heavy metal dorks

One gripe I have with metal music is that a lot of bands will go out of their way just to look evil. I get exasperated every time I open a Metal Maniacs and see a bunch of corpse-painted guys glowing with pentagrams and inverted crosses and all, staring at me with this silly wild-eyed goofy stare that is supposed to be menacing. They use grisly props like decapitated animal heads or have their photos taken in a graveyard for maximum effect. They have strange sinister-sounding names that are hard to pronounce. Many openly proclaim all-out allegiance to Satan, arguably history's greatest loser.

Hardly a wow factor, if you ask me. If they are trying to impress fans then they're not doing a good job at it. Nobody buys this kind of stunt except "rock" kids who discovered Dimmu Borgir two days ago. Most of us are intelligent enough to know metal is about 99% music, 1% image. If you want to cash in on image, go to Hollywood. Or enter politics, where image is God. Otherwise, leave metal as Black Sabbath envisioned it to be: free of dorks.