Alright, if you've been keeping up with my articles you might remember a little piece I did on how the punk and alternative music scene can seem a little unwelcoming for some fans. I'm going to bring that back for round two, but this time with the bands instead of fans.
As I stated in that previous article, fans may feel that they have to dress or act a certain way to fit in with the punk and alternative scene. (Which can also stand for other music scenes, as well.) I didn't touch on how bands also conform to unspoken standards that any music scene has seemed to put in place for them as well.
If you think back to when metalcore was a big deal you probably have an image of what a standard band in that genre probably looks like. Skinny jeans, hair that is stick straight and swooped into their faces, matching black or gray tees. I'm pretty sure that at some point every metalcore band looked like what I just described. And it every band looks like that, I could easily see how someone who doesn't fit that mold would feel out of place playing that kind of music, just like a fan who listens to that kind of music would also feel out of place if they didn't dress the same.
With bands, it often doesn't stop with just their appearance, but also with their sound. And before I get started, I want to clarify that this isn't the thing for all bands and that you will still find bands that go against the norm.
One of the biggest reasons for these unspoken standards has to do with what's popular and what's selling. To give you an example, back in 2009 through 2011 breakdowns in songs were wildly popular in metalcore. It seemed that every song that was released in those years had some sort of guitar breakdown. This made all of those bands sound the same. Attack Attack! and Asking Alexandria are two of the more popular bands that I remember sounding very similar, but there are others. Yet another big trend was mixing techno with the standard metalcore sound to give it a dance kind of vibe. I'm looking at you, Abandon All Ships and Attack Attack!. All of those bands had a large amount of success with their music, so it only made sense for other bands to fall in line with it. Of course those trends have died off to an extent, (I think breakdowns are still widely accepted).
There will always be new trends to follow, because bands essentially build the trends. If one thing becomes widely popular, more bands will follow suit making that thing the norm. Fans will also fall in line with it as well, only perpetrating the trends further. It's a cycle, that won't be broken, but we can always take steps to ensure that outsiders are welcome. Bands don't have to adhere to the unspoken standards, and fans don't have to fall in line.
