How to Talk to Your Teen Headbanger

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So you want to communicate better with your sullen, alienated teen, whose earsplitting music just sounds like so much godawful noise? Well imagine how 16-year-old Tommy’s jaw will drop to the floor when, sitting around the dinner table, you casually say, “Oh, I don’t know about you, but Gorgoroth shreds so much harder than that weak death-metal stuff, you know, like Fleshrot.”

“But, but what about Mastodon?” Tommy stammers, disbelieving.

“Meh,” you say. “I’m not so into the progressive crap. Gimme some good thrash, you know, Kreator ‘n’ shit.”

In three short minutes, your relationship is back on track thanks to Raz Ben Ari’s recent video, which will teach you—and your mom—to recognize various metal subgenres, distinguishing glam from thrash from power metal from black metal. The takeaway message, at least for me, is that subgenres are plain stupid. Why would any band limit itself when it’s so much more fun to string 10 subgenres together within one song, as RBA does here? Okay, listen and learn. Quiz after.

Okay, now it’s quiz time. Name the following subgenre(s):

P.S. Don’t forget to study for next week’s quiz: riffs (see below). And fer Lucifer’s sake, buy your kid a helmet!

Click here for more Music Monday features from Mother Jones.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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