When did Doom Metal/Black Metal and the like become "hip" and why?

xp - sexydancer - I'd only heard the term once before from someone that grew up in Washington State, and I was confused about what she was referring to. I'm just wondering whether it's specific to a particular region, or whether I just happened to grow up in a region where this term wasn't used.

honestly, i'm kinda using the term retrospectively---not sure if i heard it before going to lol college in NE

I never heard hesher till after I left minnesota in 1989.

wait, no, i did: in the pages of POWDER magazine, haw

New England or Nebraska?

but once i pulled what the word meant from the context, i was like 'ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh i know that guy'

xp i am also a despicable ivy, sarahel

they talk funny in that part of the country.

There was only a couple of people i knew at school that was into metal (same goes for "indie" most were into U2/INXS/Guns n Roses/Bon Jovi/Pet Shop Boys/Erasure/Queen/Dire Straits and whatever was in the charts in the mid to late 80s) Only a couple were into hair metal, a few others liked Slayer,Megadeth etc. I think i was put off metal as i hated hair metal.
I had a cd player n stuff but i wasnt "into" music. I occasionally listed to peel or tommy vance just to hear something that i wasnt fed up with hearing, and i also liked some classic bands like the stones,sex pistols and the like but actually "getting right into music" that didn't happen til Nirvana, that opened up a whole new world of music that I had no idea that existed really.

I do know that in the 90s playgrounds in the high schools round here got divided into "the rockers/metallers" and "the beautiful people" who were into mainstream chart stuff (which includes club stuff.) No idea what it's like now, but emo's seem to be as popular as nu metal/goth was.

xp: I'm from Washington too, and remember "hesher" being thrown around in the late 80s-early 90s to describe "metalheads" or people who resembled Cliff Burton.

The year before that, my favorite shit had been stuff like Blue Oyster Cult, Molly Hatchet, Aqualung and Twisted Sister, yr basic hard rock diet that would have surely led to NWOBHM and thrash if those options weren't physically dangerous in that environment.

― vadnais heights is cougartown (Jon Lewis), Friday, December 11, 2009 1:50 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

"physically dangerous" overstates the case in my own experience, but this is basically OTM. I listened exclusively to KQ and 93X. i would've continued to do so were it not for two major radio events: 93X became the EDGE, and REV105 happened.

yeah - from kingkonggodzilla's evocative description, I can definitely say I went to high school with a number of dudes like that.

The metal dudes were the only (non-ethnically determined) outsider group at my St. Paul high school besides the punk rockers. The only proto-goths I knew were from the suburbs. There were like 2 New Romantics.

wait gbx you are also from twin cities (KQ)?

some of us are older than the generation that "grew up" with grunge.

well i was 18 when grunge hit, but like i said, i wasnt really "into" music til then.
I guess i grew up with hair metal but i hated it, but it was a lot easier to ignore/be unaware in the uk. It's not like those bands got top 10 hits ,got played on radio and most people did not have access to MTV. Guns n Roses were the exception. I wouldn't really have been aware of hair metal if one of my best mates kept buying it.

1990s Olympia WA had a generation of Melvins-obsessed "hipsters" (or riot-boys or Nu Punkers) ... Karp, Mukelteo Fairies, Behold the Prophet No Lord Shall Live, Fucking Champs, etc

Honest answer:

Pretty sure the whole current dilletante/hipster/indierock embrace of black metal/doom/kvlt started with Dave Grohl doing the Probot record on Southern Lord which gave them instant cred among dorkus Sufjan losers and a much bigger budget to actually promote stuff like Sunn, Earth, and get records like that serviced to indie rock writers by indie publicists and whatnot

I'm pretty sure it started before that. Grohl was probably doing it to ride along on it's wave. That record truly flopped though, so it didn't do him or anyone involved much good.

JL: yeah, live in MPLS through 3rd grade, out to h4stings for high school. away to the east coast for college, several years in the west/chicago, back in mpls

current status: hungry, poser

don't forget JOHN ZZZORN dude

he attracted a different kind of dilettante/hipster than the ones Whiney is describing.

we are talking historical hipsters tho.

hipsters that maybe needed an intellectual "in" to metal

yeah but Whiney's Sufjan losers are not the same hipsters that pay attention to John Zorn, are they?

xxxxp yeah because before SST defined my 1985, KQRS defined my 1984.

Zorn/early Boredoms could be key here, really. 'Where can I hear more shit like this'? 'Try your local metal grocer's freezer!'

can i remind hipsters and troo metalheads to nominate and vote NOMINATIONS THREAD for ILX METAL ALBUMS Of 2009 (Closes December 20) - non rolling metal regulars welcomed to warm themselves by our blackened pyre of statistics, so plz Vom and Note

xp - but are these the same people that pay attention to the doings of Dave Grohl and Sufjan? Whiney come back!

I feel like there is some crossover among them, but there are separate types of hipsters.

don't forget the "art world" fascination with metal.

There are good and bad reasons for snobbery about metal. Growing up in the South, a lot of metal fans around me in Kentucky really were dumbass racist jock rednecks. But it also crossed over into the D&D store / computer programmer / math league / gamer nerds that those jocks would beat up. So the power fantasies in metal can serve two audiences (power lifters getting pumped before their workout, and wannabe Columbine kids dreaming of striking back). I was into hardcore when I was growing up in the eighties and metal was "the enemy" until slowly but surely . . . it wasn't. Black Flag's "My War" was so Sabbath-like that most punks/hardcore kids I hung out with also listened to Black Sabbath, and while people laughed at hair metal, kids in the scene knew that Metallica's "Ride the Lightning" was cool, Carcass' "Reek of Putrefaction" was cool, Venom's "Possessed" was cool, etc. I was not into things that blatantly called themselves "crossover" ala DRI or SSD's sellout album, but an album like Corrosion of Conformity's "Animosity" was pretty solidly in both hardcore and metal camps. So . . . I've been into metal since Samhain's "November Coming Fire" tour, and I don't feel all that threatened by the accusation that black metal is "for hipsters"- I think if somebody is late to the party that's not necessarily their fault or something. The point is to be discriminating about what you like on its own terms rather than in terms of the bodycount/glamour/hype. I got "Filosofem" from my friend Kris Force when her band was signed to Misanthropy records and I just remember that the first time I heard Burzum there was immediately something really special about it that was emotional and hard to put into words. Am I just another "hipster" because I don't exclusively listen to metal always and only? fuck that. I think it's a false choice as far as death metal and black metal. There's great records in both camps, and derivative crap in both.

sarahel

Using the vague definition of "hipster" meaning "someone who is primarily into indie rock instead of metal" (as my metalhead friends who call me a hipster generally do)

Yes, Zorn/Boredoms-gateway-metal dudes are like an older generation of hipster than Southern Lord/Vice photo book/Matthew Barney nu-indie hipsters

So the power fantasies in metal can serve two audiences (power lifters getting pumped before their workout, and wannabe Columbine kids dreaming of striking back).

Yeah - I'd say that is accurate.

I got "Filosofem" from my friend Kris Force when her band was signed to Misanthropy records

Is this Amber Asylum or a different band? Or am I mixing up people again?

I think it's a false choice as far as death metal and black metal. There's great records in both camps, and derivative crap in both.

same here.

it should also be noted that Justin Broadrick from Godflesh used a drum machine and sported short hair and a hoodie way back inna late 80s.

xp - Whiney - I think the former is "my generation"

xpost

yeah Amber Asylum

oh and obvious point but I would say that Aquarius Records in San Francisco is a great case of people who were always into tons of weird and cool music and obviously a "hipster" epicenter and they have always supported black metal and doom, so if you're looking for who put this stuff into hipster bloodstreams, AQ is one contender on the West Coast at any rate. Cinematically, Harmony Korine's "GUMMO" soundtrack did the same for NYC and stylists/fashionistas, I reckon.

What put me off BM for the longest time was the neo nazi connotations. I know I'm not the only one.

Considering Aquarius stocks Chunklet magazine - "hipster" epicenter is quite apt.

aQ might cater to hipsters but the guys behind it are def long term metal fans, who also like other stuff, like most of us here on ilx posting to this thread really.

I think the neo-nazi connotations are an attraction for the "art world" types--fantasies of an all-white, all-male universe.

Yes, Zorn/Boredoms-gateway-metal dudes are like an older generation of hipster than Southern Lord/Vice photo book/Matthew Barney nu-indie hipsters

i'm younger (29 next month), but i definitely am coming to metal via an interest in jazz/noize

xxp - duh, one is not one's audience.

A lot of hipsters are actually drawn to it BECAUSE of the neo-nazi connotations. Look how we deify they openly racist eugenics fan Varg Vikernes ON THIS VERY BOARD as a hero.

i definitely am coming to metal via an interest in jazz/noize

same here + "brutal prog"

xpost:

we do?

He's the one in the picture with the photoshopped cat, right?

liking burzum the band and burzum the dude are obv two very different things, if that's what you're getting at...

the dude in the picture w/the cat is v cute in that picture.

He's the one in the picture with the photoshopped cat, right?

hahaha. you will have to be more specific. this if the internet after all. ;-)

also: hipsters have been acting like heshers for a decade now (PBR, wolf t-shirts, partying hard), it seems natural that some would grow up and get into REAL METAL

"are you being an ironic hersher, man?"

"I can't even tell anymore."