# 80s Metal Fans turned out fine as adults and better than peers, study says



## Explorer (Jul 15, 2015)

I remember my aunt talking trash about rock music, evolution, and other things which went against her view of the world, but she wasn't the only one who thought metal was the highway to hell. 

A new study claims that 1980s metal fans not only grew up fine, but are doing better than their peers. 

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15298868.2015.1036918#abstract

What I really like about the article is the quote from the poetry of Baudelaire, noting that it wouldn't be out of place as metal lyrics. 

On the pillow of evil is that Thrice-Great Devil Trismegistus
Who lulls our hypnotized spirit;
And the rich metal of our Will
Is vaporized utterly by this savvy alchemist.
It is the Devil who holds the strings by which we're moved:
In revolting objects we find charm.
(Les Fleurs du Mal [_Flowers of Evil]_, p. 3. Translated by Howard Friedman)

The study claims that compared to their non-metal peers, metal musicians and fans grew up to have greater happiness and satisfaction with life, and score high in identity development. They also score high in community building as adults. 

This wouldn't surprise me if true. 

Rock and roll and its children have often been at the core of a permanent revolution which has torn down prejudices from past generations, and metal has been the outsider even in that family, even as other forms of rock have been much more mainstream. It's no surprise that the outsider kids who saw each other's T-shirts and were able to talk about great music went on to build communities. 

You folks rock.

 

BTW, a big shout out after the fact about the positives of throwing out conformity, especially the bigoted views of the mainstream. 

As RATM stated so eloquently when asked to enforce cultural norms...

FVCK YOU! i WON'T DO WHATCHA TOLD ME!

And, to all the younger metal fans who might currently get hassled, it does get better, so keep fighting the good fight!


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## vilk (Jul 15, 2015)

I like that on Criminal Minds they very often show the serial killers being metalheads.


EDIT:... I wonder what kind of music serial killers listen to...


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## naw38 (Jul 20, 2015)

I only know one person that grew up listening to metal in the 80's, and he's a homophobic scientologist with absolutely no people skills.

He does own his own business though, so what the .... do i know.

EDIT: The fact that I only know one person who grew up listening to metal back then says nothing about the number of people who did so and everything my own lack of social skills. At least I'm not an arsehole about it though.


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## Fraz666 (Jul 21, 2015)

Explorer said:


> A new study claims that 1980s metal fans not only grew up fine, but are doing better than their peers.


Probably they have not studied me


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## thraxil (Jul 21, 2015)

vilk said:


> EDIT:... I wonder what kind of music serial killers listen to...



According to: Six Notorious Serial Killers With Terrible Taste In Music and Seven Serial Killers And Their Favourite Songs

* Roy Norris: Bee Gees and Mariah Carey
* Richard Ramirez: AC/DC
* John Wayne Gacy: REO Speedwagon
* Charles Manson: Beatles
* Jeffrey Dahmer: Black Sabbath
* Wayne Williams: BB King and Bobby Bland
* Luke Magnotta: Madonna
* Arthur Shawcross: GG Allin


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## Force (Jul 22, 2015)

The ones that turned out fine are the ones that didn't die of a drug overdose or of STD's.

As they say, if you remember the 80's, you were doing it wrong.


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## TedEH (Jul 22, 2015)

My question is where did they find 21 professional metal musicians who sold


> anywhere from tens of thousands to millions of albums.


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## Explorer (Jul 22, 2015)

TedEH said:


> My question is where did they find 21 professional metal musicians who sold "anywhere from tens of thousands to millions of albums. "



Really? Just using Black Sabbath, Metallica, Def Leppard and AC/DC as your pool gets you to more than 21 metal musicians in the "millions of albums sold" category alone. 

Judas Priest? Iron Maiden? Slayer? 

I'm surprised you've never heard of those bands. 

Even if those seven bands were only power trios, that would be 7 bands x 3 members = 21 multimillion-album-selling professional metal musicians. 

Oh, well... no one said all metal fans were either capable of simple research or even of basic math....


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## TedEH (Jul 23, 2015)

I was under the impression that those 21 people were part of the random people they found on Facebook, since I didn't see it mentioned anywhere that they reached out to known established bands. I wasn't saying there aren't 21 successful musicians, but that it was unlikely you'd find that many in a random sampling of ~300 people from facebook.

Also, obvious joke was obvious.


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## vilk (Jul 23, 2015)

I hate it when people call AC/DC metal. They're like THE definition of butt rock. And if you don't think calling bands butt-rock/walmart-rock is funny, I still have no idea how you could call them metal--other than people from a long time ago that used to call Led Zeppelin, ZZ Top, basically any music with guitar distortion metal.


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## BucketheadRules (Jul 23, 2015)

thraxil said:


> * John Wayne Gacy: REO Speedwagon



I don't know why I find this amusing


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## estabon37 (Jul 25, 2015)

vilk said:


> I hate it when people call AC/DC metal. They're like THE definition of butt rock. And if you don't think calling bands butt-rock/walmart-rock is funny, I still have no idea how you could call them metal--other than people from a long time ago that used to call Led Zeppelin, ZZ Top, basically any music with guitar distortion metal.



Being that AC/DC pretty much self-identify as a rock band, and all three of those bands lean pretty heavily on blues conventions, it's hard to label any of them 'metal'.

At the same time, Black Sabbath leant pretty heavily on blues conventions in some songs, and whether or not their sound can be thought of as any 'heavier' than AC/DC is kind of subjective. So, maybe self-identification (which I guess leads into marketing and 'image') is the defining factor. 

Pantera and Alice in Chains both infamously started out as glam / hair metal bands (though AiC started out as Alice N' Chains, and none of the instrumentalists from the grunge version of the band were members, so it's a tenuous connection), and then underwent dramatic changes in how their music sounded, the focus of their lyics, and the way they portrayed themselves publicly. So, it's not just about self-identification; it's about self-determination. Metal and hard rock were not the necessarily the defining sounds of the 1980s, but they came to heavily influence the defining sounds of the early-to-mid 1990s, the late 1990s to a lesser extent (though nu-metal was a thing), and now we have so many genres and sub-genres that are so intricately interconnected that to be a metal enthusiast on any level tends to mean putting some effort into exploring all of the genres and their histories.

Maybe all of this had an effect on the early fans. Maybe the 'make yourself' philosophy and aesthetic was just as appealing as the music itself. The book that Explorer linked at the start of the thread is about identity, and much of the abstract seems to focus on the social elements more than the musical elements. Maybe people mis-identifying or mis-labelling a band's style is part of the process of separating the bands that worked hard to establish and define themselves independently from those that sought to capitalise on whatever was popular at the time.

Holy shit. I think I just proved once and for all that I can over-think anything. Sorry y'all.


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## flint757 (Jul 25, 2015)

I was always told Led Zeppelin and Sabbath were metal because of their musical themes more so than the heaviness, or lack thereof, in their music. Singing about Gods, dragons, giants, monsters, etc. which sharply contrasts sex and drugs for rock music and love/relationships that made up pop music and R&B.

Zeppelin crossed a lot of territory in that regard...


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## 777timesgod (Jul 26, 2015)

Norris should have asked for a not-guilty verdict. Listening to Mariah Carey is enough to turn a nun into a serial killer!


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## Andromalia (Jul 30, 2015)

flint757 said:


> Singing about Gods, dragons, giants, monsters, etc. which sharply contrasts sex and drugs for rock music and love/relationships that made up pop music and R&B.



I must create a band about greek gods then. Gods *and* sex, recipe for $$$.


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## estabon37 (Jul 31, 2015)

Andromalia said:


> I must create a band about greek gods then. Gods *and* sex, recipe for $$$.



Pretty sure somebody already perfected the "Gods and sex" formula.


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## tacotiklah (Aug 6, 2015)

vilk said:


> I like that on Criminal Minds they very often show the serial killers being metalheads.
> 
> 
> EDIT:... I wonder what kind of music serial killers listen to...



I'm pretty sure that the majority of what's currently on the radio has the potential to drive me to the point of homicide. Tbvh though, suicide would be more likely.


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## UV7BK4LIFE (Aug 11, 2015)

Thanks to metal music and guitar magazines I scored 10/10 for my English exams in highschool!


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## Millul (Aug 21, 2015)

UV7BK4LIFE said:


> Thanks to metal music and guitar magazines I scored 10/10 for my English exams in highschool!



Same for me...I was even able to make the class listen to and analyze The rime of the ancient mariner...and nobody ever complained about it!


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## chopeth (Aug 21, 2015)

Millul said:


> Same for me...I was even able to make the class listen to and analyze The rime of the ancient mariner...and nobody ever complained about it!



I did that too and my teacher never gave back the booklet of my Live After Death CD


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## piggins411 (Aug 26, 2015)

My high school English teacher actually played it for us. Pretty cool day. I tried to convince her to let me have the copy of the CD I think. She refused


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## ArticulateMadness (Sep 29, 2015)

70s era bands initially wanted to be blues bands. Zepplin and Sabbath sound like very electrified blues; howsoever, Sabbath going into demonic territory leads to the heaviness.

80s Metal, well this is the era of arena rock, so you can put Maiden and Crue, Priest and Poison in a sentence together. End of the decade it was all over commercialized crap with far too many gimmicks. Long hair and dressing like chicks comes to mind. The Villiage People inspired Leather that Rob from Priest rocked in his British Steel days. 

Now Death Metal...won't even touch it. People getting sacrificed and pig heads on spits ain't my idea of an awesome show.


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## vilk (Oct 1, 2015)

^Jesus man what are you 60?


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## asher (Oct 1, 2015)

vilk said:


> ^Jesus man what are you 60?



No, just a troll.


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## Millul (Oct 2, 2015)

piggins411 said:


> My high school English teacher actually played it for us. Pretty cool day. I tried to convince her to let me have the copy of the CD I think. She refused



Resurrecting this...yep, we listened to it as well..some of the best 14 minutes in my school years!


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## canuck brian (Oct 2, 2015)

My metalhead high school friends include 3 lawyers, two doctors and a VP at Microsoft. I built the networking framework and datacenters for half of the electronic medical record systems in Canada (literally - no joke). Only one of my buds really didn't knock it out of the park and he's still running a large business.

I think we all turned out fine considering some of the jock ....heads are still working in the local mall.


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## canuck brian (Oct 2, 2015)

ArticulateMadness said:


> Now Death Metal...won't even touch it. People getting sacrificed and pig heads on spits ain't my idea of an awesome show.


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## donzilla (Oct 4, 2015)

Yup!! Look at me...perfection.


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## chassless (Nov 26, 2015)

canuck brian said:


> My metalhead high school friends include 3 lawyers, two doctors and a VP at Microsoft. I built the networking framework and datacenters for half of the electronic medical record systems in Canada (literally - no joke). Only one of my buds really didn't knock it out of the park and he's still running a large business.
> 
> I think we all turned out fine considering some of the jock ....heads are still working in the local mall.


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## SixStringLooser (Apr 22, 2016)

Force said:


> The ones that turned out fine are the ones that didn't die of a drug overdose or of STD's.
> 
> As they say, if you remember the 80's, you were doing it wrong.



Its metal's way of natural selection


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