Is it normal to have a hatred of extreme metal?
I cannot stand, and will never understand the appeal of, extreme metal. By extreme metal, I'm talking about genres like black metal, death metal, screamo, grindcore, deathcore, and anything similar to these genres.
The reason why I hate these genres so dearly is because despite the fact that they are extremely difficult to compose and perform (as I'm been told numerous times by devout metalheads), they are almost entirely devoid of everything that I love so much about music.
Not only is extreme metal atrociously noisy, intensely overblown, and laughably unfocused, it's also shamelessly, infuriatingly pretentious. These genres demonstrate the fact that they artists are talented at what they do, but they waste this talent by churning out the most excessively chaotic music in existence. As a result, it's impossible for me to appreciate the great deal of talent that goes into making extreme metal, because the resulting music is a mindless, juvenile cacophony.
I like music that's melodic, atmospheric, creative, varied, adventurous and most importantly, digestible, and these traits can be found in a wide range of genres, including certain subgenres of metal (like classic, progressive, symphonic, power, gothic and speed; I'm not a metalhead, but I really like these genres). But whenever I try to listen to extreme metal, nothing at all grabs me. There's nothing to like. The vocals are obnoxiously harsh and disturbing, the instrumentation is way too fast to follow (to the point where it often sounds like the audio of drills and jackhammers) and overall it just sounds absolutely ridiculous and impossible to take seriously. And it looks even more ridiculous, almost childish, whenever I watch it being performed.
What makes me hate it even more is just how surprisingly popular it is. Extreme metal, despite being underground and totally uncommercial, is growing evermore popular thanks to the rise of metalcore and deathcore, and it baffles me. Just recently, a little girl on America's Got Talent showed off her black metal screaming ability, and now she's being worshipped by thousands of people for "saving music" and "restoring faith in humanity". Personally, all I heard was a musical temper tantrum. How can these people possibly listen to this music without wanting to shut it off? I just don't get it. I really don't get it.
It's also notoriously difficult to say I dislike extreme metal online, because doing so results in dozens of furious metalheads accusing me of having no music taste and giving me a condescending lecture on how much talent extreme metal takes and blah blah blah blah... Even if I explain some legitimate and perfectly understandable reasons for not being able to enjoy it, for example: "It's too noisy", "The vocals are too harsh" or "It's not melodic enough" I get treated as though I know nothing about music. It's a depressing situation to be in.
See why I hate it so much? Extreme metal is worshipped all over the world as if it's the only complex and diverse music to ever exist, but it certainly isn't. Any person who really enjoys the wonders of music would know this. There are countless genres with incredibly talented artists that make breathtaking music without having to rely on pretentious, mind-numbing exercises in showing off how fast they can play a guitar or how low they can growl. But many of these talented musicians get pushed aside or ignored (like Newton Faulkner for example), just because they're not extreme metal musicians, and because of this, I now have a hatred of extreme metal. I hate extreme metal more than any genre of music out there, even more than rap music in fact (my original most hated genre).
One final thing: I do have a minor appreciation of progressive death metal. At least with prog death, the musicians tend to explore more ground, due to it being inspired by progressive rock. Melodic death metal isn't too bad either, for similar reasons. And as for thrash metal, which is sometimes labelled as an extreme metal subgenre, I'm completely neutral towards it, neither liking it or disliking it.