Six spicy takes from yours truly.

     Hot take videos/articles are all the rage these days, so why not pinch my loaf in the punchbowl?  Here are six hot takes I have regarding metal of today and past events (probably more than likely past events).

1. Stop calling it 'NWOBHM.'

When Bruce Dickinson fleetingly referred to the New Wave of British Heavy Metal movement as "NWOBHM" in shorthand on the Classic Albums documentary on The Number Of the Beast, it was so supposed to be just that, fleeting.  As in, not supposed to be shorthand common term.  Also, nothing like calling something that's 40, going in 50 years old new wave ay?  Here is where I feel we need to take a cue from black metal and start calling it the second wave of heavy metal.  Because really that's what it was.  The first wave was Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Budgie.  Yes there would be influential outliers that fit into neither wave (Judas Priest, Thin Lizzy, Motorhead) as there always are, there really is two different sets of movements here.

So yeah, enough of NWOBHM, call it Second Wave Heavy Metal. 

What's third, fourth wave and so forth?  How the hell should I know I'm Japanese!

2. Stop complaining about gatekeeping and in fact, participate in gatekeeping.  Just don't go full retard with it.

George Carlin once remarked that people go too far and take themselves too seriously with activism.  Fans today complain about "boomer" metal fans from the 80s but you know what?  At least "boomer metal fans from the 80s" know that metal is supposed to be as big and famous as possible, not corralled into small clubs that eventually close down because of inverted snobbery. Discovering Metallica through Stranger Things is not the problem.  Discovering Metallica through Fortnite is not the problem. Discovering Metallica through Zombieland: Double Tap (Don't look at me, I've never heard of it either) is not the problem.  

Being a Metallica fan is the problem.  There is a difference between being a fan and listening to a band.  Learn it. But anyone who still likes Metallica these days needs to be browbeaten to high hell.  I am so sick of a group that actively spits on a disrespects the genre that made them being the biggest one.  And no, that is NOT how it fucking works for music.  You don't see Beyonce and Rihanna constantly trolling R&B, you don't see Garth Brooks constantly fucking with country music, you don't see Eminem and Kendrick Lamar  constantly shitting on rap.  These respective individuals love their genres.  They don't always do what their fans want, but they aren't an active "please be murdered already" embarrassment like Metallica are.  So yeah, question why they didn't get into Black Sabbath or Iron Maiden instead, and if they say something soyboy-like like "Metallica just hits different man" say "I'll show you 'hits different'" and then slap them.  Fuck Metallica fans.

The T-shirt/3-song thing....guys, this has got to stop.  First of all, you know a real man is just gonna laugh at you at best, and knock you the fuck out at worst, right?  People aren't actually intimidated by such beta inquisitions.  Look I get it, some of us really got our feelings hurt because a bunch of scummy hipsters (who probably got arrested for grooming) wore our culture's shirts "ironically" and then made fun of us for actually liking the band when we started talking to them about it because we are excited we potentially have a new friend.  It hurt us so bad we could have shot up a school over it (with diarrhea, calm down), but guess what?  That trend was a 00s trend only, and now people only wear metal shirts because of the fashion aesthetic.  Hell if you were to bring up this shitty tactic to zoomers and gen-alphaers they would probably go "Wait, people did that?  My god no wonder you don't want anyone normal looking wearing your shirts."

If you see someone who you think "doesn't quite look right" wearing an Iron Maiden shirt or whatever, ask them normal, inviting questions that you would to people you know are fans because they're fat or have a battle vest or whatever.  Things like "favorite album/ favorite song/ are you seeing them live this year," friendly conversational stuff like that.  If they look surprised that what they are wearing is a band shirt, just subtly gaslight them with "Oh, sorry, no one in this town seems to like this band except me, I thought I made a new friend.  Nevermind."  And then walk away like you're going to kill yourself.  Said 'poser' will either a) recognize the error of their ways and not wear the shirt anymore, or b) feel guilty and offer you a tit-wank.  Either way you win.

Also, say anyone who got in through this nu-metal 'revival' that they're participating in cultural gaslighting and are bad for mental health.

3. Mercyful Fate has not, has never been and never will be a black metal band.  They are a Danish USPM* band.

The general rule is if you sing, you aren't an extreme band.  This is a notion I agree with.  While King Diamond's vocals are certainly an acquired taste and divisive, I wouldn't call them extreme in the sense that most extreme metal vocalists are judged by.  At the end of the day, he is still singing, and Mercyful Fate's songs fit more of a verse/chorus rock & roll structure with rock & roll tempos than they do otherwise.  

To be black metal, you need two qualifications:

a) You need to be fast.  You're basically making a thrash metal album as a template and whatever further garnishing you add to it dictates which sub-genre you will end up in.  A midpaced or even doomy song is fine here and there, but those are the exception rather than the rule.

b) You need unsung, screechy and or guttural vocals.

Mercyful Fate fit neither of these descriptions.  And I don't want want any excuses of "It was 1982-1984!  Black metal didn't even exist yet!" Yes it did exist.  While the genre wasn't what it would become with the second wave in the early 90s, it was absolutely in its first wave form: Venom, Hellhammer, Bathory, Celtic Frost, the first two Slayer albums as well as the first couple of releases by the German thrash metal bands (they would later evolve into thrash metal, but early Destruction and definitely early Sodom can be classified as black metal).  You know what all those bands have in common?  They all play fast and they don't sing.  Hell, even the first couple of Running Wild albums fit black metal's requirements better than Mercyful Fate's do!

Black metal heads like to claim Mercyful Fate as the result of a rather stupid reactionary notion of "normies hate King Diamond's singing, so we can claim them as our own!"  Yeah, well normies hated Udo Dirkschneider and Bobby "Blitz" Ellsworth's vocals, and I don't see you lot trying to claim Accept or Overkill as first wave black metal.  Overkill certainly had the lyrics for it:

"Higher, higher, feel the fire, she burns at the stake like a witch

Cut her, slash her, slit her throat, there's nothing I despise more than a bitch

Burn her tonight

Run, hide from the Demon's fate, too late, the fire is lit"

-Feel The Fire, Feel The Fire (1985)

"Riding the wind on a stormy night, rides a mother's son to take your life

They say he died ten years ago but the list of victims seems to grow

Like father like son the Bible read, three sixes brand the top of his head

Never heard, seen then too late, Overkill, seals your fate"

-Overkill, Feel The Fire (1985)

Some will argue that Mercyful Fate belongs in the first wave of black metal classification less because of the music, but because of King Diamond's image.  You know what King Diamond's image is?  A guy in weird awkward face paint with a top hat air-guitaring a femur-bone-cross like a dork!  You know who is much, much more of an influence on black metal's image to the point where they more or less rip him off?  Chaim Witz, a.k.a. Gene Simmons of Kiss.  To writer Dayal Patterson's credit, in his brand new expanded version of his book Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult, he gives credit to Kiss image wise and musically, as just about every young boy that grew up around that time was a fan of Kiss.  While Kiss' music these days can barely be classified as metal and falls more under hard rock, it doesn't change the fact that most of these musicians under first and second wave black metal classifications were Kiss fans.

To that end, you could classify Mercyful Fate as a NWOB...er, second wave heavy metal band (albeit one very, very late to the party, but then again, so was Satan), or as a power metal band.  Seeing as how I just said the term NWOBHM is stupid and outdated, let's go with 'Mercyful Fate are a power metal band.'  They're a very, very satanic power metal band, but "Praise Satan" wasn't as uncommon in normal heavy metal as one would think:

Dark lord I summon thee

Demanding the sacred right to burn in Hell

Ride up on Hell's hot wind

Face one more evil than thou

Take my lustful soul

Drink my blood as I drink yours

Impale me on the horns of death

Cut off my head release all my evil

Lucifer is King, praise Satan

I know the one who waits Satan is his name

Across the Bridge of Death there he stands in flame

Bridge Of Death, Hail To England (1984)

Now in the case of Manowar above there, I think that was more Christian-baiting than anything else.  But the point is plenty of traditional and early power metal bands discussed Satanism.  Not as prevalent and genuinely as Mercyful Fate did, but then again a lot of second wave black metal bands avoided Satanism as a topic as well, choosing to focus more on nature and cold weather (Immortal and Enslaved come to mind).

"But Kai...." the imaginary haters in my head say, "Mercyful Fate's albums were 100% satanic!" No they weren't.  Melissa had "Curse Of the Pharoahs", Don't Break The Oath had "Gypsy," and while I love In The Shadows (an album conspicuously not discussed in the first wave black metal discussions), lyrically half that album feels more like King Diamond stories.

And of course, the coup-de-Gracie question is, if Mercyful Fate are black metal, why do no black metal bands afterwards sound like them?

Cos they aren't.

4. Power metal needs to go away.  Any good power metal bands left need to pivot into classic heavy metal or follow the rules of USPM.

    I've long been a fan of 'good power metal' (more on that in just a sec), but it's become apparent to me that power metal has just become the renaissance fair virgin version of hair metal.  Way too much focus on "classy theater," "costumes" 860bpm neoclassical scales along with other such silliness, and not enough focus on songwriting.  

Here's the thing, classic heavy metal died in the 90s.  And I say die because people more or less stopped making it.  No new bands of that style cropped up during that time.  But traditional metal songwritings ideals lived on in the power metal bands of Europe, and power metal has more or less been the main stalwart holding on of what to do and what not to do (i.e. no growls and no core).  Then of course Dragonforce comes along and makes it too ridiculous for it's own good, and of course other scumbags who need their pants shit are all like "at least Dragonforce are intentionally goofy" get an imagination you soyboy.  Now people think power metal is just even cheesier symphonic metal rather than trad metal's addicted-to-caffeine cousin.

I've of course professed my love for Frozen Crown, Lovebites, and others, but these bands are at their 4th or 5th album, and we're getting to the point where it's like "OK, we get it you can play fast, neo-classical stuff.  What else can you do?"  Unfortunately when you tell a power metal band to play slow, 9 times out of 10 they play a ballad** so fucking ghey it makes "Every Rose Has It's Thorn" sound like "Angel Of Death."  Guys, slow means doom, not ballad.

Here's a list of slow/anthemic songs written from metal legends (power or otherwise) that I think every modern power metal band needs to be given to study:

Iced Earth- Burning Times

Iced Earth- The Hunter

Blind Guardian- Theater of Pain

Blind Guardian- Follow The Blind

Helloween- The Time Of the Oath

Helloween- Perfect Gentleman

Gamma Ray- No Stranger (Another Day In Life)

Gamma Ray- Short As Hell

Running Wild- Land Of Ice

Running Wild- Treasure Island

Nightwish- Gethesemane

Nightwish- Passion & The Opera

Riot- Bloodstreets

Riot- Outlaw

Hammerfall- Stone Cold

Manilla Road- The Riddle Master

Manilla Road- The Ninth Wave

Warlord- Deliver Us From Evil

Black Sabbath- Headless Cross

Also, Ozzy Osbourne's solo catalog from Blizzard of Ozz to No More Tears.  And yes, I know Black Sabbath was never a power metal band but the Tony Martin era might as well be. Not to mention all the Dio Sabbath albums are basically proto-power metal (and you can kind of tell these guys stick their nose up at the Ozzy Sabbath albums for being too dirty or whatever). Hell, even Candlemass have that mystical power metal bent to them, despite being unquestionably doom metal.  

Power metal should be commended for letting the real ideas of metal stay alive and not let everything fall to Pantera and Machine Head.  But it's time is over, and these bands need to put down the dumb costumes and pick up the leather, denim and other assorted biker cosplay and start writing songs that aren't 1000 miles an hour with 1000 notes a minute.

Also, this assessment does not apply to Battle Beast.  They have the opposite problem.  They need to go BACK to fast songwriting.  Seriously guys, you have a thousand Straight To The Heart/Eden songs right now. 

You'll notice earlier I said "good power metal."  About that.....

5. Good power metal isn't power metal.  It's speed metal.

    "What the hell is the difference between thrash metal and speed metal?" One of the eternal burning questions of metal.  It's so indistinguishable that you can't really blame someone for calling Metallica speed metal and Gamma Ray thrash metal.  Even Kai Hansen has stated when it came to classic Helloween's songwriting formula, he was more of the thrash piece of the equation, while Weiki was the more melodic side.  The way I see it, while both genres are fast, thrash focuses more on rhythm and roughness, whereas speed metal focuses more on melody, catchiness and is ultimately very smooth. 

The order of the day was to play much faster than Scorpions or Accept anyway. Blind Guardian, Helloween and Running Wild began the 80s as speed metal bands.  Iced Earth began more thrash than people remembered.  They never quite went thrash because thrash in Germany meant Kreator, Sodom, Destruction, more extreme.  They didn't want to be so extreme, they wanted to continue to play melodically with more emphasis on choruses ala Judas Priest, Iron Maiden etc. etc.  Early Metallica was also an influence on most, if not all of these bands.  You'll also notice that old pictures of Blind Guardian has members wearing Testament and Forbidden T-shirts.

Now that I think about it, every one likes to through "melodic" or "melo-" as a sub-genre qualifier, so maybe old power metal should be called "melodic thrash metal."  But then again, the sub-genre prefix of "melodic" usually means the band is cancer.  So let's just stick with calling it speed metal. 

6. Death or Glory is overrated.

Yup, I said it, not even in Running Wild's top 5***. It has four of the greatest songs they ever made: Riding The Storm, Bad To The Bone, Marooned, and Battle Of Waterloo.  There's other decent songs too, like the instrumental Highland Glory, but there's some real clunky songs like Renegade and Tortuga Bay (which tries to ripoff Crazy Train and only half succeeds.  Rolf Kasparek's voice is in pristine form, (it's his second album post singing lessons) and at least it's better than Branded & Exiled, Victory, and anything after Victory.

*United States Power Metal

***Lovebites are the exception to the rule.  I want another Epilogue/Edge of The World/Frozen Serenade type of a song dammit!

***For those that care, my top 5 Running Wild albums are:

1. Blazon Stone
2. Masquerade
3. Port Royal
4. Gates To Purgatory
5. Black Hand Inn