I don't really enjoy post-modern art very often (even though I do enjoy the broader fields in which it is created). That doesn't mean that post-modern art is bad. The goal of all art is to communicate something, to illicit a response from the one experiencing it. To be sure, some art can fail to do that because it's bad: its message is muddied, its expressions of that message trite or boring or just shallow, or any other reason that art might be bad. However, it's just as likely that the art is simply coming from a place so different to the viewer, a perspective, point of view, or sum of experience so other than the viewer's frame of reference (often called a "standpoint" in post-modern philosophy), that there's no opportunity for communication. After all, it is one of post-modernism's most basic (and true) assertions that art happens in the space between the work and the person experiencing it and that the meeting between them is what creates the special, aesthetic connection.
This framework can help us evaluate the far-reaching and cliche statement "power metal is the worst genre of metal" or "all power metal sucks". Presented a bit more fairly, this position posits that power metal has the lowest bar for quality, as bands are happy to regurgitate the same repetitive formula over and over again (this criticism is also levied at other genres, mostly the slower kinds like stoner and doom). However, there's usually no real good explanation behind such statements; after all, progressive metal, death metal, black metal, and many more genres are just as repetitive. The basis of genre and style is in repetition. Sure, experimental and avant-garde bands exist but that's why they are marked as such, for breaking away from the templates that most other bands use. Beyond this excuse, we rarely hear other reasons for the anti-power metal position because, to be fair, there aren't ones. It's a genre like all genres, which means that it obeys Sturgeon's Law, like all other genres of art do.
So, if power metal is not uniquely bad, or rather if there are no "objective" reasons to support the claim, why do people still hold this position? My point, after all, is not to claim that these people are wrong, mostly because I don't think they are wrong. To them, power metal really is bad. But why? What makes power metal so potent in raising resistance to it? If we return to the first paragraph and the post-modernist position I presented there, we might find an answer. Simply put, power metal, more than almost any other genre of metal (heavy metal being the only competitor, but that's a genre so close to power that it might as well be the same thing) was forged in the 80's. By which I mean not just that it chronologically was developed and flourished in the 80's (which it did, because, you know, Helloween, Running Wild, Rage, Grave Digger, Gamma Ray, and Blind Guardian all started making music in the 80's) but that there's something in power metal that is essentially of the 80's.
The 80's was a weird decade, man. I don't know that first hand of course, being a dirty millennial who was born in 1987. But we have books and TV shows and movies and so on and I can see that the 80's was weird. Arguably the first "modern" decade after World War II (i.e. the first decade that we associate with being part of the now), the 80's was a decade of contradictions. It saw the flourishing of punks of all sorts and the rise of counterculture across the board. But it also saw the dawning of the neocon era and the summoning of the dual demons of Reaganism and Thatcherism (boo hiss). Culture was torn between excitement about computerization, accessible consumer flights, the possible economical ascension of """the East""" and deep cynicism about collapsing infrastructure, militarization, pollution, and the inklings of the dangers of climate change and digitization of daily life. This tension led to extremes: extremes of fashion, of music, of art, of daily life. New York City was falling apart but it was also bursting at the seams with art. Europe was teetering between the USSR and the US, creating music that drew from both sources. Japan was firmly on the world stage, digesting """Western""" culture and spitting back something completely new. Everywhere you looked, things were wild.
Sound familiar? This extremism, powered by the forces of fear, love, anger, repression, expression, and more that were, in many ways, unleashed in the 80's, defines power metal. It's what underpins the ultra-fast solos, the galloping riffs, the corny subject matter, and the falsetto vocals. It's a style of art that is flamboyant in a way few others are, daring the listener to meet it where it's at instead of compromising and turning things down. It's a style of art that does not apologize for the pixelated, corny, and extremely earnest (to a fault) obsession with dragons, fireballs, and pointy hatted wizards that springs directly from the 80's. In that sense, it has that punk "fuck off" attitude that also belongs to that decade, owning its art and its expression to an extreme degree. We sing about magical swords because they're fucking cool. We play fast because it's awesome. We are warriors and wizards and monsters and if you don't like that, then fuck off. It's not that deep and we love it, is what power metal says, embracing that camp attitude that fueled the decade in which it was born.
Which is, finally, the point. If a form of art is immensely dedicated to its aesthetic, to its origins, and to its trope, then everyone who does not associate or relate to these concepts finds little opportunity for communication with it. And if those concepts, the attitudes, approaches, and techniques of an art form, are rooted in a decade long past (remember it has been forty years since the 80's) then the chances of a large number of listeners relating to them is lower. Which is not to say that they aren't out there: I fucking love power metal and so do many others! But there are a lot more people, even devoted metalheads, for which power metal's insistence on its core aesthetic reads as childish, conservative or just plain boring. And they aren't wrong! For them, that is definitely the case. Power metal speaks (loudly) but they can't hear it since they're not speaking the same language or tuned to the same frequency.
But here's the cool thing: if you're one of those people, it doesn't have to stay that way. Art forms, the languages which make them, can be learned. You weren't born a metalhead - you learned how to appreciate metal. Or cubism. Or Renaissance. Or whatever other form of art you love. And just like your love of those forms was deepened by consuming more of that art and, perhaps, learning more about what makes it work, what makes it good, you grew to love it even more. You can do the same thing with power metal! You can seek out the 10% that follows Sturgeon's Law by being good and you can listen to that. You might start by reading this blog; we recommend great power metal all the time. You could think about why the guitars sound like that and what's there to be found, to be enjoyed. You could find slower, faster, progressive, simple, complicated, sad, happy, dark, bright power metal because it all exists, you could learn how to listen to it and to meet it where it's at.
You might start with an album called Chasing the Dragon by the excellent Helms Deep. It has a dragon in an armored suit with propulsion jets on the back flying through space. It also has many incredibly sick galloping riffs, all the falsetto, "storm a castle" vocals you might want, shredding solos, lyrics about aliens, spells, soldiers, and weapons, and just lots and lots of really good power metal. And hey, if you try it out and you don't like it, that's OK: you can move on. But maybe you'll like a few tracks? Maybe they're even great? And you want more? In that case, you could do a lot worse than digging back through the excellent Helms Deep catalog and listening to Treacherous Ways. And from there? From there, power metal is your oyster my friend. Your armor clad, spell-casting oyster.
All hail heavy metal! All hail power metal! For it shall never die!
Helms Deep's Chasing the Dragon sees release on Friday, June 20th. Click on over to the Bandcamp link above to pre-order it in all its glory.