YouTube is, at least IMO, one of the best and worst ways to oversee the large spectrum of metal culture, through the various YouTube personalities who dedicate their channels to the music whether it be reviews, news/rants/opinions, comedy, or just general discussion. Some of the favorites these days I've become fond of are the Metal Monster (discussing news and the ridiculous drama of band members), Killbot&GorGorAttack (reviews, advice for young metalheads), Jhofffilms (comedy), Coverkillnation (reviews, and his "reasons why people hate [this band] series), and recently I've become fond of SeptikSiren (although she's always very angry in her vids). And I guess I'm obligated to mention the ever-prevalent, love him or hate him...Jared Dines. (half the people reading this will now cringe)

A lot of these YouTubers provide some good commentary on the metal scene, as well as its place in overall society. What I find very interesting is that many of them (especially Killbot and Septik Siren) reach out majorly to younger metalheads, which turns out to be an excellent 'marketing strategy' considering that a large percentage of YouTube's users are teens and young adults. In this way, they have an impact on the younger generation and could have the ability to spread metal to the younger generation.

What are your thoughts on this? Is YouTube a reliable medium for introducing the younglings to metal? Also: who are your favorite metal YouTubers?

I've had beef with CoverKillerNatiom ever since he did one of those "Biggest Douchebbags in Metal" for whatever year it was when Phil Anselmp did his white power salute and Robbbbb Flynnnnnn responded by tearing him a new one and writing a terrible nu metal song about it. #2 was Flynn for his raving gibbering Holier-than-thou SJW attack on Anselmo, and Phil was #1, with the commentary being a very defeated and resigned "look, if you have one you just have to have the other" crap where he pretty much let him off the hook and only put him on the list because he felt like he had to. It was a really half hearted attempt to cover his ass and showed where his true sympathies lied. I decided then that if he was one of the best, then there are just no good metal YouTube people.

Though Happy Viking used to be pretty great.

Stevie T. is another infamous example. He's fairly skilled at guitar playing, but similar to Jared Dines, he puts way too much energy on making silly faces and constant "but does it djent lololololol" jokes. His voice can also be unbearably annoying at times. Not to mention, his "Top 10 HEAVIEST Bands" video goes to show how poorly knowledgeable he is regarding metal in general, as he says Sunn O))) is the only doom metal band he knows.

Does anyone watch that "ThuleanPerspective" chap? He's pretty good.



I absolutely fucking hate that turd. Any time someone makes a wacky face while playing guitar, I pray for their death.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Jf9-VyXEKE

His "How to play guitar like Lil Wayne" starts out funny. But he can't resist showing off with some technically elaborate "real" guitar shredding at the end. He totally spoils the joke just to say "see, I really do know how to play guitar!"

Stevie T is almost never serious but when he is he's damn good.


*coughheneedstosellthissongcough*


Does anyone watch Infidelamsterdam? He doesn't upload very frequently at all but when he does it's always like a 30-40+ minute video. Good for listening to in the background like a podcast and his views and insights are always very very interesting to hear.

I follow Rauta (fairly new to the game), Heavy Metal Relics (because of the girl and that guy who know way more about metal than me), Dom Lawson's Iron Sandwich, and - yeah - Thulean Perspective, if you can count that.

I do try to pay some attention to Stevie T, Rob Scallon, and Jared Dines, but Stevie T is not known for being serious, and while Jared is a metal channel he likes to focus more on core genres. Other than that, I don't really pay any attention to metal channels. I guess personally I like skits more than just sitting down and talking about stuff in the scene, and I haven't really found a lot of channels that do that besides the three listed above.

I know there ARE some really good YouTubers out there that occasionally dive into metal but it's not necessarily their main thing, such as Boyinaband or theneedledrop.


I do wish that there were metal channels that had a similar style to h3h3productions or JonTron but I don't know if this is possible considering these two channels react to a visual medium instead of an auditory one.

I watch a few youtubers periodically, but at the end of the day I always get sort of fed up. There are usually only a couple of YT arch types; The over-the-top joking about everything nothing is serious annoying type, and the type that sounds like they've never had an interesting conversation in their entire life.

I don't get why so many people - and this is especially evident among the metal youtubers crowd - think that taking metal seriously is criminal. No, metal doesn't have to be super serious all the time, and the genre is inherently a little silly, but if you like the music why do you feel the need to always emphasize the silliest parts like that's all the music is about. I realize some of these channels are meant to be comedic, but then again with someone like Jared Dines, it's still primarily about music and musicianship. Like, if you can't take the music seriously, why are you even listening? Everything doesn't have to be a joke. This is the reason we get terrible bands like Gloryhammer.

My problem with the boring types is that while some of them actually have some interesting content, their skills in communicating this is so abysmal that watching their videos becomes a chore. That's really sad if they actually have an interesting angle on a subject.

I think I may just be too old for internet.

If I had to pick a favorite metal Youtuber...I guess PelleK counts, right? If anything, he sure is more active than most of the others. Granted, he's not a typical "look into the camera and rant about trending metal topics" dude, but his covers are lots of fun and his life story is quite honestly inspirational. I can only dream of obtaining such a wide vocal range.

I agree, he's quite open-minded, down-to-earth and has great taste in bands. After all, he was the one who introduced me to Oral Fistfuck.

I really enjoy Myke C-Town's channel. I found him from the Dead End Hip Hop channel but his solo page is great. He's not exclusively metal, but you'd be surprised how much of his coverage is centered around metal. Has good taste in obscure and underground stuff.

I do. The guy is decent and I especially love those little skits of his with Baldrick at the beginning of (almost) each video.

What's ironic though is that I'm not even that big on death metal (which he tends to cover the most on his channel), and yet I watched almost all of his videos. That says something about his quality.


However, there is one YouTuber called CountBlagorath. I thought he was fairly good before, but now it seems to me every second/third video of his is him just whining about something. Started to bore me to death.

Josh Steffen's humorous Lars Ulrich send-ups win the Internet every time.

Anthony Vincent of course. Too bad he doesn't plan to post on a regular schedule anymore.





Then there's Erock. He takes famous scores and makes them metal.

I don't really watch any metal commentary channels but I do enjoy Rob Lundgren's killer power/prog/etc. vocal covers. I also dispise Stevie T and Jared Dines, but I do like Rob Scallon's content. He is less over the top and obnoxious, and his content is generally more musically rich. There's also the whole metal gear nerd/audio recording side of youtube, with people like Glenn Fricker, Ryan Bruce, and so forth, who I will occasionally watch for gear reviews or recording tips. A few lesser known but awesome channels in this category are Arnold Plays Guitar, Circle of Tone and Agufish. Great informed opinions from Arnold and Agufish, and CoT basically is a tone wizard.

Those guys are good.

There's kind of a tipping point where a gear channel gets big enough that they start trying to make a living off it, with increasing amounts of sponsored content, etc. Glenn Fricker is right at that point. I'm a little mistrustful of his gear recommendations at this point.

Circle of Tone is indeed a wizard. I used to think that only Jerry Cantrell could pull off the guitar tone on Dirt, but CoT pretty much copied it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-Ew18T75VQ

There's a youtube channel called something to the effect of "atmospheric black metal promotion" that posts full albums of recent Summoning clone albums and other viking and ambient styled bands. It's definitely the most useful metal youtube channel I know because everything on it is guaranteed to be terrible and I know to avoid those albums.

Other than that, gotta appreciate those youtubers who just post full albums of all the rest of the bands in the world for us to sample at your leisure. As long as you have a good internet connection there's no reason to bother downloading most anything in order to try it out, so that's one more barrier between us and our assuredly deserved punishment for our blatant acts of piracy.

He looks suspiciously like that guy from Burzum.

I asked about this a couple of weeks ago in the recommendation forum and found a few good channels that way. I watch a lot of Razorfist, even if he is a complete cunt off camera. His Metal/Music Mythos episodes have helped pick out a lot of underrated albums from great bands in the past and I think he's consistently funny. Mike C-Town is a great general music channel, lots of reviews on a whole host of genres and almost all of them hit the mark for me. Glenn Fricker is probably my favorite out of the bunch.

Aside from them though, I've generally stayed away from metal YouTube channels. CCN makes a few good points but isn't really to my tastes, Rob Scallon is a great musician but I find myself watching the same few videos of his repeatedly and Infidelamsterdam's content is a little too long form for me. I never really understood why guys like Jared Dines or Stevie T. got as big as they did. Guess people just really like those silly faces.

I really like the Burzum guitar play-through videos. The rest of it is fear mongering and lunacy. Wish he would post more about composing, gear and playing, but he's currently been peddling the opinion that making music is a pointless waste of time. Until the next Burzum album is released, of course.

Until he needs money, I guess...

Scott Waters (owner of the site No Life Til Metal) has a cool YouTube account. I've gotten shout outs from him before (I am a metalhead YouTuber as well).

You're ThuleanPerspective? woah

Varg's put downs of Christianity, even though only mildly metal related, are always entertaining.

Also I'm glad that it finally has been established (by Varg) that we're all Neanderthals and that it's not just me, as my girlfriend likes to claim. Thank you, Varg!

Ralph Viera from infamous Thrash Or Die has really cool channel, I'd add more recommendations but I see they're already there.

For the longest time I thought all his rambling was just kind of "meh, whatever" but this Neanderthal stuff is the most hilariously fucking insane thing I've seen in a while.

I follow a lot of guitar and gear-related channels, plus music-theory stuff like Adam Neely. Cracking The Code is probably the best guitar channel going right now in terms of picking technique. I also watch Arnold Plays Guitar, Glenn Fricker and Levi Clay. Not a fan of Stevie (though he's a great player) nor Jared nor Rob Scallon. Andertons Music Co. has a fantastic channel that I follow as well.

The only metal-focused YouTube content I've checked out is Heavy Metal Relics, which I love the idea of. I find they're not the most charismatic however and only a small amount of the actual content has interested me as lots of it is based around extreme metal and bands from their region. I haven't checked their newer stuff though. I hope they improve as they go along because it has potential. The "cribs" episode they did with the guy from Midnight was fucking awesome and I kinda wish that dude had his own channel in a similar vein. He would be the perfect "host" for that kind of show with his sense of humour and fandom level.

Chips and Beer Magazine has a channel which is mostly uploads of old videos. Pretty cool but I love the OG content in their zine the most.

Most "review" channels just make me cringe. People like Count Blagorath and such are just embarrassing to me.

I normally despise reaction videos, especially when the host is an idiot like MacRyanMac. But GalactiCriminal is pretty funny.

All the youtubers I follow are non metal and non music, except for Fantano. Dines seems like a cool dude, but his channel is mostly trash.

I feel like Frank Mullen would be a good youtube personality.

edit: Adam Neely is dope when I catch a vid of him, but I'm not subscribed. A lot of his stuff goes over my head.

edit again: J_S the atmospheric black metal channel has definitely helped me get ready for bed many times.

He's a complete cunt on camera too, and a misinformed one at that. Fuck him and fuck Jared Dines even harder.

I was going to say all metal youtubers are trash, but then I remembered this guy exists:

He posts a few videos of him playing guitar and they get 500k+ views, and then a billion "SJW GLOBALISTS ARE SUPPRESSING MY FREE SPEECH" type videos that get 20k+ views each.

Nobody cares about him except as a musician, and it's time he realised that.

I'm actually a fan of Stevie T, but like you said, for his musical skill. His humor tends to get overboard and repetitive, but goddamn that dud can shred!

Yes, I do watch Infidelamsterdam. Though I excluded him from my examples since his style of video is geared towards those already balls-deep into metal.

I stumbled upon her by accident but I really enjoy her videos, even though she is rather young, she has a certain charm, yes she can be a bit angsty but i see an inspiring metalhead/musician who honestly is light years ahead compared to most wannabe metalhead kids at her age, plus her recent video of fans sending her gifts was actually very nice and bittersweet.

I also like Morgan Growden , although he hasn't updated since he just started college, i always enjoyed his insight of heavy metal and his reviews are straight and to the point.

I will second Anthony Vincent. He's not really a "metalhead Youtuber" per se, but he is super creative and talented and his cover of Perfect Illusion in the style of Iron Maiden is so good.

I like 66Samus a lot too. He does mostly drum covers, but has some other interesting/funny content as well. Same with Josh Steffen, who was mentioned earlier.

I follow Ola Englund for his gear reviews and recording tips etc, plus he's a really funny dude to boot. And he can absolutely shred in the most tasteful way - some of the solos he's posted from the latest Haunted album are amazing, his own band's (Feared) songs are masterclasses in metal songwriting/recording/playing, and he does some cool tribute videos as well. The Dimebag tributes spring to mind pretty quickly.

I've watched a few of Razorfist's retrospectives, he knows his stuff. The Motorhead one was super cool, lots of little anecdotes and insights I'd never really thought about. It's good to see bands with such a prolific career condensed that well into a half-hour video. Can't really say too much about his social commentary given it's very US-centric and outside my sphere of knowledge, but he's clearly pretty smart and not one of those "duh I dun no nothin' so I'm buyin' the shock jock conservatism!" types that usually flood those platforms.

Otherwise I watch a few videos here and there of a guy called Metal Jesus, although he doesn't do much music stuff and mostly just talks about video games. His channel can get pretty tiring as mostly it's just him and his mates talking about massive hauls full of games they'll clearly never have the time to play and then weebing out over JRPGs, Mario and Pokemon, but there are some gems in there.

Pewdiepie occasionally sports a Deafheaven shirt, does that count?

Varg Vikernes, of course. sure he's nutty as fuck, but i could listen to him ramble about dumb shit while he works on his truck all day long. i think the problem with metal Youtube is that we need more interesting dudes like Varg that were actually part of influential bands shooting the shit and less dweebs making useless top ten lists, awkwardly reviewing albums and throwing hissy fits about how much they hate pop stars.

Does that mean he's you're favourite? How old are you?

Nah, I'm just either completely indifferent or vehemently against when it comes to "metal youtube culture". Especially Finnish youtubers of the metal persuasion are fucking embarrasing nitwits.

I honestly enjoy Little V Mills for his Heavy Metal covers of video game, anime and movie music. I got attracted to him by his amazing cover of the Pacific Rim theme and I have been listening to him a bit since. His covers are epic and really enjoyable.

I've recently been following some "hip-hop heads" channel Lost in Vegas. They normally do reviews/reactions of hip-hop songs but they recently made the trek to metal after reviewing some rock.

Their highest viewed video on their channel is of their reaction to "Megadeth - Holy Wars" with over 700K views now. I love to see people's real first listen reactions to metal, especially with untrained ears. They've since been reviewing quite a few classics such a "Judas Priest - Painkiller" and "Iron Maiden - Hallowed Be Thy Name". It's like i'm watching their journey into the world of metal and its quite fun. It's also funny to see that the view count between their normal content and the metal videos are large in favor or the metal ones. Seems they should only be doing metal.