>>127303184
>Rock used to feature tough masculine men
That was just image posturing.
Truth is most everyone in the showbiz industry looked like a faggot when young, but used all sorts of tricks to make themselves look impressive.
Metallica were a bunch of nerds who started a band and crafted their niche that catered to rejected "bashed boy" types. Masculine guys listened to the most boring mainstream shit, not rock or metal. It's autists and socially awkward people who listened to rock after the 60s.
Because rock went through a crisis back in the 70s when disco conquered the charts and redefined what "popular" music was. Pop music became dance music predicated on beats and electronic instrumentation.
That's when rock lost prominence and that's also when the media started calling it rock. Until then they called rock popular music too.
So in the post-60s era, rock had to reinvent itself to survive. And it either went heavier (metal, hard rock, punk) or it went more pop (pop-rock, new wave) to stay relevant.
So neither were music for the "masculine dude". Rock became less mainstream in the 70s 80s. The few bands that broke the mold were those that found ways to write poppier tunes while still playing with rock instruments (Police, Fleetwood Mac).
Saying that a certain kind of rock brought the schoolshooter type as a rock fan is just plain dumb and doesn't nearly scratch the surface on this subject. Rock had to go more strident to survive the 70-80s, either way.
And then, since the 90s, it went the other way, towards minimalism and deeper emotional message.
