Today I got the notification that Escape the Fate had released their music video for Remember Every Scar, and clicked on the notification to take me to the Facebook post. A quick scanning of the comments consisted of the usual skipping over the usual “This is not escape the fate” Ronnie Radke comments by people who still haven’t realised by their fifth album that they are probably keeping Craig by this point, and the usual “OMG this is awesome!” comments that you would expect. But then I saw the comments I see whenever a band that has released heavier music in the past releases a softer song. “Now they are nothing more than an alternative rock s*** group” “they seem so mellowed out now”. A trip to the YouTube comments yielded similar results. “You can't argue that new rock/metal music isn't simple djenty poop, hell, most of my favourite bands are now sellout pop artists”. That’s right. If you release a song that isn’t filled with screaming, you are a “sellout pop artist”. Try something new? “sellout pop artist”. Don’t re-record that heavy song your “fans” loved in 2008? “sellout pop artist”.

Now keep this in mind when considering the other main criticism aimed at “core” bands. That their songs are all the same, using the same binary tab, the same breakdowns, the same high pitched sung chorus. With both of these criticisms being levelled, how is it possible for bands in the scene to grow? If you stay heavy, you are a “generic core band” but if you change things up you are a “sellout pop artist”. The bands that choose to stay the same tend to just keep going till they play smaller and smaller venues until they are completely forgotten, and all the comments on a magazine covering them are “lol they still exist?”. Or, the band tries something new and incorporates more clean vocals, or in the case of Escape the Fate, a mix of the two (The first song from the album was Just a Memory, one of their heaviest songs, which all commenters ignored). This inevitably leads to sellout comments, but either only these comments, leading to hatred for the album (see Real by the Word Alive), or the hate comments AND a lot of new fans, propelling the band to even greater fame (see That’s The Spirit by Bring Me the Horizon). Unfortunately these success stories are rather rare, the more common outcome is the bands either “go back to their roots” on the next album, or continue along the same path as they lose more and more fans with each effort, until they become a “I only listen to the old stuff” band. If the scene continues along this path, it will never grow. If bands in the scene just get automatic hatred no matter what they do, their fan base growth will be stunted. This is going to become more and more apparent every time your Motley Crüe’s and Black Sabbath’s do their last tours and there are no headliners left for metal festivals.