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Erm, I never said don't listen to it.
And "metal" is far from NARROW cast.
No, no, no.... you're missing it. Way back when when the cool shit was on AM radio, or early FM rock was starting to become marketable, there were no genre's and sub-genres. There was no "Metal, thrash metal, death metal, pop metal, hard pop, power pop, aluminum, hair metal, spandex metal, soft rock, AOR, adult contemporary, ska, thrash ska, punk, neo punk, post punk...." None of that. that was an absurd notion. There was just the radio, and there were hit songs and no video to sell them. You could switch on the radio and hear Deep Purple, Sabbath, B.J. Thomas, Status Quo, The Beatles, the Four Seasons... all in a row. Narrowcast Genre Marketing was invented by record companies to accomodate signing more bands and to get the kids to express some sort of cultural allegience to a sepcific type of rock or pop. It was simply to move more product and to diversify. Clothing manufacturers also jumped on the bandwagon to help farm certain looks for certin musical allegiences. Punk, metal, pop, (torn T-Shirts, spikes and leather, skinny ties....) and the like all had their own fashions, too. 80's youth culture films helped to foment this marketing tactic as well. Eventually, it was the norm. Youth, culture, and musical tastes all had their own flags and were pre-fab commodities. Back when I was a kid, it was just rock and roll. You liked a song or you didn't. I'm not saying you should think that's interesting or better, but it's a fact. I've been watchin' it happen from inside the industry for almost three decades.