Missing Metal

It's Metal Week on VH1 and, since I've been immobilized by an untimely case of strep throat, I have been soaking up documentary after documentary of different metal bands. Each band has the same story: start small worshipping Kiss and Van Halen, hit it big locally, get discovered, get fucked over by the recording company, change your image, get a drinking problem, get a heroin problem, break up, die. There was something beautiful and simple about these days of metal. Something that seems lost in the hyper-ironic and sophisticated era of rock music that came into being, I believe, after Nirvana. Observe:

Smokin' in the boys room
Smokin' in the boys room
Teacher don't you fill me up with your rules
Everybody knows that smokin' ain't allowed in school

Simple, unadulterated, childish rebellion mediated through outlandish costumes, hair-styles and wildly shaped guitars. With the advent of grunge, led by Nirvana, rock n' roll got dark. Not in the way Iron Maiden, Ratt, Ozzy Osbourne, or even Metallica had been dark. Their darkness had always been tempered by a hyper-awareness of fashion, sex-appeal and comical theatricality. With Nirvana rock n' roll grew up and became sophisticated. It now offered an earnest depiction of depression, desperation, disorder, compulsion, obsession, and addiction--all the things the metal-heads had suffered from but had cloaked by their on-stage pyrotechnics and demonic rituals. And where can rock go after Kurt Cobain's heart-wrenchingly poignant songs? To a realm of irony and self-consciousness that constitutes so much of post-modern rock (fill in this category with whomever you want). Sophistication in art obviously isn't a bad thing, but do you ever look back fondly on the days of Slash and Tommy Lee and wish that rock were more ridiculous and wild than whiny? Just a suggestion. I wonder what documentary is on next.