I really enjoy blending genres. Right now, my band plays a sort of stoner/thrash/black/grunge/progressive rock thing.

I havent read all the other responses to this thread, so pardon any redundancy, but people are just projecting when they say that kinda shit. Its their own fear of being close minded, or them trying to project their own reality where everything has to be eclectic, even though they may not know SHIT about metal..

Its often ironic that people say "oh i like all types of music" and they have a very superficial understanding of it, like they will listen to the pop country, have a Chamillionaire cd, and a Metallica cd (usually the Black Album) and say they're "open minded".

I enjoy blending genres too, but find that blending genres with metal is only better when a persons a metalhead first and then adds some of their own other likings to it. Otherwise it usually doesnt work, especially in a band situation.


Isn't it funny that alot of these comments are often times reserved for the genre of metal? What a bunch of idiotic hypocrites.

One of my friends is like that, he's "open minded", "listens to all music" and yet the only things he knows are modern metalcore, Master of Puppets/Enter Sandman, Yngwie Malmsteem/Paul Gilbert and .... Dragonforce. I put him in his place on a regular basis whenever he annoys me with this crap, but other than that he's a pretty intelligent guy. These people just don't know anything about music, so my advice would be to not talk about music with them.

Its ironic because getting into metal has gotten me INTO other types of music, even if metals still the main thing. I can give you the trajectory of the whole thing:


(gets into Voivod around 90 or so)-Voivod does a Pink Floyd cover and mentions prog in interviews- gets into Pink Floyd- doesnt mind some electronic music or tripped out weird stuff as result- gets into prog- gets into jazz because of prog.


Thats how its gone for me- and most people when they bash metal have NO FUCKING CLUE that it has the tendency to do that (what i mentioned above) to a lot of people.

Try getting these fuckers to do diminished sweep arpeggios all across the fretboard.

Anyways, just dont react when these people do this stuff- just act as if- dont feed into their bullshit.

Sorry but thinking more about the OP's experience is getting me more and more pissed off!

That's exactly what I say to them as well (along that context), and it's a pleasure to watch them squirm.

Ok, so I admit that I'm a "close minded" metalhead who only listens to metal. But it's my choice, and I'm sticking to it. And I don't see what harm other people could get from the fact that I'm close minded

Well, I actually do like all forms of music to soem extent. The only exception Ive found is Emo. I have never found a single emo band that does not irratate me. I also do not really have any pop or dance bands I like in particular, just a few scattered songs. And of course, you mention Mongolian vocal music, which I ahev never heard of, so I guess it translates more into i like all forms of music I have heard of.
Yet, i knwo no one else with any claim to likeing most forms of music. Hatred for easy-listeniong musak is almost universal. Im the only one I know that enjoys some of it.

A really great example of a "mix" is Semargl's Attack on God. It has Black Metal, Acoustic, Classical, Death Metal, Thrash Metal and Slam Death Metal. Definitely get it if you haven't. And no, you can't sample from it, you need to hear it from start to end to understand it.

I really never get in a "open minded closed minded" discussion. But I do recieve alot of crap from friends ther are like "BLACK METAL OR GTFO!". I listen to everything Metal. I like Lamb of God and Machine Head. But at the same time I like Cannibal Corpse, Darkthrone, Funeral Fog, Burzum, Behemoth ect. But the shit that drives those "tr00 kvlt" A-holes nuts is that I LOVE folk metal. So basicaly I'm told to be a closed minded metalhead.

That's a somewhat stupid reply. When people say things like that, they really mean they have an open mind to different kinds of music. I'm pretty sure they don't mean they listen to EVERYTHING. But they probably would give it a chance if given the opportunity to.

Then why state it in that way? It is entirely valid to question it with a reply like that. The initial statement is the one that is stupid, not the reply.

Perhaps the person failed to deliver the message in the desired context. Some people have trouble clarifying things sometimes.

Well, regardless of the context, it doesn't really connect to what you have said is the "real meaning" of the statement.

Or perhaps you guys take some words of these people way too literally. It's clear what the majority of people who use that line mean by it - thebeastinblack's response is smartass douchebaggery.

What do they mean?

Figure it out you have a brain man.

He's trying to say he's trying to come off as a smartass...which is unnecessary given that particular scenario.

My question was not about what Horned_Owl_Holocaust means. I was asking what he thinks those people who say "I like everything" really mean with that statement.

You can interpret it any way you like, though 90% of the people I know do not like metal, and I've heard that line used on several occasions. I could explain to you my grasp on what they mean, or you could venture off of the computer and maybe meet some people who will say it to you, and you can get some clarity on it in a a possibly more rewarding way.

I think you're overanalyzing this. I will give them the benefit of the doubt and say they just mean they'll try anything once and aren't coming off as the smug people TBiB is portraying them as.

Yea, that's what I was getting to. It seems a few people here are looking for some definitive absolute answer and overthinking something which is extremely trivial.

If that is what they mean, the statement is entirely inaccurate.

Yes. Had they worded it properly, I guess such conclusions wouldn't have been made.

Can you see how bad it would come off when you meet some new people and you give them these type of responses over simple conversation? I'm guilty of making a huge assumption here, but you come off as the guy who takes every single thing somebody says literal to the bone, and would be the guy correcting the most unnecessary of things in any situation and driving everybody nuts. No offense.

But at the same time, it should be generally known that when people say such things, they mean what I stated they really mean. Most people will not take the time to elaborate on their statements and follow it up with "...and I'll give everything a listen."...especially if it's small talk where conversations usually are not built upon further and limited to very general and broad statements.

When someone says "This tastes like shit", do you take them to task when you realise that they don't actually mean the food literally tastes like faeces?

Things aren't always meant to be taken literally. When someone says "I listen to everything", I understand that they do not mean they literally listen to every single genre of music, because no one does. "Everything" means something different each time, but the meaning is never literal (in my experience, anyway).

Did I ever insist that they mean it literally? No. I'm saying that what they really mean is very unclear -- so, regardless of what they really mean, it is best to refrain from saying that and giving a clearer statement (unless they literally mean it, of course).

Not to derail the thread too much, but on the topic of not being able to take a hint, I used to have a friend who got really pissed whenever people called Rage Against the Machine simply Rage. He argued that it was very confusing for him because of the German band Rage and could not tell which one people were referring to. I basically got pissed off with the guy's idiocy and said to him "Dude, when you see the average person talking about a band called "Rage", do you really think they're referring to the German band that not many people outside of metal circles know about or the much more popular rock group from the U.S.? You really can't be that stupid." and that shut him up good. But I think he complained about that mostly to stir up shit. He always was an attention whore (the main reason I stopped associating with him).

I agree with you that saying "I like everything" is very unclear, and would not suffer at all from elaboration. If only all people were endowed with clarity of thought and expression. However, I'm banking on the probability that this is too high an expectation of the average person (which means that we can insist on clarity, but we can't expect it).

Open- and close-mindedness are typically subjective, relative qualities. If you listen to even three or four distinct genres, you likely listen to more music than most people around you who would deem you close-minded. Listening to radio garbage makes you no more open-minded, and indeed seems to make people innately more myopic. When I am called out as close-minded, I enjoy rhetorically asking the accusor if they enjoy several obscure genres of my choosing. It usually shuts them up. But in the end, it's likely best not to concern yourself with such trivialties and to scoff those who do, for nobody 'listens to everything', as I'm sure the rational lot of us are aware.

Sad but true.

I'm not going to lie, people that refuse to listen to anything other than one style of music annoy me. Idiot metalheads who refuse to even give anything else a try piss me off, if you told them you like hip hop or jazz some of them will treat you like you're less than a human being... Yet they don't even know if they like that music or not, because they refuse to even try listening to it. This obviously doesn't happen just with metalheads, it also especially happens rap fanatics who think metal is just people screaming (a bit like rock fans thinking rap is just negroes talking about bitches and money).

People that only like one genre of music (whether it be metal, jazz or even contemporary r&b (ugh)) yet won't instantly shun music just because of it's genre, if they'll give it a go then that's cool with me.

Guy in OP's post is a jackass, if you're going to form a metal band then why the fuck would you want people playing different styles. IDIOT.

When you look at the bigger picture of musical genres, I wouldn't imagine that metal is hated that much more... And half of the people that get pissy when they're told metal sucks are complete hypocrites and would insult someone if they listened to rap for example.

In conclusion, EVERYONE IS AN ASSHOLE ABOUT MUSIC, even me: country fucking blows!

Thank you for reading this barely coherent rambling.

^^^ That post is most likely the best thing I'm gonna read all day and maybe all week.

"People that only like one genre of music (whether it be metal, jazz or even contemporary r&b (ugh)) yet won't instantly shun music just because of it's genre, if they'll give it a go then that's cool with me."

Well, although I don't only listen to one genre of music, there are times when I'm in a mood to hear metal and only metal. If someone wants to play an R&B song, I will refuse to play it because I would be against that shit at that time. It's not to say that I wouldn't ever give it a listen sometime later, but I get into moods where I just want to hear metal, metal, and more metal. It has to be pure, 100% metal or I get pissed off.

And besides, if you've already listened to a genre of music a million different times and you don't like it, chances are you aren't going to like it when some random song that you've never heard of comes up. I don't automatically think that all rap or all country sucks, but there is a very, VERY high chance that if someone were to suggest a rap song for me to listen to right now that I wouldn't like it. And I'm not even in a metal mood.

Why do people keep bitching about being open minded? I'm a close minded person when it comes to music. I listen to metal, mainly death metal because it's the kind of music I like the most. It takes a great deal to appreciate that kind of music and it's nothing you fall for the first time you hear it. It just sticks to me more and more after every listen. I'm not going to compromise my playlist just for the sake of diversity.

I'm close minded and damn proud of it. Anyone have the lack of life to actually care about MY musical taste can kiss my ass.

Are we twins or something?

Yeah, I don't find myself caring about being "close minded" these days, but I find that listening to a wide variety of music is fun and spices up life. I like having a wide variety of things to listen to, learning new forms of music, etc.

I used to be a bit like that, I always got annoyed when people abbreviated System of a Down as SOD instead of SOAD because SOD is Stormtroopers of Death to me. But I guess it's the same scenario, who is the average person more likely to be referring to.

Yeah, it really just comes down to common sense, in the same sense that if someone says "USA", they are probably not referring to the Unholy Solicitors Alliance. In spite of all the grandiose and more or less fanciful notions of intellectual superiority harboured by many a metalhead, metalheads seem to be just as prone to idiocy as anyone.

If there is one thing I cannot stand, it is when people arrogantly assume that they will always be understood, and react with disdain when they are not.

I understand your point of view and respect it. However I have been misunderstood. I meant to say that people who usually think, or behave this way are Christian FANATICS. I know many religious people that respect my beliefs and tastes. I also specified that I'M WILLING TO BET. That means I definitely could be wrong, but still most fanatics think this way and I am merely pointing it out. If you are Christian, I am sorry if I offended you, and I congratulate you for being open-minded enough to listen to metal. Thanks for the critic.

No back pedaling! ;]

I will apologise however for jumping on it. Some in house fighting between myself and another team member on another board is making me a bit tetchy.. and when that happens, deal with it and maybe keep low for a while.


So, umm.. apologies to anybody else I probably snapped at last week/month.