Hmmm, I can see some interesting points being put forward in this thread.
First of all, when looking at the history of music, we can notice several things:
1. Throughout European history, despite all the wars and nations rising and falling, each country has kept a fairly stable and standard ethnic group at its core. There have been variations (e.g. the Viking invasions of Dublin and the later Norse conquest of Ireland adding a strain of Scandinavian and French blood to the gene pool), but these have not drastically affected the culture of the places involved. So, although Europe is a much smaller landmass than the U.S. or Asia, due to the
lack of unification and centralisation of its various states, it has retained much of its identity in regards to individual countries. From this, we get all the variations in metal, as each country takes the basic metal strain brought from the U.S. and presented by bands such as Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, adding their own areas influences and history (this is shown even more in folk/symphonic metal bands, which like to add even more cultural influences in songs, to the point of some folk metal bands singing in their native language-Mago de Oz, Nightwish (some songs) etc.)
2. Now, as for the Americas, the result is different. In Canada, which was originally annexed by both the British and French, there is a strong sense of identity, and yet the music is also heavily influenced by the American market, where most Canadian bands will be getting their influences and aiming to market their music.
Central and South America were colonised by Europeans-the Hispanics. Throughout, they have not been influenced by America and retained much of their identity, as Mexicans, Brazilians, or whatever. South American metal is largely 'European' in origin, but then we have some bands such as Sepultura playing a 'socio-political commentary' style of song, more evidenced in....
...the USA! Although American was effectively colonised by Europeans, it was to escape the harshness of the Old World and find a new life-whether from religious or political persecution or hunger and war, the founding fathers of American didn't want to rely on Europe, especially after the 1776 Revolution. From then on, America was focussed on maintaining themselves as an independant nation (Canada did not gain full independance so readily, nor did the Central/South American colonies); and with the mass extermination of the Native Americans, this left her with little inherent culture-probably due to the fact that the first settlers were Protestants (there go any chances of pagan folklore remaining in the history [img src=\"style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/tongue.gif\" style=\"vertical-align:middle\" emoid=\"
\" border=\"0\" alt=\"tongue.gif\" /] ) and businessmen-who were more concerned with making money than preserving an 'old' sense of culture (not that they were wrong-even in Europe much heritage was being ignored in favour of aggressive expansion and industrialisation).
This all leads to the following-European music has had much more culture to draw on in its music. As has been stated, the Blues brought with the African slaves to America developed into blues, jazz, rock and subsequently metal. So America spawned metal, or at least the seeds of it, which were taken up in Britain by the aforementioned bands (Sabbath, Priest etc.). As to lyrical content, much of the blues music was concerned with melancholic themes and the soul-rock n' roll was talking primarily about rebellion and other popular themes at the time. So, when metal comes along, bands now have another medium to represent their views on. They can go further with this 'controversial' genre than ever before, and need not talk about such optimistic themes in their songs. In fact most metal music is inherently pessimistic (I'll deal with power metal in a minute). Now, European bands (thinking around the 80's with the advent of NWOBHM here) have a vast cultural heritage-and led by Steve Harris, Maiden draw deep on British
and European themes. This clearly inspires the other fast, upbeat bands that followed them, such as the German/Scandinavian power metal bands. Power metal took the melodic compositions evern further, by adding happy themes of warriors and metal to their songs. This gives us bands like Helloween (cross-over Speed/Power), Blind Guardian and Rhaspody. Incidentally, Speed metal can be attributed directly to a fusion of Maiden's style with the then-popular thrash metal scene, only stripping away the harsh, aggressive features inherent to that genre.
Now, as to thrash metal, we can pinpoint the major country for this genre to be the US. After the Vietnam War, the American public were becoming increasingly skeptical and critical of their government and democracy as a whole. Scandals such as Watergate exposed the fact that politicans
can be corrupt, and the American metal scene took up on this pessimism, giving us the 'political commentary' song, exemplified by bands such as Megadeth and Metallica.
So, I think that because of Europe's rich and varied culture the metal found here is destined to use the vast cultural and musical styles of each individual culture in both composition anf lyrics
In America, however, we can see that things must start at a lower level. If American metal seeks to enter the realms of fantasy, they frequently do it through European culture (
'Creeping Death' by Metallica) or the increasing popularity of the Science-Fiction genre (
'Hangar 18' by Megadeth). Additionally, the rebellious attitude of the 80's Generation, following in the footsteps of the hippies, focusses more on speaking out against the attitudes of their parents. In Europe, this was not the main factor, but it was still a relevant one.
But there are cross-overs. Bands like Rush and Dream Theater, by being progressive in nature, frequently enter the realms of fantasy and also consciousness in their songs. Some European bands (like Motorhead) would frequently stay in the 'rock n roll' lyrical theme.
Now, as to education and what that contributes, we must look at the two systems of schooling in the USA and Europe. In the US, for whatever reason, children are protected as they go through life, and nowhere is this more apparent in the education system. Perhaps it is the US' consumer society that does this? Anyway, I would say (and this is an opinion) that the European school system is better than the US'. Also, look at America's metal instrumentalists such as James Hetfield, Dave Mustaine or John Petrucci. Many of them are self-taught (particularly in the thrash metal scene), and while this is not necessarily a bad thing (read: 'Arry), the compositional and classical training that European musicians can recieve gives them a better oppurtunity to write more structured and varied songs (not necessarily better, but more 'classical' in style). All this means that European metal can be generally classed as:
More classical in style, with lyrics pertaining to fantasy/the mind/history, and with clear strains of cultural heritage in their songs
American metal, on the other hand, is:
A lot more experimental, often heavier and more aggressive in both lyrics and music.
Of course, this is a generalisation and there are exceptions. But I certainly listen to more European metal bands than American metal bands. But perhaps this is due to:
1. The scale of the US: although geographically large, it is culturally and musically quite a small nation in terms of variety
2. The difference in cultures in Europe leads to a vast array of genres being widely practised there.
To sum up, we like metal (well, this is the reason for me) primarily because of its escapism. We frequently would rather hear new and strange styles about fantastical things than a song that brings us down to reality.
--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/blink.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'blink.gif\' /][!--endemo--] )
--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/dry.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'dry.gif\' /][!--endemo--]
--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/biggrin.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'biggrin.gif\' /][!--endemo--]
