Is There a Generational Divide Among Metalheads?

Senior: "Jun, have you ever listened to a Judas Priest song and thought it was cool?"
Me: "No, never."

When I answered immediately like that after being asked by a senior colleague a generation older than me at a metal DJ event the year before last, they looked a bit sad.

But when Children of Bodom covered the intros of Mötley Crüe's "Too Young To Fall In Love" -> Judas Priest's "Breaking the Law" -> Dio's "Holy Diver" during the intro of "Downfall" at a live show, I honestly thought it was cool.

However, I felt no emotion when I listened to the original songs.

I think it's also a matter of recording technology.
For example, about 20 years ago when I first listened to Metallica.
I still remember the shock I felt when I was in junior high school and heard Korn perform "One" on MTV ICON, and the smiling faces of the members watching it happily. But my impression after listening to the original song later was, "It's long."

Later, when I was in high school and listened to the original version of "Master Of Puppets," my impression was, "The song is cool. But the sound is like the Metal Zone sample I heard on the BOSS website." However, when I listened to S&M, it was so cool it gave me goosebumps.

By the way, the first Metallica album I bought was "St. Anger" with the studio live DVD, and I still love it today. My favorite song is "Sweet Amber."

This was right around the year after Slipknot released Vol. 3, a time when the metal industry's sound production changed drastically by pushing the three-piece drum kit to the forefront, which led to the later metalcore boom.

However, I remember long-time Metallica fans saying things like, "What is this snare sound that sounds like an oil drum!" and "Metallica is finished." On 2channel at the time.
Seeing that, I thought, "Do you guys seriously have ears?" and I remember getting scolded when I wrote something like that, lol.

The metal history of the person writing this article

I was born in 1989. My entry into this scene was being inspired by the industrial sound in the insert song for Final Fantasy X when I was in my 6th year of elementary school (2001). (I thought Rammstein was singing it until just recently, but I was mistaken.)

After that, when I went around asking on internet bulletin boards, "I want to listen to songs like this, so please tell me," I was told about Rob Zombie, Slipknot, Limp Bizkit, and Linkin Park, and Ipoured all my New Year's money from 6th grade into CDs.In other words, I'm a hardcore nu-metal generation.

At the time, my ears were accustomed to the sound of the early 2000s, so I also thought Korn's early sound was "a flat, two-dimensional sound."

After that,during my awkward middle school phase,I loved Slipknot so much that I started playing guitar, and when I entered high school, I formed a band and thought, "I should dig into my roots for songwriting," so I went back through the history of metal and rock, tracing it back to 1930s blues and country western.
By the time I was in high school, I had no friends to talk about music with because I was digging into world music, classical, and jazz. After all, it was a town of 50,000 people in Nagano Prefecture. People = Shit.

In middle school, while all my friends were singing the hip-hop, Orange Range, or Shonan no Kaze of the time, I was singing Limp Bizkit, and everyone was just blankly staring, went to the drink bar, and I was left alone in the room. Truly a Chocolate Starfish.

It was a middle and high school life connected to crap and poop.

Regarding the main topic: Is there a generational divide among metalheads?

"It exists, but it doesn't"
Why is that?
・"As a result of metal becoming broadly defined over 50 years, the shape of what listeners started listening to varies completely by era and subgenre."
・"When arguments happen, everyone is clashing their own self-made views of metal, but basically, it's the fault of older people acting superior."
These two points.

The increase in subgenres and the difference in starting points for each listener

Let's compare metal from the 1970s and the 2020s, which are broadly categorized as "metal."

First, the progenitor of metal. It was over 50 years ago that Black Sabbath, led by Ozzy Osbourne, who will finally hold their last concert in 2025, released "Paranoid."

Next is "To The Hellfire," a signature song from Lorna Shore, who sold out their solo Japan tour at Zepp DiverCity in February 2025. Since the Paranoid music video had a studio live atmosphere, I'll use the studio live version.

I think most people would hear it as something completely different, or at least not the same genre.However, this band is listed alongside big names like Judas Priest at renowned big festivals like Wacken, exciting tens of thousands of spectators.

Although I've lined up slightly extreme examples,whether it's evolution or changeaside, I think you can feel that there is likely a significant gap in perception between those who started listening to metal in the 1970s and those who started in the 2020s.At the very least, 10 years ago, it would have been impossible for a so-called deathcore band like Lorna Shore to sell out a venue of over 2,000 people on a solo Japan tour.I think even young listeners who started listening to metal in the 2010s would be surprised.

Next, let's compare mainstream artists from the 1980s, when metal achieved commercial success as entertainment, with artists from the 2010s. Since we're at it, let's use something that conveys the frenzy of a live show.

1980s IRON MAIDEN, SLAYER

Harmonized guitars and brilliant, soaring high notes.
Relentless riffs, double-bass drumming, and raspy vocals.
The 1980s was a decade where the entire scene grew massive as subgenres branched out from the HR/HM foundation established in the 1970s.

It was a warring states period where guitar heroes now considered legends vied for supremacy; competition in technique intensified, and fierce battles were fought all over the world.
The Count also went on a rampage.

While popularization and entertainment value accelerated rapidly, the speed of decline was also fast; my impression is that after peaking in the late 80s, many fair-weather listeners left around the turn of the 90s, leaving behind only the dedicated geeks and heads.

For those in their 20s now, it might be easy to understand if you recall how EDM and festivals in the 2010s suddenly surged with incredible momentum before calming down just as quickly.
Remember all those people who bought DJ gear on a whim back then and said, 'I've started DJing!' only to quit immediately? It's probably like that.

And it was an incredible era where subgenres like symphonic, death metal, and black metal were born one after another behind the scenes of the mainstream, growing rapidly.

2010s Bring Me The Horizon, Parkway Drive

An era where both intensity and emotionality were refined after the chaotic, rapidly changing trends of the 2000s, such as nu-metal, melodic death metal, metalcore, technical death metal, deathcore, and electronicore.

Or rather, looking back on that time, I feel like the atmosphere was such that only warriors who survived the wars of the 2000s, or those who could rival or surpass them, were able to emerge.

Perhaps due to the development of recording technology, newcomers were releasing debut albums with incredibly clean soundscapes.

It was taken for granted that vocalists could do both melodies and screams, and they could master many different vocal timbres.
Electronic sounds, which were just background effects in the early 2000s, became a part of the music's presence.
The instrumentalists were incredibly skillful, yet they played with a focus on groove rather than showing off their technique, and their riff patterns were diverse.

Chronologically, it was after the experiments of what to mix into metal had come full circle, so I feel like there has never been an era with such a high hurdle for sense and skill to become successful.

This was also the era when the foundation of the loud rock scene in Japan solidified, intense bands became regulars at large domestic festivals, and they began creating their own festivals.

However, I was into K-POP, dubstep, and drum and bass until about 2012–15, and I wasn't really following anything outside the mainstream, so I don't have a grasp of the nuanced atmosphere of that time.

Even if it's not as different as the aforementioned BLACK SABBATH and Lorna Shore, I think the 1980s and 2010s are quite different scenes due to the influence of the 20 years in between.
Also, while there are people headbanging at live shows in both, the fact that there are mosh pits in 2010s live footage might be a point that shows the change in how listeners enjoy the music.

Moving on to the 1990s and 2000s

1990s KORN, SLIPKNOT

At the end of the 1980s, the massive number of fair-weather listeners left, and the huge movement calmed down for a moment.
Just when you thought that, METALLICA released an album focusing on groove rather than speed and sold incredibly well. PANTERA emerged, but their style was somehow different from what came before.
And the young people who were supposed to enter the metal scene flowed into grunge, represented by Nirvana.

'Where did the metal we love go!?' I think it was an era where fans were confused.
However, behind that, the early melodic death metal was born, symphonic, melodic speed, and German styles became even more grand, and the original metalcore was born through fusion with the punk-derived hardcore scene; the subdivided underground scene was certainly continuing to evolve.
Black metal was becoming so extreme that that famous incident even occurred.

However, the state of the mainstream changed completely.
HIPHOP finished its maturation period in the 80s, was injected with more and more capital, and became a representative of the major music scene, including collaborations with R&B singers; in 1994, when the East-West conflict was about to begin in the gangsta scene, KORN appeared as if they had suddenly jumped out of the dark side of the Force.Suddenly, a gate to another world opened.

The disappearance of guitar solos might have been a shock to fans who had been following the metal scene up until then. And the HIPHOP-style vertical groove. The heavy, oppressive sound of the multi-string instrumentalists.
It was nothing like Mike Patton jumping around happily with a flow like MC Hammer. ↓↓↓

But it was a huge hit (I think) because the gloomy atmosphere of grunge had already been accepted, and it was also against the backdrop of the era when hip-hop was explosively gaining mainstream acceptance.

Up until then, metal heroes had always been trying to look cool at least to some extent.
Even if they looked like street performers to the general public, within the metal scene, they tried to be macho, tough, or outgoing.

However, the frontman of KORN was a self-admitted, 100% pure-bred victim of bullying. In fact, before joining the band, he was bullied by the band members themselves, and at school, he was bullied by teachers and students alike, being called 'HIV,' which is why he has 'HIV' tattooed on his arm.

That bullied kid screaming as if to tear through the gloomy, heavy music, singing relatable hate songs—the birth of a dark hero from another world.
The values of metal up to that point crumbled, and while you couldn't really feel a musical lineage, the sales were good.
The term 'Nu-Metal' was born from that kind of nuance and movement, I think.

It might be similar to the feeling of Amuro from Gundam or Shinji from Eva becoming the protagonist—characters you worry about while watching.

Therefore, Burrn! at the time stubbornly refused to cover them, and among enthusiastic readers, it was considered that back then mainstream metal was dead.
However, one could also speculate that the reason Sepultura was on the cover for some reason back then was because they had a fighting spirit to battle against something big (and the people in charge judged that they hadn't broken the mentality of metal up to that point).

With KORN's breakthrough, the floodgates for nu-metal and rap metal were opened all at once, and from the late 90s, bands with a vertical head-banging style appeared one after another. Perhaps because it was the most simplified playing style in metal history, it might have been easier for players to enter in that sense as well.

In terms of looks, beards, long hair, and bald heads decreased significantly, which might have been another point that drew the ire of traditional metalheads. Simply put, they might have looked flashy.
At the same time, OZZFEST started and began pulling up young talent, so traditional listeners might have been confused.

Around the end of the 90s, LIMP BIZKIT debuted and gathered even more popularity and hate, and the masked group SLIPKNOT appeared to open a second breach, leading nu-metal into its maturity in the 2000s.

Also, the 90s was a period when the rave scene expanded rapidly, mainly in Europe, and industrial metal (rock) bands that appeared around the same time, such as Ministry, Fear Factory, Nine Inch Nails, RAMMSTEIN, and Marilyn Manson, also had a major influence on the bands of the 2000s.

2000s LINKIN PARK, Killswitch Engage

LINKIN PARK was the one that took the best parts after going through the mixed bag of the nu-metal and industrial scenes in the late 1990s to create a completed form.
They released their debut album in 2000.

And Killswitch Engage, who pushed metalcore into the mainstream after the lively 90s metalcore, death metal, and melodic death metal scenes.

There might be voices asking why you would dare to choose Killswitch Engage there, but there is a reason for this.

It's because new listeners to the metal scene from the early to mid-2000s often came in through movie soundtracks.

The Matrix, Resident Evil, Freddy vs. Jason, The Scorpion King, Daredevil, Spider-Man, Queen of the Damned, and so on.
Many of the famous movie soundtracks that were talked about and drew large audiences at the time included metal bands that were selling well then.
I still wonder why there was so much metal.

It was an era that felt like a return to the 1980s, where the entertainment industry pushed the metal scene hard.

In that flow, I think the achievement of KsE in making the existence of metalcore known to many people is a cut above other bands.
People who got hooked on SLIPKNOT from the first Resident Evil movie watched the second one with expectations, and then suddenly a grand and melodic metalcore song played during the ending, so that must have been quite a shock.

After that, the metalcore boom began in the mid-2000s, more extreme deathcore and technical death metal appeared, and electrocore (and crabcore as a localized phenomenon) with an increased presence of electronic sounds became popular, and the lineage from the 90s dispersed and evolved as it entered the 2010s.

I think the young bands that were selling well while still being heavily influenced by the 80s during this period were notably Avenged Sevenfold and Trivium, but I recall that their style wasn't exactly in the center of the youth mainstream.

The form of metal when you started listening to it differs too much depending on the generation.

Although it is based on my own subjectivity and a small sample size, I compared them by decade, grouping them into 1970 and 2020, 1980 and 2010, and 1990 and 2000.You can see that things with very different musical styles were popular just by having the name 'metal' attached to them.

The stream that began with BLACK SABBATH became a great river due to the massive influx of players, but it has thinned out slightly due to a drought.
A crustal movement occurred with KORN, creating a new river that became a great river, which then merged again with the river that had originally thinned out.
It merged with rivers from other genres, becoming something like the largest Amazon River in history.

Setting aside what was happening in the underground sceneand focusing only on the commercially recognized parts, I think this is the flow.

The emergence of KORN and the nu-metal boom might have been parallel events, but since the progenitor Ozzy Osbourne gathered residents of parallel worlds to revive their own recognition through OZZFEST, the artists are connected.

In that case,isn't the divide on the listener's side rather than the artist's?.

Listeners are like hatchlings when they start listening, so they recognize the first artist they get hooked on as their parent.That becomes their standard.

There is no doubt that each artist is influenced by the music of the 10 or 20 years before their debut, but whether the outputted work makes you feel that is another story.

For example, even when I, now 35, listened to it in 2002, it felt quite old, so it's a stretch to say to today's young people,If you listen to metal, you listen to Metallica, right?For example, this feeling might be close.

By the way, this is my view.

For example,would a 20-something who listens to Lorna Shore in search of extreme elements like speed and heaviness find Slayer intense?I think they would feel a bit unsatisfied. Since screams and death growls have been standard elements of songs since 2000, that might also have an influence.

That said, young bands today also cover legendary masterpieces like 'Raining Blood' live and get the venue excited, so the fact that it's 'cool' must be getting across.

It seems that 20 years ago, SLIPKNOT's drummer Joey also told the members themselves that he was'paying homage'to Slayer's 'Angel of Death' in the drum break of 'Heretic Anthem'.
Slayer: 'Is that so! In other words, you're ripping us off, right! Haha'
Joey: 'That's how much I love you guys'

The relevant part is here↓

After that, when Paul, who was Slayer's drummer at the time, left,there was even talk of Joey joining,so there is no doubt that they are quite close, my men.

There was a similar topic in the hip-hop world last year, and the structure is similar.
Isn't it a lack of respect for the genre when listeners force their own image of their favorite artist onto the culture?

However, as I have said many times, for many listeners, 'the feeling when they started listening is the starting point,' so I think it is difficult for all listeners to feel that essence or enjoy artists from before that time with the same intensity as listeners who knew it in real-time.

But basically, I think'senior listeners getting grumpy or sulking because they can't share what they think is the best'is the biggest cause of the divide between generations.

Considering the reasons why sulking senior listeners are born

For example, there is this research.

When I was 23 or 24, just after I started working, I was overwhelmed with work and wasn't able to face new music compared to before.

And compared to when I was a student and only had to pay attention to 'human relationships around me,' life after becoming a working adult has too much noise to immerse oneself in music.

There is also this article.

The sense of immersion when you were most purely engaged with music must be the ultimate entertainment experience for a listener. And even for metalheads who love solitude, they are still human.


The joy of sharing something and the shock of not being understood when it matters most might be significant. That is probably why strange geeks and old guys who say things like '
XX is the absolute peak' appear from time to time. Stop acting so tough.

There is definitely a peak performance for every artist that can only be understood by those who experienced that era in real-time.

Just as no matter how much I wish for it now, I can never see Randy Rhoads' guitar playing, no matter how much young people today wish for it, they can never see SLIPKNOT with the original members, LINKIN PARK with Chester, or Suicide Silence with Mitch.

I think people of each generation should just cherish those as precious memories and grow old along with the bands. That is why

LOUD PARK becoming full of old guys feels like a kind of correct answer. There is no need to lament that young people hardly come, and young people are going to new festivals on their own anyway, so there is no problem at all. Each generation creates movements with their own intensity, so it is just a matter of how flexibly the listeners can enjoy it.

However, for any reason, being preachy to those younger than you is naturally not good as a human being. I have heard even people in their late 30s say many times, '
I hate it when there are noisy old guys at metal bars.' I have always disliked arrogant seniors and old guys who are all talk, so I want to continue to be the first to give them the middle finger.

And the amount of information held by today's teens and 20-somethings, the subscription generation, is truly amazing, so you shouldn't underestimate them, and I still learn a lot from them even now.

Many of the subscription generation have a fairly accurate grasp of the metal that existed around the time they were born. If you compare it to K-POP, it's equivalent to young people listening to BTS or NewJeans being able to sing the theme song of Winter Sonata. I think this is quite amazing.

Finally

Ozzy is finally putting an end to his career. He is holding a concert bringing together everyone from the successors born in the 1980s, the inhabitants of the parallel world he picked up a quarter-century ago, to their children.

I wonder what listeners from all over the world, from their teens to their 70s, will think when they see this lineup.

I still don't get that excited or thrilled just listening to Black Sabbath songs. But I started playing instruments because I listened to the bands Ozzy brought up at OZZFEST, so I really think Ozzy is a great person. I love Randy Rhoads and Zakk Wylde too.

I still remember the summer of 2006, when I was a high school sophomore, getting excited about the guitar solos of Mr. Crowley that each of them played and listening to them over and over again.

So I think I will probably cry when I see the last BLACK SABBATH concert. Maybe that will be the first time I think BLACK SABBATH songs are straightforwardly cool.

Since I am still DJing and have opportunities to interact with young people in their 20s, I am at least able to enjoy new subgenres and artists. If possible, I hope to remain a person with the sensibility to be moved and find things interesting while discovering both new and old things.

But basically, metal listeners are a bit twisted, so I think they should just keep fighting. That is more interesting, and since it is music originally created by outcasts to vent, it is all about clashing.

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At the metal DJ event I run in Nagano Prefecture, three old guys in their late 30s, 40s, and 50s are running it while having various 'clash training' sessions like in this article. Please take a listen if you'd like.

It is held regularly on the third Saturday of even-numbered months.