“Six-six-six! The number of the beast!” Bruce Dickinson’s operatic voice boomed from the stage of The Pepsi Center, myself and 18,000 other ecstatic metalheads chanted along with Dickinson and the rest of Iron Maiden. During the night, I suspect the only person who had a bad time was the unfortunate soul who stepped wrong on the stadium’s concrete stairs and had to be evacuated by paramedics. For the rest of us, the night was nothing but a rhapsody of loud enjoyment. If you asked any one of us if anything we witnessed that night was inherently evil, you would have effectively caught us off guard as it would likely never dawn on us to think of Maiden or any other similar band as something bad.

To admit my bias, I have a fondness for quite a bit of metal music and will converse about the genre for hours on end, however from many people, mentioning metal will not garner you a healthy dose of upping the irons as much as a sideways glance and your morals questioned. Since Black Sabbath introduced Paranoid in 1970, heavy metal has been largely viewed as darker, evil and even Satanic. Even if you are biased in the favor of metal, it is evident that a reputation like that is seldom garnered by accident, and in many cases it can be clearly seen why the music would be given such a reputation.

The primary concern circulating the heavy music industry is the influence of imagery and meaning within the music. Many metal bands use reoccurring themes in their visual media to create their trademarks, logos, and individual styles; more often than not, these images are intentionally darker and more intimidating to work in tandem with the more intense music. Some noteworthy images include Motörhead’s snarling Snaggletooth, and Iron Maiden’s Eddie the Head, a zombie like figure present on every one of the band’s album releases. Logos like this have become as synonymous to the genre as the Chevrolet cross has become to the automotive industry; as massive as these logos are, red flags can already be raised about the music and people they represent.

Underneath the external imagery is the music itself, and from a distance it remains easy to see where heavy metal gets its reputation. Oftentimes in metal, the lyrical theme will revolve around subjects containing death, violence, destruction, and other negative connotations. While these themes often occur in other genres, it is the backbeat of heavy metal that creates the controversy. Folk artist Allison Kraus also uses dark lyrical themes, oftentimes pertaining to death, suicide, the devil, murder, and other problematic behaviors; however, the presentation of the themes is where the two part ways. With a lyrical concept such as murder, a girl in a long black dress backed by a mourning fiddle and mandolin is an entirely different ballgame than Bruce Dickinson blasting his screaming tenor whilst leaping off a Marshall stack, accompanied by roaring guitars and a high octane tempo. It is the combined vocal connotations and higher intensity instrumentation that oftentimes provide metal with the nastier bite.

After the imagery and music come the actual people represented by the heavy metal movement. While it is very easy to generalize the “Metalhead” stereotype, an element of truth remains surrounding many of the people labeled as metal fans. The fans of the genre are often perceived as more aggressive, social outcast type people that are generally given a second glance from across the street. Despite their appearance, most people you would peg as metal heads due to their appearance do not meet this stereotype and are perfectly decent humans behind the veil of a Slayer T-shirt. However, as I have repeated throughout this article, few reputations come by accident and there are metal fans whom are best avoided like the plague, and people who embrace the imagery to a point of extremes where it can become problematic and influence their behavior.

So with these many red flags being raised and concerns about heavy metal, can it be said that it is inherently dangerous? The answer is it can be, and is contingent on how the music is treated a concept that applies to other questionable media such as violent video games or television. The popular "Call of Duty" franchise encourages the killing of other players, and proceed to reward multiple kills with bigger devices to get more kills; likewise, the "Game of Thrones" TV series has taken America by storm and makes no attempt to hide its intensive violence or questionable themes. Neither 'Call of Duty' nor 'Game of Thrones' are viewed as particularly sadistic, however it is necessary to recognize what aspects of them should remain fictional and not taken into daily practice. The same is true for heavy metal, putting on a Mastodon CD won’t turn you into a cultist, as long as you are consciences enough to appreciate what you are listening to without taking excessive influence, same as you would with a violent video game.

If you can separate where necessary, metal will become a very wonderful and wide ranged music, there is indeed a unity between many fans of metal that stems from the common love of the genre. You can also experience the raw power of metal at live shows while surrounded by a sea of people all in tuned to a single event.

At the end of the day, metal music is no more inherently evil than the latest in video games or television, it is a form of media that can be very powerful and used as a tool to influence people in the direction people choose to take it. While it is certainly not for everyone, and should potentially viewed more cautiously by some, heavy metal is a catalyst that brings many together and creates its own unique brand of entertainment.