I agree, but I think with KISS, it was an obvious joke. I don't think any of the members, save for Gene Simmons, considered themselves too seriously, and sometimes, I don't even think he does.
I went to one of their shows years ago with an ex roommate. The band were taking it seriously, the audience was dead serious, and I seriously had to use all my power to keep from laughing all night because I would have probably gotten a serious beatdown. Manowar attracts some serious hombres. Edit-And it was hombres only. No women there besides the bar staff.
I saw Manowar co-headline (with Metallica) at the 1999 Dynamo Open-Air festival in the Netherlands. Seeing 80,000 European metal fanatics worshipping Manowar was quite an experience! They were definitely on top of their game that night. It was great.
Sure its a serious band, because their fans take it seriously. Best anology I can come up with for bands like this, GWAR or Kiss, where image is a big part of it, is its like the pro-wrestling of music. Folks on the outside don't get it, laugh at it, but to fans of the music, its a serious deal.
It doesn't surprise me. Guys go to see Manowar because they like to imagine themselves as being that kind of manly man. Girls aren't that into guys who look and act like they'd just as soon bash them over the head and drag them back to their cave. Sting looks like he might just hand a girl a dozen roses with tears in his eyes. Joey DiMaio, not so much!
If they do then they are even dumber than I assume they are. Manowar, making heavy metal look more infantile than usual since the 1980s.
They appeal to a certain sub-set of music fans that, shall we say, maybe aren't the coolest guys on the block? I mean, really, look at the Manowar website or websites that are devoted to Manowar. A lot of the fans look like they just walked out of Ender's Game or something. I definitely agree that the audience is comprised of guys that see something in the band they want to be themselves. There's certainly that fantasy element, ala Conan the Barbarian, put to metal, that appeals to people. If you're kind of weak and don't fit, you want to read /or listen to guys that are confident, strong, and take life (and women ), by both hands and deal with them/it accordingly (so to speak). You get the idea. "HAIL AND KILL" something like that. Total macho bravado.
It's a known fact that a woman has a 50% chance of getting pregnant by just looking at these guys. Too risky. The manliness factor is too damn high.
The only person that dug the Manowar look was "Leatherman" (Glenn Hughes), the biker character from the Village People, and he's dead.
Makes me think of something the ever-quotable Chuck Klosterman said in Fargo Rock City - something to the effect of, "Far from being the soundtrack for rampant teenage sex, some metal was more the soundtrack for rampant teenage abstinence. If you wanted to keep your kid from knocking up the girl next door, you could do worse than chuck him a Dungeons and Dragons game set and a couple of Dio albums."
Simple answer to the thread Q.... Yes, they are serious. I really like the first 6 albums with Ross The Boss on guitar.......they lost me after that.
I don't know how serious they might consider theirselves, but it results that they are simply hilarious
Meh, nice try, guys, but the same could be said of any peculiar trait of any band and their fans. Doesn't it sound a bit cheap to you that the only reason someone could like Manowar is because they identify with the band? I don't buy it. Next thing you'll tell me is that people listen to Gary Glitter because... NO!
All I meant was that it is unlikely that girls would be attracted to Manowar by their image, and that rather their image is probably more attractive to guys because some guys like to imagine themselves as being ripped, hyper-masculine battle lords (and I mean imagine in the purest sense, not in the "actually think of themselves this way" sense). However, I did not mean to imply that this was the only reason that anyone could like Manowar. I initially thought they were silly because of their image but then became convinced of their brilliance because they make some freaking great records. My only point was that if anyone would find Manowar attractive because of their image, that person is most likely male, and not attracted because he finds Manowar to be sexually appealing.
Seriously, that "Leatherman" look is total Rob Halford. No one in Manowar ever looked like that to my knowledge.
I know, just pulling your leg a bit. If I came across as a bit too harsh, it's because I've grown tired of the lazy pop-psychology that lies behind a lot of these theories of overcompensation as a reason for liking this or that type of music. But I know you're not making such a reductive statement. I thought the Gary Glitter comment would make it clear that I was half-joking. It's all cool. For what it's worth, regarding the topic at hand: I see Manowar as a band of good musicians who, for a long period of time, were also very good songwriters. So, there's a lot to enjoy in their music. As for all the image trappings, well, I don't want to come across as too snooty, but I like to think that I'm confident enough in my intelligence to not be put off by Conan the Barbarian atmosphere, which, incidentally, can be a lot of fun if one is smart enough to realize that, but that's a whole other can of worms. "I am too intelligent to listen to this band. I have established that their image contains elements the non-rejection of which might endanger my status as an intelligent member of the society." There is quite a bit of irony in that mindset, which, if I'm correct, is precisely the mindset behind making a thread such as this.
No problem, I just felt that if there was some negative judgment against Manowar implied in my statement, it needed to be clarified. I know you're serious about your Metal music and you have every right to be. I also get disgusted with the whole "I'm to intelligent to take this sort of thing seriously" attitude, especially since it's an obnoxiously self-congratulatory stance tied to a standard that is ridiculously subjective. Everybody's got SOME artist in their personal Hall Of Fame whose image is so completely over the top as to provoke snobbery in the uninterested, and yet we all know how to make our excuses. Rock'n'roll is, after all, all about putting on the prettiest dress and having the best time, so sez Sir Mick Jagger. It ain't about aiming at dignity, but rather achieving it in spite of ourselves.
That's the thing: I'm not really. What I am deadly serious about is my right to like anything I very well please, whether it belongs to high or low culture, and to speak aloud in favor of that right. And I do not take metal seriously, because I recognise a lot that's cheap, not well done, or alternately, overdone... about it. But here's the rub, as a young Dane might say: I recognise it in other types of music as well. I've just spun a Cabaret Voltaire compilation, and enjoyed it thoroughly. But I always find industrial music to be inherently funny, because the world is never ever as bleak as some of these bands would like to make it out to be. But there's another rub: a band can be enjoyed because of their ridiculousness, as much as they can be enjoyed in spite of it. So, when I listen to Cabaret Voltaire, I never laugh at them, even while I am constantly aware of what's ridiculous about them. And furthermore, the irony that one employs when enjoying something because of its shortcomings can be a loving kind of irony, not the cheap detached one, which everyone is capable of. No music is immune to this type of problem. The Beatles could be cloying. Berlioz could be comically melodramatic. And that's just the letter B. My point is that it might be a sign of higher intelligence that a person is able to enjoy these things in a way that's not cheaply ironic, and a sign of decidedly average intelligence that they are either not able to enjoy it at all, or only through the glasses of the already mentioned cheap and tacky kind of ironic detachment. ("Pffffffft, look at all these Ed Wood movies, he was obviously clueless, and we know better, so we can watch them without any harm being done to our social status, because, surely, everyone will realise we enjoy them ironically.") It is this latter mindset that is guaranteed to drive me up the wall. Because, in the simplest terms, it is stupid. And hence my problem with questions like the one we can all see in the title of this thread. It misses the point.
I meant no offense as I like the band; just some bad pop psychology on my part. Every fan identifies himself or herself with a band for a reason whether it be image, message, or some other aesthetic.
