Just one thing I've come to notice lately both on here and in real life is that metal fans come in a few different forms. Not any kind of stereotyping joking bullshit, but in their listening habits. There are some who listen to fewer bands, but are much more loyal and hold a stronger following. Then there's the fan who listens to anything and everything, but isn't necessarily a huge fan of any one band. Then there's the genre follower, who only sticks to his genre, and everything else is crap in his eyes. EDIT: As pointed out, there's also the fan who listens to everything EXCEPT a certain genre. *cough*Europower haters*cough*

There are probably quite a few types of listeners I missed, but I think those cover the most. What would you consider yourself? Any reasoning as to why?

I'm a mix of the loyal fan and the genre follower. I have certain sub genres, like thrash and traditional, that I hold in very high regard. Within the various stuff I listen to though, I tend to be a strong follower. IE, I'm not a huge fan of anything with harsh vocals, but I follow Dark Tranquility and Amon Amarth pretty strongly considering.

I'll listen to anything and everything if it's good. I don't restrict myself to certain genres although I ofcourse do like some more than others. I also wouldn't call myself a "fan" of one or more bands in particular, but I do get a hard on for everything Insomnium, Kalmah, and Devin Townsend. The only genres I don't care about at all are euro power metal and grindcore.

I think that's another point, is that there are always exceptions to rules. I'm currently looking into finding any black metal I might like, despite the fact that I dislike most of the genre. And of course, finding bands that have a decent following and such without anti-christian lyrics is a bit challenging. Stuff like viking era Bathory is fun, but I can't throw down on something like Mardurk.

I tend to think I'm a bit of anything and everything, I certainly listen to some genres more, death/doom and death are clear favourites, but I try to branch out a bit, and there are certainly no bands that I obsessively listen to over and over. Starting up my last.fm again has surprised me by how little time I spend obsessing over individual acts, in the last 10 months I've listened to almost 500 different bands, but none more than 105, and only about 10 more than 50.

I think i fall in the everything and everything catagory! i listen to a different band every day! interesting topic though! one of my best friends only listen exclusively to black metal and he thinks death metal is a joke, weird

It always cracks me up when a black metal fan goes out of there way to call another genre goofy, or over the top, or theatrical. I mean, seriously?

Anything and everything. If I don't like a genre, it's only because I haven't searched deep enough into it yet.
I'd struggle to call myself a metalhead anymore, though, as much as I enjoy the genre, as I've really learnt to appreciate classical, ambient and electronic music to a much greater extent than metal. Not to say it isn't on my agenda though, heh.

I pretty much like every genre; I just have very specific criterion for which bands I like and don't like. I like to think it's a good thing to have high standards, but different standards depending on which genre it is. I mostly like music that pushes boundaries or has a very distinct style. Most of my metal tastes go towards power or traditional metal, but I've found things to like in every genre. Because there are good things in every genre.

People who don't like clean singing/only like extreme metal make me laugh; pretty small scope of music they like then...

Since i listen to all different genres within metal. i fall in the anything and everything category. But i still have
my favorite bands like Death,Nocturnus,Absu,Possessed,Destroyer 666,Mercyful Fate,Maiden and a load more

People who only like a few bands and disregard the rest
are a bit "weird" in my eyes. But most of those listen to bands i don't consider real metal;Machinehead,Pantera,
Meshugga,Soulfly,crap like that. And then there're those that grew up with Metallica and Anthrax and never looked
any further.

That's me in a nutshell. My music library or however you could call it is pretty tiny band-wise compared to many people I know and have seen, but I'm almost a fanatic about my favourite bands and if I say I "know" a band, then I know them pretty well.

I just don't enjoy listening to too much random stuff at once, I prefer being immersed in one-two bands for a longer while. Allows me to get into the music and the atmosphere a lot more.

I'm just an all around metal head. I listen to anything and everything pretty much, except I don't like much, or really any U.S. Power metal I can think of, but I'm sure there's gotta be one out there I'd like, or much glam and pretty much no hair metal.

Of course I have a lot of favorite bands that I will follow seriously and purchase all their albums, and I have certain genres I prefer over others, especially OS Death, Melodic/Swedish/Finnish Death, Traditional Doom, Sludge, Grindcore, Blackened Crust/Grind and 1st wave black metal and war metal.

I get into particular phases where I am into researching a genre or sub genre as much as possible and learning everything about it.

Lately, or at least for the past year or 2 I have been all about blackened Crust, blackened Grind, War Metal, and black/death/thrash and 1st wave black as well as Crust Punk.

I've been through my thrash phase, my melodic death phase, old school death phase, 2nd and symphonic black metal stage, groove metal stage, traditiional metal, NWOBHM, and other non metal genres, punk stage, Industrial stage....everything.

Even now when I go through a stage and have a cd buying spree it's usually a mix.

My last spree was mainly blackened grind/blackened crust, black-death/grind and crust punk, but also included the obligatory Old school Finnish death bands I am always discovering, as well as just new albums from some favorites like Amorphis, Noumena, Suicidal Tendencies, Soundgarden, etc etc.

I can never get enough music in general...ever.

Personally, I am loyal to some bands ex. Morbid, Mayhem, Slayer and Metallica though I'm always willing to try other things. I am also the kind of person who sticks to their genres, (Which is what most people probably are like) I usually only listen to thrash and black metal.

When I first got into metal, I listened to nothing but Thrash. Death? too noisy. Power? to cheesey. Doom? too boring. Black? too shitty sounding. If it wasn't thrash or at least thrash-influenced, I didn't listen to it. Everything was written off and didn't care to take time to listen highly-acclaimed non-thrash albums. How stupid I was.

Nowadays, like others, I listen to anything and everything if it sounds good. The one sub-genre I still don't listen to is Doom metal. Not because I refuse to but because I just haven't found ANYTHING that appeals to me, aside from a few songs from Sabbath. As for me, my top three favorite bands right now are Fleshgod Apocalypse, Bloodshot Dawn, and The Crown. I try to follow everything these bands do and hopefully there will be new releases from all three this year

Anything and everything for me. Always up to hear something new. The experience of listening to a great album for the first time is one of the best feelings ever. I seek it often, but I also wouldn't say I'm not a huge loyal fan of any bands. I'm quite obsessive about some just maybe not as many as others

I listen mostly to death and thrash, but I'll take anything outside of doom and drone.

I listen to death/black/war metal almost exclusively. Ill listen to power metal in secret though.....

I think I'm the type who listens to fewer bands. I have a hard time finding bands I really enjoy, but once I do they usually remain favorites for years.

I must admit that since I've gotten a little bit older I've become pretty lazy as far as music searching goes. I listen to the same music most of the time. It isn't that I dislike hearing new music that is good, its just that I'm much more likely to stick to a band that I know I like rather than find a new one.

You said no stereotyping, but then listed some stereotypes. All of those descriptions of different kinds of fans apply to me and the other metalheads I know. Even you cited yourself as being a blend. We all have our favs and habits, and there is something that could be done to understand and systematize why we like the things we like and engage with them the way we do, but this is not the correct approach.

Theres so much music out there, you really cant judge people too badly for only listening to certain genres. For the average person there just isnt enough time to listen to it all, but I do agree that the people that listen to BM and hate on DM or elsewise really arnt listening to the music too closely there is plenty of influences of both genres on each other. I myself have been listening to metal for around seven years, and im still engrossed in the 80s and 90s. It will probably be 2020 before i catch up to all the current releases and fully explore all the genres that ive been neglecting like doom death, drone, lots of bm, etc

I think I have the problem that I like too much. I can never listen to all the music and different bands I want to, let alone buy every album I like. Maybe my standards are too low.

I like whatever sounds good, and I listen to, support and endorse whatever sounds good and isn't tarnished by any associations with views I consider reprehensible. I don't jive with that "this artist is a fascist, faggot-and-whore-hating dipshit, but he doesn't write about it in his music per se" defense, either. I'm pretty fucking strict about that, and that alone. There is a very small handful of exceptions to this rule (most of the exceptions being non-metal), and I consider them relatively well-reasoned exceptions, too.

People can be snarky and judgmental about that all they want (and I only say this because they often are, most probably because they are insecure or embarrassed about the fact that they listen to RAC with headphones on, but will never bump it in their sled while rolling through the PJ's), but at least I have some principles I can stick to.

I am not really devoted to any Metal genre or subculture at all, but I am mostly or almost exclusively drawn to the "old school" end of extreme metal, grindcore, and what might be considered "unorthodox", "unusual" or "unique" Black Metal.



I am like this as well. Despite the wide variety of styles I enjoy, I tend to stick to a select few favorites in each style, but I explore those favorites in great depth.

I'm and anything and everything type guy. I have my genres I listen to more so than others, black metal and doom/sludge metal, but I'll listen to anything atleast once. I'm a metalhead but thats not all I am, I like music from pretty much all genres. I'm just a music guy. Their is no better thrill to me than putting on an album for the first time and getting lost in it. My philosophy is my favorite band is the one I haven't heard yet.

I listen to pretty much everything, and I'm pretty rounded off as far as listening to every genre equally. Although I'd say that I listen to more melodeath and folk metal(Ensiferum type stuff I count as both) than anything else, and less black metal than anything else. I got into metal through thrash at first, then it was symphonic metal that opened up the gateways for me discovering tons of subgenres. I'm mostly the kind of guy who tries any genre I find, although sometimes I feel that I listen to so much that I can't even keep track of it all!

I'm probably split about 50/50 with genres of metal I like vs. those I dislike. Like the_raytownian, there are certain bands I won't touch at all due to political reasons or whatever (or religious ones), and others that are very borderline that I listen to with some probably baseless self-justification like the band not being into that stuff anymore.

On a more basic musical level, I'm not really big on certain musical concepts, like technicality, progressiveness or the great white whale, individuality. I couldn't give two fucks if a band is playing some super original blend of death/black/jazz/dubstep/circus organ music. I find bands that put these things before raw emotional connection and enjoyability in their music are often too obnoxious to listen to. For this reason, I avoid most modern tech death, prog metal and symphonic metal. Europower is also not really all that appealing to me.

I do have favorite bands and releases that I listen to on a regular basis. Some shit is just too good not to listen to on a regular basis.

Definitely this!

I feel the need to expand on what I meant when I said "unusual black metal" now. Basically, I consider the whole Norwegian 2nd wave clone format unbelievably tedious. This is why I enjoy "unusual/unorthodox/different/weird" BM. The raw emotion is still essential for me to enjoy the music.

I can consider something really fascinating out of pure novelty for a while, but it has to have something more than novelty factor to keep my interest for more than a single listen.

Nuit Noire is a perfect example of "unusual" Black Metal that I first began listening to because it was so odd that it was just plain fascinating, but the riffs are damn excellent, and I've become a loyal devotee of "Faerical Blasting Punk" because of the catchy riffs and the sincerity of the concept.

It seemed ridiculously silly at first, all these songs about fairies, but now I find myself totally unphased by this aspect of the project. I actually kind of think fairies are cool now, y'know... And I whole-heartedly support Tenabras's weird, child-like obsession with them, too.

It's not everyone's cup of tea, but it's still better than fucking 16-string bass-playing music school nerds making boring scratchy noises that are supposed to appeal to me for merely "being technical", as if the shitty-sounding music being propped up on the most banal and uninspired themes and a bad post-Y2K internet sense of humor is supposed to make it easier to swallow.

I listen Most of the time to Brutal death metal
But I like Death Metal And trash metal and Grindcore Also.
This Are the genre's I listen the most To so I think U can say I am somebody who Stick to his genre music

I listen to pretty much everything, but more-so thrash, death and black metal. I'm not really a power-metal or glam metal person so those two subgenres I don't listen to very much if at all. If I did follow (at least) a few bands, my idea of "a few" is more than 10 anyway.

Might want to create a type for the anti-genre follower too, who likes all metal except (insert genre here).

Some of this correlates to time spent listening...

I'd identify as type #1, with the list growing shorter every day, and it's not really "bands" so much as albums.

Some of the best albums were not rational and deliberate.

Well, I guess I should have expected to get most people here being pretty well rounded on their preferences. I do have a general leaning towards old school genres, but I'm not limited to just that.

I just can't really get into black metal, besides genre crossovers. (Woods of Ypres, Skeletonwitch) Most of the high pitched vocals are hell on my ears due to physical issues, and the more ambient side of things bores me. Lyrical content isn't all that helpful either. I guess its just a matter of finding what works for me.

Not just for black metal, but having an EQ helps on all music. If there's a lot of stuff going on, it can take a while to realize that your ears just got savaged by high tones. Most computer sound cards have some form of software EQ.

I listen to everything. Mostly I go through phases when I listen to a certain genre exclusively for a few days and move onto other. But I prefer the slower melancholic atmospheric side rather than the fast paced brutal side of metal. Anyhow, I really don't consider myself a metalhead. I mean I don't follow the culture, style and ideology much, I just like the music

I would be pretty dedicated to death metal but not out of ignorance but more so out of the fact that I just love death metal. I do listen to other forms of metal but do find it hard to really get into stuff outside of death metal. I've tried many times to get into black metal but I just haven't grasped it, yet I could listen to new death metal all day long and love it even if some find it mediocre. I do have a particular fondness of thrash metal and that is basically what got me into death metal. I do like a wide variety of metal though in terms of a few bands from here and there from each genre excluding death metal where I listen to a ridiculous amount of it.

Also someone else said that they don't consider themselves a fan of a band(or something to that effect) unless they know a good bit about them and I would subscribe to that thinking. I can rattle off about 10 billion bands there and tell you their most famous songs etc.. but I wouldn't consider myself a fan because I know too little to say.

I'm definitely an intensive rather than an extensive listener - there are a couple of bands I stick to. It's bands more than genres, actually: Candlemass is pretty much the only doom metal band I listen to and I love them dearly, but have no real desire to explore further. So I'm Type 1, I guess. There are whole genres I've barely dipped my toe into (grindcore, metalcore, doom, sludge, groove metal, drone), and I'm okay with that. With metal I'm highly focused on albums, so for me using e.g. last.fm doesn't work for metal, though it does for other genres I'm into - folk, alt-country, etc.

I do not limit myself to genres. Sure there are kinds of music I like better than others but I wouldnt say that Im primarily this or that. I do tend to want to like a bands whole catalogue of albums. Its rare that I do but I find myself wanting to. For me its the same way about authors - I often want to find someone who I completely agree with (but I never do).

Most stuff I listen is OSDM, 1st wave BM, 2nd wave BM, war metal, metallic hardcore, crust punk, grindcore, sludge, powerviolence, oldschool hardcore, noisecore, death industrial, post punk, non-shitty brutal death metal/goregrind/noisegrind, a little post rock and prog and smattering of hip-hop. As for fascist shitheads, I don't really give a fuck, no one said you had to like the musician. Basically, as long as I feel it has some artistic merit and isn't just propaganda, I don't mind.

Interesting but I think accurate distinction.

I mainly listen to thrash and traditional, and I have lately been listening to a lot death/melodeath. I pretty much listen to any sub genre of metal, I guess.

This thread reminded me of a funny comment made by an "elitist" metal head I went to college with, who was actually SO defensive of his own "metal-ness" because he got into metal late.

As a freshman I had already been a metal head for years, and this guy only liked punk, but was a friendly aquaintaince.

By Junior year he was in a metal band (C.A.I.N. Christ Aborted in Nativity, they are on here)....and he told one of my friends in private he actually felt "threatened by me" cause I knew so much about metal lol....

I always liked him and tried to hang out with him and talk about metal after he got into it but he was REPEATEDLY a dick to me...until I finally lost it at him and we never really talked much again.

Once when we were discussing what makes a "metal head" he said "oh...I'm not a metal head...I just like some metal" while I said "you and I are both metal heads, a metal head is someone who just likes good metal"

His opinion....was basically....(coming from a martial arts analogy since that is my other big interest) that unless you are a BLACK BELT in metal appreciation...you aren't a "metal head"...

He was ready to jump into the whole "elitist crowd" head first....but had only been listening a few years, and I thought all that was bullshit after a decade of listening.

Not to mention the guitarist of his band was a REALLY good friend of mine and a student of Joe Stump, who was the only truly gifted member of their band and "TRUE" *cough* metal head in the band.

So....I'm drunk right now and rambling....but take of that what you will....

I guess I'll call it the "holier than thou--Prospective metal head"...

And people like him are one of the main reasons I don't like most metal heads to begin with....even though there's plenty of cool heads I know in general and also on this site.........

Sounds super-nerdy.

I think there's something to "grok" in metal and that until that's at least partially understood, one cannot be a metalhead. Or maybe I should say "Hessian."

But having to memorize a bunch of details? That's not knowledge.

Also, elitism -- as I understand it -- means support of only the best. I'll always be in favor of that.