When I was in high school, back in the postpunk Silver Age, there was an unspoken hierarchy of stoners expressed in their hard-rock allegiances. The Alpha Heshers had their holy trinity of Zeppelin, Van Halen, and Hendrix; those who fancied themselves intellectuals added Pink Floyd to the mix, while your would-be mystics opted for the Doors, but mostly it was those three. The second-tier burnouts gravitated towards Blue Oyster Cult, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest — bands that rocked hard, but with strong iconography and an element of wit. The real bottom feeders, though, listened to Dio.

(I should note that in high school, I was listening to Big Country, Billy, Idol, and the Police; and there’s only one of those that I regret today.)

You can see why teenagers are so attracted to heavy metal. There’s a huge cultural pressure on adolescents to engage with pop music at a time when they still lack confidence in their own aesthetic judgments. Absent an effective critical toolset for evaluating the art, teenagers (often unconsciously) latch instead onto extramusical factors when choosing music to consume, music that will effectively present their identities. Album art and videos assume an exaggerated importance; chart positions, perceived popularity (or lack thereof) among one’s peers, perceived acceptability (or lack thereof) among authority figures — all come into play. (more…)