Once, I had to take a friend and some woman to a get-together we were going to. I was driving, so I had metal on. It was Martyr's Feeding The Abscess at that time, and it was on quite low. The other woman (Anne) asked me, "what the fuck is this shit?" I said it's death metal, and she's like, "this is the one of the worst things I've ever heard!"

I got owned, though, because I didn't quite know the way to the place we were going, so she said, "do you want directions?" I said, "yes." Then she replied, "then turn this music off." Not only that, but she scalded my parking abilities, too, so I guess she didn't like me that much.

She's a police officer, by the way.

Mikey, where's your spine? YOU were driving in YOUR car. Tell her to STFU or GTFO.

"Damn, I didn't know Europe's influence spread outside Sweden" my father on Stratovarius' "Eagleheart"

"What's next? Folk music with rapping?" my father again, after hearing his first Nightwish song.

"Man, that guy loves his bass drums" my father after hearing his first power metal song.

lol you're dad sounds so epic! haha

this kid once told me he loved metal, like the stuff on guitar hero.

Haha, he actually likes a lot of metal and hard rock, but he's not very fond of european power metal

"This song is awesome!" my brother on Sabaton's "Primo Victoria", quite a shock coming from someone who only listens to "radio music".

haha thats odd. it seems to me most parents are more open to power metal. i think its because of the vocals that their so against anything else.

almost better than what people say is watching their faces when you show them something.

Amazing, he wasn't quite far off the mark with the comparison!

Incidentally, I'm getting sick of being asked if I know bands that are plastered over TV screens and radios. I'm not blind or deaf, I know them.

My mother upon hearing the first track off of Therion's "Of Darkness"-"That sounds like a ghost singing .You actually like to listen to that?!! My Hilary/Miley/Jonas fan daughter upon hearing Death Angel's "3rd Floor" "It's like putting cold water on your face early in the morning!"

I don't really have any, but one of my friends of my friends at school asked me if devildriver played black metal. For whatever reason he didn't believe me when I told him they didn't. Not really that funny...

After claiming to listen to death metal, some dude in my English class asks "Oh, like what kind of death metal? Like Metallica? They got a new album coming out. I'm excited."

After listening to Nile, my dad claimed "If I had just made stupid throw up noises in a song, I could have gotten rich."

Other than that, I've only gotten cliche comments about satanic worship, dead babies, and all metal being "screamo stuff".

women's responses to metal are often comical. this thread proves it.

here's one of mine:

"Its not heavy enough" - friend in response to Morbid Angel.

I mean, the fuck?

I had to give a presentation in my spanish class about my likes and dislikes using new vocabulary we had learned. For my topic, I chose music and brought in a few cd's for examples. After my presentation was over we had some time to work on a worksheet, so my teacher decided to play some of my music. She played the first two tracks off the cd while we were working. All of my friends were laughing hysterically since they already knew about my taste in music and the other half were in utter shock.

During swim practice one day, my friend decided to put someone's iPod on the stereo so we could have something to listen to during practice. He grabbed my iPod from my swim bag and put it on the shuffle songs setting. The first couple songs consisted of Megadeth and Helloween, which they were okay with. Then, Satyricon started blasting over the speakers and one of my friends turns to my coach and shouts, "What's with the Devil music?!"

I get that a lot. I just roll my eyes and walk away.

I needed her for directions, plus I know her boyfriend/fiancee/whatever they are now. Oh, and I have no spine.


There have been a couple of songs where my dad has enjoyed, but these have mostly been instrumental songs, like the final, tribal sounding song on Emeth's Telesis. He admitted once that he wouldn't mind listening to the music if there was no vocals, which he says kills it. I could show him some instrumental bands, but I'm still sure he'd hate it.

Not long ago, when listening to Anaal Nathrakh, my brother declares, "sounds like Resident Evil!"

What the fuck could she have done, just let you drift alone for hours while the CD kept playing?

My friend once said Virgin Steele sounded like a chorus of chipmunks.

I take offense at this statement. sure, I do this a lot, probably due to my OCD, but still, I actually have listened to metal over 10 years so this doesn't apply to me.

When I bought Opeth's Watershed at Best Buy, the cashier asked me why I let my kids listen to that crap. I said "because Best Buy doesn't carry Morbid Angel". Old people like me can be grouchy.

I guess so...punishment for keeping the music on, I suppose. Whenever me and the other person I was with see her now, we just look at each other and laugh. I doubt we'll ever forget that scene any time soon.

Great thread, entertaining read. A couple of my favorites:



As for me, I don't usually listen to music with other people around. Nobody ever asks what I listen to, so comments are rare. I don't remember the exact quotes but they should be close enough.

I recently gave my brother a few power metal songs to check out. To my knowledge he wasn't very familiar with metal if at all. I warned him it might take some getting used to and that it required a few honest listens. I haven't received the final verdict yet but his initial response was, "You're right, it does take some getting used to."

Last Christmas I made a huge list of possible metal albums for my parents to get, including some Blind Guardian. My mom browsed over the list, and upon reading A Night at the Opera asked, "You listen to opera?"

One time I decided to listen to Ayreon's The Human Equation while my mom was in the car. There was only enough time to play about four tracks. I later asked what she thought of it and she replied, "It's a bit repetitive."
I understand where the comment came from since the instrumental/synth parts are like that, but I still found it odd since she listens to country.

I played Black Sabbath's ST for my grandparents (one of whom is an ex-minister). They both liked it, which was quite awesome.

Whenever my dad hears my music, he'll usually start playing air guitar and headbanging. He's usually mocking my own mannerisms, but as he grew up listening to Maiden and Judas Priest, it's hard to tell sometimes if he's being serious or still just mocking me.

Upon hearing Death for the first time my mom says, "Fine, I'll admit that they have a ton of skill, but god dammit, can't they just sing?"

And then there's my step-mom's total disgust with what I listen to. I'm in the living room listening to Burzum's "Hliðskjálf" on the stereo, when she walks in the front door, and yells at me to turn it off, like it's the most vile thing she has ever heard.

Oh, and my mom liked Avantasia's The Scarecrow. Better taste than any of the morons who gave it low scores.

"This sounds like I put a microphone in the bathroom while I had a bad case of the shits!" - my dad upon hearing Malignancy

"You're gonna burn in hell because of this noise." - my ex-girlfriend's mom upon hearing anything remotely heavy

"I wish you would listen to more mainstream music." - my mom commenting on my music taste

...and quite possibly the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard.....

"Metal's the next big thing. Nickelback is on the Billboard this week." - nameless dipshit ex-girlfriend from years back

Jesus titty fucking christ my parents suck, their idea of heavy is Bon Jovi

mothers are usually like that.

"sounds like a bunch of angry peons" - my mother after I played some Benumb.

One guy at work is currently obsessed with the word "Necrophagist," after I told him I'll be seeing them next week. Problem is, he can never remember it. I'll come into work, then he'll see me and try to remember the name, and he was close at first: "Necrophiliacs!". But after that he was not even close: "Ramanascus!" (seriously). He eventually wrote it down and said, "you gotta get off the drugs, man." He's a cool guy.

"it sounds like, you, know, the scene in two towers where the three guys (guess she meant Aragon and co) are chasing orcs.."

My mum about a Summoning intro track. Well picked, I thought.

Then the next song came on with the harsh vocals and she wasn't terribly impressed.

"Sounds like some B-Grade Russian Opera" My brother about the outro in Summoning's Land of the Dead.

"Man you can not criticise my music taste ever again" My brother, again, on Sunn O))).

Here's a weird one:

My dad, in response to hearing a Hibria song, said; "hmm sounds like a band I used to listen to, have you heard of Boston?".

I mean, really, pretty random comparison.

I've been getting strange looks from people lately when they've asked me what concerts I've got coming up and I tell them I'm going to see the Summer Slaughter Tour. Then they ask what bands are playing and most the time I can't be bothered telling them because I don't want to deal with them thinking that I'm a necropedophile or something.

Another student apparently showed my guitar instructor some Necrophagist, and in mentioning them to me, he kept calling them "Nigga-Fuggah"

To all people:
Sorry if this is a bit off topic but after getting "Knee-jerk reactions to metal" has anyone actually tried explaining the song to the non-metal person. People get confused because there is too much going on plus the distortion of the guitar adds more confusion to a superficial listen of the said song.
So if the non-metal listener is open-minded enough, you could hum/sing the notes for him to understand and then replay the part/song.
Has anyone tried it? Was it successful? I never had the opportunity of doing that yet but this thread made me think about it.

Alas, I have attempted this on a trip down to Oregon around the time when I wrote my Agalloch review (wrote that under a starry sky in a Mexican diner).

There were six people in the car and two of which are good buddies of mine who know I like my metal. After having my headphones on for 4 hours on a drive someone else in the car nudged me and asked what I was listening to and, trying to come up with something accessible, I said Megadeth's "Peace Sells" (was actually listening to Darkthrone).

Bam, everyone wanted to know what it sounded like. So I horribly attempted to do the intro with just my mouth and a little air guitar for shits and giggles, then played it for everyone.

Over half of the people told me to shut it off immediately, one of my friends bought the CD when we got back, and the other is on and off about it. One of those who didn't enjoy it said it sounded better when I did it

I don't know how ANYONE could gather an opinion over a song that was hummed to them....

My friend on Crown of Horns by Cryptopsy "It's not singing it's dog barking "

and few years back i got into this conversation with a deathcore/metalcore fag and he said:"I can't understand why Slayer is more metal than any deathcore band the singer doesn't even growl!"
I nearly punched him in the nose for that

What a little bitch. You should have punched him repeatedly and ran him over with a hi-jacked truck. That's just me anyway.

Also, this one happened to me yesterday:
"It sounds like a cat getting kicked in the balls. Now there are dogs getting kicked in the balls."- My mother on The Black Dahlia Murder-Everything Went Black.

So many times I have had this happen. It makes me shudder just thinking about it.

"Black Sabbath/Iron Maiden/Judas Priest aren't metal at all when compared to Atreyu/Trivium/Bullet for my Valentine"

I was making my 7 year old sister listen to some Devourment and she said something about the vocalist sounding like a frog (which is actually true.)

My mother saw the Megadeth - Youthanasia wallpaper on my cellphone and started muttering a prayer. I've always wondered what's so offensive about the name "Megadeth", it seems like a perfectly normal name to me but the look on her face when she saw the Youthanasia wallpaper was priceless

Oh and recently, she commented on the "Dismember - The God That Never Was" wallpaper on my cellphone (hah, she tells me she has to make a call when she actually looks at my wallpaper and music player!) and said that she didn't know I was still into cartoons.

Edit: There was this time when my mother was watching the TV and there was this show on with Black Sabbath's Paranoid in the background. She commented on how the song sounded good, but when I said that the band's name is Black Sabbath, she just said "Oh" and changed the channel.

Oh the irony.

The most common experienced by Bezerko: "Oh my god I hate that scream music."

This after their comment of "I like all types of music but not scream music."

IT HAS A FUCKING NAME YOU KNOW!

It was certainly a cringe moment.

I've had my mom come up to me while I'm listening to Metal and start going "RAWR RAWR RAWR, don't I sound just like them?" plenty of times. (Maybe I should start listening to Black Metal just to hear her try to imitate them...)

I can only think of two interesting ones:

After showing my sister some song by COB, "Sounds like a screamo version of Dragonforce."

Then after showing my mom the solo from Death - Symbolic, "Is this Rush?" I replied, "No, it's Death" She then takes off the headphones and gives me a weird look.

She said it better than I ever could.

Indeed, should I ever do a CoB review I'll rip that off. Here's hoping Arrowana's sister never starts writing reviews; she'll make everyone obsolete.