Lollapalooza Gives Metal Bands New Hipness

When Monster Magnet wowed the crowd at last year’s influential South By Southwest music showcase, trend watchers went on alert for the great heavy metal comeback.

With a spacey sound that dressed up and twisted the bombastic, blues-based metal of the 1980s, Monster Magnet was lauded as the band that could reinvigorate metal for the masses.

It didn’t happen last year. Monster Magnet’s “Dopes to Infinity” album never even penetrated the upper half of the charts. But now it’s looking like good old heavy metal is poised for a mainstream comeback - albeit in spruced-up form, and maybe sporting a mosh pit.

The news that heavy rockers Metallica and Soundgarden will headline this summer’s Lollapalooza caravan is noteworthy stuff.

Lollapalooza may not be the alternative ambassador it was in the old days, but it remains a leading arbiter of hip, and last week’s lineup announcement indicates that metal’s return to the in-list is looming.

Both bands will release discs this spring: Metallica’s long-awaited album will employ less thrash thrust and more Zeppelin-esque riffing, while Soundgarden’s new piece is a return to the band’s punky metal of yore.

So the stage is set, quite literally, for tonally colorful, rhythmically textured metal bands - Monster Magnet included - to grab a piece of the whimsical listening populace.

In the ‘90s, pop music trends flash by as quickly as an MTV video edit. The latest quest involves hunting down a suitable alternative to alternative.

Nirvana, R.E.M. and their somber, brooding brood have dominated rock in recent years, burying the wanton sound and attitude that helped metal hammer its way to the rock throne just a decade ago.

But metal health was already in sorry shape. Some of the best-selling purveyors of metal-based music in the late ‘80s - groups like Bon Jovi, Winger and Warrant - merely were bubblegum pop groups masked by long hair and loud, pseudotestosterone guitar leads.

Even valid metal bands, chart-toppers like Metallica and Guns N’ Roses, suffered mainstream image anguish. Now metal may have endured its beating just long enough to requalify for mainstream hipness.