no, I know you didn’t, but here you are reading this, so I consider that your invitation of my opinion), elitist hipster attitudes have no place in metal, and are in fact counter to the very core of what metal is. But whatever. To each their own.
But what -is- “the scene?”
I wish I had a solid answer. But at the same time, I’m glad I don’t. I mean, part of the beauty of a thing such as a local music scene is its lack of definition, the organized chaos that it is, existing as a loose confederation of ideas and concepts bound together in a community of counter-culture bands and fans railing against the “mainstream” and whatever is currently trending in popular culture.
Geez…. could I use anymore buzzwords? Whatever. They get the point across. I hope.
The ever-so-infallible and ultra-reliable Wikipedia has this to say about what a music scene is:
“An independent music scene is a localized independent music-oriented (or, more specifically, indie rock/indie pop-oriented) community of bands and their audiences.” [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indie_music_scene]
Now, for the sake of the argument, that definition is referring specifically to indie rock/indie pop, but I think it’s as equally applicable to the underground hard rock and metal scene. Ya know, the heavy stuff. The important part is that it revolves around a sense of community tied together by a commonality of belief, culture, attitude, and musical genres/styles. Personally, I tend to include in that concept any of the artists (such as tattoo artists, graphic designers, traditional artists, etc), venues, promoters, record labels, independent record stores, radio, and anyone else that contributes in any way to the community by either supporting it or adding to it. That means that I have a pretty broad definition, but I tend to think along lines of attitude and artistic and cultural expression rather than just musical styles. Which means that I tend to think of stuff like roller derby, the occult community, the horror community, and other “counter-culture” groups (like the kink/fetish community, skaters, and even gamers) as part of “the scene.” And maybe some of you will disagree with me (I actually hope you do), but that’s the beauty of the Scene:
It’s whatever we want it to be.
There aren’t any rules. There isn’t a proclamation of what is and isn’t “the scene.” There also isn’t a limit on what the scene is or isn’t, what it can and can be. At least not other than what the scene itself decides on. Those limits try to be decided by hipster elitists who want to dominate and control through false airs of superiority because their so niche that no one else could possibly understand their little corner of the scene. But fuck those guys. They’re missing the point. The exclusiveness of “the scene” comes from its inclusiveness:
Give us your outcasts and misfits, your freaks and weirdos, your avant garde and your prodigies; we have room and a place for all. We’re all at least a little bit just on the other side of the fringes of “normal” society, whether for our tastes in music, our artistic expressions or our self-expressions through tattoos, piercings, and/or clothing choices.
Any “outsider” from mainstream culture and society making someone else feel outcast and unwelcome needs to get the fuck over themselves and quit being hypocrites. There is room for all in the scene, and the scene is for all. The whole fucking point is to give people like us a community, a place to be who we want to be away from a world that tries to tell us who and what we are supposed to be. There’s no room in the scene for The Man, and anyone trying to define who and what can be part of the scene is trying to take up the role of The Man, and they can go fuck themselves and go back to the mainstream.
Metalheads tend to be the most dickish about stuff, mostly because of their tired and endless debates about what is TRV KVLT METAL, but fuck those guys. Heavy music is heavy music.
I’m gonna get shit for what I’m about to say, but that’s cool. Dissension isn’t only expected, it’s encouraged; after all, that’s the point of “the scene.”
Metal is metal is metal. Metal isn’t just a sound, it’s an attitude. If anything, it’s the embodiment of counter-culture and Damn The Man! and fuck the mainstream. Frankly, I could care less about what’s “true metal.” People rail about “the good old days,” and hate on any and every new change and trend that surfaces in the scene nowadays, calling bands poseurs and sell-outs for doing anything that catches on. Of course, it’s the same metalheads bitching about whatever new sound is emerging, wishing bands would go back to whatever old-school sound they favor who also bitch when a band does just that, screaming with the mantra “Do something original!” What the fuck? Which is it? You want a throwback to a yesteryear you probably don’t remember? Or do you want a band to innovate and move forward? Or do you just want them to do it you way? People spend too much time bitching about what they have instead of appreciating it.
Even worse are those folks who complain that no one listens to their niche bands, and complain that no one supports “true artists” but then are the first to jump ship and complain when a band starts achieving the very thing their hipster fans are complaining they don’t have–popularity. Metalheads are notoriously bad about this. Get a band on tour with a major national act, or let them start seeing some success in radio or beefed up album sales, or worse, signing to a major label ***shudder*** and they’re instantly sellouts. No one wants to be happy for the art they support anymore. And that blows.
The members of a scene tend to value self-expression above all else, and doing whatever the fuck we want regardless of what anyone else thinks. Which is why it pisses me off so much when someone does just that, and then gets ostracized and called “sellout” or “unoriginal” or “poseur.” Who fucking cares if someone blends a trendy musical trope in with your beloved uber-extreme metal sound? You don’t have to like it–hell, you don’t even have to respect it. But the minute you shit-talk them for doing it, you’re no better than The Man of the mainstream scene. In fact, you’re worse. Because you’re a hypocrite.
Scenes grow, thrive, and die on their community. Wait… no… they don’t ever die. Not really. They do tend to ebb and flow. Which is natural. Generation gaps tend to be the cause of that, as the active members of a scene tend to fade away as they get older, doing the “normal” thing of job and family, but eventually the next generation comes along and takes up the flag, usually to the chagrin of the older crowd because the younger crowd isn’t doing it the way it was done “back in my day.” They complain because they grew up on classic old school extreme metal like Death, Morbid Angel, and Obituary, but then complain that kids like Suicide Silence, Born of Osiris, and Veil of Maya, because it’s “core,” completely ignoring the fact that those bands are for kids today the equivalents of the old school progenitors of extreme music. They ignore that this is just the new generation, the new breed, and they are just as much outcasts and fringers as we ever were, if not more so in some ways. They’re like-minded individuals who exist outside of our society’s acceptable norms and values. They’re more like us than the rest of society, and for that, we should embrace them, regardless of what we think about their favorite band. Don’t just take my word for it, though. Check out what InfidelAmsterdam has to say about it in the video link at the end.
In the end, “the Scene” is what you make of it. Whether or not you approve of the term, it exists. It is a thing. We are exclusively inclusive, and that’s a good thing. People complain about how much their scene sucks, but they never DO anything about it to make it better, except troll endlessly on the internet, trash-talking people for their choice in music not being “trve” enough, ragging on people for their choice of hair style or the cut of their jeans. Odds are, the people complaining about how bad their scene sucks don’t actually know anything about their scene or the people in it. For them, the scene sucks, and it’s pretty much because they suck.
Long story short: do you complain about a lack of scene, bitch about other people’s tastes in music, decry the use of the phrase “the scene,” and are some kind of hipster elitist snob who thinks the club only belongs to you? If so, your scene sucks.
And it’s YOUR fault.
The Forge 