The Radio

Let's pretend that your CD player or tape deck is busted in your motor vehicle. Because of this unfortunate circumstance, you are left with three options:

1. Getting it fixed/replaced.
2. Riding around in angry silence.
3. Practicing your death metal growl.

Does it sound like I am missing anything? How about killing yourself? All true metalheads recognize the fact that no matter what, under no circumstance is FM radio ever an option.

Radio has been a sworn nemesis to true metal for decades (as any Manowar lyrics will tell you), and will continue to be; until the day government officials become tired of hearing what hard rock had to offer in 1998, and radio is finally outlawed. My years of rock radio listening were plagued with the constant, frustrated flipping of channels back and forth, before I realized that barely catching the second half of "War Pigs" was nowhere near worth muscling through hours of Nickelback, Disturbed, Creed, Green Day and the same three fucking Alice In Chains songs in constant loop. Newsflash radio: Nobody actually listens to Korn anymore. Nobody. Not even Korn fans. Not even the members of Korn. Yet I heard "Freak on a Leash" on the radio just yesterday. If you have to ask why I was even listening to the radio, it was because I was sitting in someone else's car. Having to bum rides off of people makes me more metal than you. Not helping them pay for gas? Even more so.

Radio is such a pathetic media that it doesn't even bother to keep current with what rock fans are actually listening to. It has honestly been recycling the same material from the same 10-15 bands for the last decade and a half. They will play Tool all day and night, even though Tool peaked, and immediately afterwards became irrelevant to anyone who knows anything, back in '93. The only new music you will hear on the radio is when Tool releases a new album. I can only gather that the window lickers who run these rock stations are a bunch of generation X, grunge-era jerkoffs who have been disillusioned into this concept that Kurt Cobain was anything more than half an artist back when they were in high school.

Rock radio will sometimes play music from newer bands, but only if it's identical to the garbage that they have already been playing. For instance, every note and lyric that Five Finger Death Punch brings to the table has been long tired out by bands like Staind and Drowning Pool in butt rock past. Think of the worst band you can think of from the mid to late 90's... preferably Pearl Jam. Then play music and sing exactly like they do. Air time in no time.

On occasion, radio stations will grant us a specific 'metal block', which is usually assigned to one hour, one day of the week, at 2-3 in the morning, and half of which is commercial breaks. During this hour, true metalheads can splendor in the musical company of high quality acts such as, but not limited to: Killswitch Engage, Avenged Sevenfold, Shadows Fall, Hatebreed, and of course, Bullet for my Valentine. We might also get lucky and get to listen to a popular Dio track, but only on the day that he died. No, no, not the anniversary. That one day. That one day that he died on.

I'm not going to be another pretentious douche and say that metal is too 'intellectual' or 'superior' of a genre for the likes of mainstream radio listeners, and go in to why it takes a certain intelligence quotient and advanced musical taste to truly appreciate the complex musical progression of a Nile song. At least not right now anyway. The fact remains that you won't find metal worth a listen playing anywhere on any radio station enough to start tuning in. So in conclusion, I would recommend bringing your iPod along for the ride just in case. You never know what might happen, and you don't need to hear anything or watch the road to drive well anyway.