![]() In the metal media, veteran writers like Metal Hammer's Dom Lawson, Metal Rules' JP Wood and Metalsucks' Vince Neilstein have all gotten on board. Jeff Walker of death metal legends Carcass has been effusive in his praise, and Metallica are reportedly fans. It's like sushi! Sushi came from Japan and people had never eaten it before, and now everyone eats sushi all over the world."Ī good number of those people singing Babymetal's praises are old enough to remember when heavy metal was contrived and awesome because of it. So to bring Japanese metal around the world, it has to be something different and original. All the old-school metal bands are still around and there's still a fanbase, but it's all getting smaller. But I realized that the scene isn't really getting any bigger. "As a longtime metal fan, I always used to say 'That's not real metal so I'm not listening to it!' I'm a metal purist too, to be honest. The fact that the sudden notoriety of this shrewdly marketed trio of teenaged Japanese singers has brought people together in a combination of excitement, confusion and revulsion is not a bad thing at all. There's little galvanizing the entire metal scene anymore: The older metal crowd has its favorites, the kids have theirs, the underground carries on and never the twain shall meet. It's as if post-millennial mainstream metal doesn't know where to go next. The best-selling metal acts of the past 12 months are a hodgepodge of old-school heroes ( Black Sabbath), late-'90s holdovers (Korn, Godsmack), younger bands that pander to the lowest common denominator (Avenged Sevenfold, Five Finger Death Punch) and the odd mild bright spot (Volbeat). ![]() It's a common complaint in an era when the mainstream side of heavy metal is stuck between the nostalgic and the milquetoast. The cries of foul have been predictable, skeptics up in arms about the act's seeming lack of sincerity, its "corporate" approach, its prefab quality. ![]() After all, co-opting metal music and juxtaposing it with J-pop melodies and Japanese "idol" fashion, choreography, and marketing will do that. The metal scene loves to wring its hands over anything that upsets the status quo, and Babymetal have been especially polarizing in 2014. Early in the day though, it was a performance by a trio who performed a confounding, surreal fusion of bubbly Japanese pop and edgy heavy metal that attracted the crowd's attention. The main draw was headliner Metallica respected veterans in Anthrax, Voivod and Overkill and upstarts like Municipal Waste and Protest the Hero featured on the eclectic undercard. 9, more than 40,000 people descended upon Montreal's Parc Jean-Drapeau for the first day of Heavy Montreal, North America's biggest heavy metal festival. Babymetal perform during the first day of the 2014 Heavy Montreal festival.
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