{"id":644340,"date":"2026-05-02T06:14:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T06:14:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/644340\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T06:14:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T06:14:24","slug":"is-it-a-sign-of-these-difficult-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/644340\/","title":{"rendered":"Is it a sign of these difficult times?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amid cost-of-living pressures and global turmoil, heavy music is soaring in popularity.<\/p>\n

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Over the past few years, Lily Wilson has endured COVID-induced upheavals, a redundancy and the unexpected death of her father. Throughout these difficulties, she found solace in what some might consider an unlikely source: metalcore music, a genre that combines heavy metal and hardcore punk.<\/p>\n

As a teen, Wilson immersed herself in the \u201chardcore screamo\u201d scene before gravitating towards \u201ccalmer\u201d styles of music. But since the pandemic, she\u2019s spent much time listening to Australian metalcore groups such as Polaris and Windwaker, and international heavy metal acts including Spiritbox and Bad Omens.<\/p>\n

\"LilyLily Wilson, 30, finds metalcore music to be therapeutic. \u201cIt can be nice to listen to something that\u2019s angry and feel that sense of release,\u201d she says.Audrey Richardson<\/p>\n

\u201cI find it therapeutic,\u201d says Wilson, 30, an IT product and development manager. \u201cYou feel the music in your chest and it\u2019s a bit aggro, but not in a bad way. It can be nice to listen to something that\u2019s angry and feel that sense of release.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes the lyrics are about burning it all down, but often they\u2019re about how to overcome things and move forward, or how to deal with grief and a world that\u2019s falling apart.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson confesses she was anxious before our interview, so she blasted some metalcore to settle her nerves.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen you take your headphones off, you\u2019ve experienced the contrast between loud and quiet \u2013 and you\u2019ve got peace,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Spotify\u2019s top Australian heavy music acts of 2025<\/p>\n

Data provided to this masthead by music streaming giant Spotify suggests that Wilson\u2019s experience is not unusual. Between 2020 and 2025, the number of metal songs streamed on the platform more than doubled, while punk and rock each grew by 80 per cent.<\/p>\n

The increase in these heavier genres has outpaced pop (up 61 per cent) and hip-hop (up 31 per cent). Indeed, the number of playlists containing metalcore tracks soared by 234 per cent.<\/p>\n

\"JoeJoe Khan, Spotify\u2019s senior editor, says heavy music offers an emotional release.<\/p>\n

Joe Khan, Spotify\u2019s senior editor in Australia and New Zealand, believes economic and political conditions are driving this trend.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about release and catharsis, and finding outlets for these immense pressures \u2026 no other genres satisfy these primal human needs in the same way,\u201d Khan says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe vital energy they contain, paired with the very real communities that exist within these scenes, are hugely appealing. As people navigate post-pandemic realities, cost-of-living pressures and geopolitical tensions, rock, punk and metal are cutting through again in a big way because they mirror those emotions.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is no surprise to Anna Ryan, vocalist of acclaimed Australian group Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers<\/a>, whose music fuses rock, punk and grunge. \u201cFor me, punk and rock feels like it has a lot more grit and substance to it,\u201d Ryan says. \u201cIt does feel like therapy to just dance it out or get really into it if you\u2019re on a walk or a run.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Friday, the band kicked off their Australian tour<\/a> in Adelaide. Later this year, they\u2019ll head to Europe and North America, where they will perform some shows with US rock band Jimmy Eat World.<\/p>\n

Ryan recalls listening to Jimmy Eat World\u2019s biggest hit, The Middle<\/a> \u2013 a song about social unease, alienation and self-acceptance \u2013 in primary school.<\/p>\n

\"AustralianAustralian rock band Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers: (from left) Scarlett McKahey, Anna Ryan, Jaida Stephenson and Neve van Boxsel.Briana da Silva<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember belting it out [and feeling that it reflected] the problems I had as a 10-year-old,\u201d Ryan says, laughing. \u201cBut it really connected with me then, and it still does.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, harder styles of music have long been the subject of moral panics. In the 1970s and \u201980s, some American conservatives drew a straight line from heavy metal to the worship of Satan, while others fretted that punk would turn their children into drug-addled layabouts.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

For Dr Kelly Gough, president of the Australian Psychological Society, this misses the point.<\/p>\n

\u201cPunk came out of a desire to resist the machine and push back against authority,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re now in an era where a lot of people believe that authority should not be trusted and we can\u2019t rely on governments or big industry to look out for our best interests. You can see where punk would fit in among younger people who feel disenfranchised and disconnected<\/a> from any levers of power.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gough said that many studies show music can reduce physiological and psychological stress, although this depends upon personal taste. When different styles of music are played to a broadly representative group, most will feel uplifted by pop, calmed by classical and unsettled or angered by heavy metal.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut for fans of heavy metal, it\u2019s the complete opposite,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are some studies that say if you\u2019re already in a bad mood, you\u2019re more likely to feel energised or engaged when listening to heavy metal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gough, who was born in 1971, often turns to the music that was popular on Triple J in the 1990s, when rock and grunge were prominent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are sociological theories too,\u201d he says, \u201clike the 27-year cycle that suggests some current cultural trends reflect what was cool 27 years ago, which you can also see in the resurgence of late \u201990s fashion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Or as Khan puts it: \u201cRock is alive and kicking. People have been saying that rock is dead for a long time now, but if the data is anything to go by, it\u2019s just warming up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spotify\u2019s popular heavy music playlist, Wire:<\/p>\n

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\"MichaelMichael Lallo<\/a> is a senior culture writer at The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amid cost-of-living pressures and global turmoil, heavy music is soaring in popularity. Save You have reached your maximum…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,134,136],"class_list":["post-644340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}