Album covers are those pictures that your iPhone displays while the song is playing. Apparently, they used to on some kind of paper thing around a chunk of plastic. The only confusing part is how you got the music from the vinyl into your phone back then. 
This is the advice every 13-yr-old needs and is never given through “respectable” channels. It works for everything and you will find it will work for you with nearly every issue the rest of your life.
For now, maybe play some of the music without headphones, but at a medium volume. Your parents may ask what it is. Answer them. They inquire why you listen to it? Answer them. If it’s Death Metal and they ask what the lyrics say, from my experience you can honestly say you have no idea. You and them then have a laugh about guys who torture their vocal chords like that, they’ll tell you to keep it down (because not hearing it is the key to their happiness), and you can put your headphones back on. But read up on tinnitus before you crank the volume too far.
“Kids, you may wonder why I’m half deaf.”
“Dad, nobody in the county wonders why.”
Jesus, John, was the stick that far up your ass when you were 13, too? 
This is the best advice my father ever gave me. It has served me well my whole life. I gave the same advice to my son. It seems to be working for him as well.
Dude. Whoosh. It’s from the classic documentary Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
and I’ve never heard of the Cowboy Junkies.
Back in 1939 our teachers said accordeon was immoral, sinful music. You know, waltzes, tangos. And jazz was an abomination. (I was 12 then).
If I had a teenage son who cared so much about what I thought of him I would die of happiness every single day. I’d probably faint upon seeing him in the morning. I’d probably wear embarrassing t-shirts saying “mum <3 son” and do cartwheels through the school on parent teacher night.
Frankly, OP, your lack of capitalisation would interest & upset me FAR more than your music ever could.
A 54 yr old here, who’s listened to Sabbath for the last 40 years, and saw an Alice in Chains show a couple of months ago - if your parents aren’t abusive and unreasonable, how about listening to it in your room without headphones for a while, at a reasonable volume. That way they’ll “discover” what you like without you introducing it as a big issue. It might even open the door for conversation. If you keep it as a secret from them that might just turn it into an issue. But I’m not a parent so the other dopers who are will certainly weigh in.
And why people like metal? For me it’s cathartic. I’ve gone through a lot of stress over the last five years and the Alice in Chains show, which was in a club setting, was one of the best times I’ve had in the last few years. About 2,000 people singing along through the entire show. It was fantastic.
Whatever you do, don’t ask your parents for a Pepsi. That never ends well.
Seriously though, the thing that I came to understand about metal is that, like most music, so much of it is theatre. A lot of the musicians come out on stage and sing about death and hell and Satan and wear skulls and are still devoted Christians. They don’t want you to go out and sacrifice babies; they just want to express rage and frustration and general dissatisfaction with the state of the world and themselves while at the same time rocking out like a mofo. Nothing wrong with that, as long as you limit hearing damage.
And your parents need to understand that this particular expression of your teenaged angst does not mean that you don’t love them and that you’re looking to go out drinking and doing drugs and hanging out with loose women (well, you’re 13 - when I was 13 I’d have hung out with loose women if the opportunity has presented itself but that’s just being 13). You just like this music because it makes you feel better. If your parents are sensible people they’ll see that. And if they’re crazy people, you’re screwed regardless.
Right. But the more important point is that some metal musicians are not devoted Christians – and that’s fine too.
Some are atheists, others occultists, others Satanists, others Nazis – it takes all kinds. But listening to their music won’t necessarily make you – the listener – an atheist, or an occultist, or a Satanist, or a Nazi.
Here, for example, is a video of a cute 3-year-old merrily singing along to a song written by a convicted murderer. Dude helped kill a man, spent some years in prison, got out, wrote this song, and then shot himself in the head. Hardly a devoted Christian, that. And yet, here’s an awesome 3-year-old, singing along and rocking out to one of his songs without a care in the world. Anything wrong with that? Not in my book.
Yes, but probably best for the OP not to mention that first part.
I’ve known a lot of whackadoos that were into metal or other hardcore genres, but it wasn’t the music that made them that way any more than violent people who play video games were happy, well-balanced folk before they switched on the latest version of GTA. The OP’s parents need to realize that if they think the OP is so unbalanced that a few Slipknot songs are going to push him over the edge, the family has got far bigger problems than listening material. And if the family is solid, then the OP can be trusted with something as benign as the occasionaly loud angry band performance.
Bravo!
Like a lot of the posts in this thread, I’d suggest getting familiar with some older metal bands like Black Sabbath, Ozzy, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Metallica…etc. This way your parents will at least recognize the music, and it is a starting point.
However, also take the time to know what the lyrics are about, and be able to explain them to your parents. If they only hear certain lines of a song, you want to be able to explain the entire meaning of a song so they’ll understand.
My favorite example of this got my parents to understand that I wasn’t “brainwashed” by metal and understood what they sang about was when I was going to CCD as an early teen and the people that were running CCD were telling us as a group about how we shouldn’t listen to heavy metal and used one of my favorite songs at the time as an example.
The song was “Misery Loves Company” by Anthrax and they told us all about how the song was all about glorifying violence and glorified Satan because the song was only about promoting vengeance on people because the song had lyrics “I’ll Kill you, I’ll Kill You” over and over as a verse.
I went home pissed off and told my parents that CCD sucked and told them what they said and that they were either flat out lying or didn’t understand what they were saying. I then explained to my parents that the song wasn’t vengeance, the song really was based on the Stephen King novel “Misery”, so the song is written from one of the character’s point of view.
TL;DR - be able to explain what the bands are saying, and why you like it, and at least they’ll know that you are thinking about the song meanings.
I find it funny that we are suggesting bands like Ozzy and Maiden to break the ice with his parents since these were the bands that parents were outraged about when I was growing up.
I wouldn’t assume familiarity; my father would have been a young man when Sabbath were at their peak, but he would not recognize any song other than “Paranoid”. Forget Judas Priest.
Speaking as a one time metalhead, if the OP ever introduces his parents to his tastes, amke sure whatever is played is sung legibly. No point trying to convince parents it isn’t satanic if the vocalist sounds as if he is from the very bowels of hell! This is not a concern with the old school bands but would be with many of the OP’s favourites.
Hell, this kind of stupidity about music goes all the way back to Plato. And Plato was probably just the first idiot to write it down. Apparently, lyres with three corners and flutes are the devil’s instruments. Ionians and Lydians are totally inappropriate kinds of songs, even for women. An ideal government would ban these things outright. You can read the rest of it here.
Since the OP likes Disturbed, I think the appropriate response to Plato’s BS is “10,000 fists in the air” That might not be a bad song to play for your parents. It’s one of my favorites from Disturbed and the lyrics - as I interpret them anyway - are just about the desire to go to a concert and rock out even if other people consider that music sinful. Hard to be overly offended by that.
Well, OP said he is 13…so his parent’s age is most likely late 30’s - early 50’s, so they would have grown up around the 80’s along with the advent of MTV which is something Sabbath never had in their heyday. Lots of these songs would have gotten played or referenced on Beavis and Butthead (Breaking the Law)
I never assumed familiarity, I said most likely they would recognize the music. If someone in that age range wouldn’t recognize something like Enter Sandman or Crazy Train (both played regularly at sporting events…crazy train is used in car commercials) I’d be very surprised.
1 - Your parents aren’t always right on every topic.
2 - Your parents don’t always act rationally.
3 - Full disclosure is not always the best policy. Depending on how receptive your parents are to ideas that contrast their own, I would weigh the pro’s and con’s personally rather than depend on the wisdom in this crowd.
Giant assumption there. Well, not exactly an assumption because you said “if”, but a ton of parents who aren’t abusive or otherwise bad parents are still unreasonable about certain things. It’s not at all unlikely that his parents are among them.
I subscribed to a mainstream music magazine in my teens (I was a straight-A student forever, never drank or used drugs, worked a part-time job) and my mom saw it in the mail one day and cancelled it and called it pornography. She’s not abusive, she’s just extremely out-of-touch (really, never was in touch). It would have been bad advice at any point in my teen years for someone to tell me to confide in her about anything she didn’t approve of.
is this true? I know since rock-n-roll it is, but was it true before that? And is it still true now?
This I agree with. I know at 13, it feels like forever, but if by the time you hit college the worst trouble you’ve been is your music choices, your parents will be well over it. If reach adulthood and your parents still care that much about your music choices, you might be better off without their approval. But until then, I suspect that they’ll eventually get get over it (assuming it’s even a big issue for them now, it might not be). Your music choices are very unlikely to do permanent damage to the relationship. Parents generally end up willing to put up with their kids “bad” habits; they love you.
I’ll echo most of the advice here. Don’t volunteer your love of the music. But don’t hide it and be honest about it if they do find out about it. Gently exposing them to it is definitely worth a try. Sending out “feelers” sure wouldnt’ hurt.
Best of luck to you.
As a child of evangelicals, who started out a metalhead before drifting into hardcore and oi punk, at 45 I can tell you that metal and punk are like Catholicism, if it’s the first music you ever listened to you will identify with it forever, even if you move on. I second the don’t volunteer, don’t explain advice.
Just keep the noise down, and don’t act like it’s a problem. If they are Christian they will be worried about it’s influence on you. If you don’t act like it’s a thing, then they won’t worry.
I do a lot of folk punk these days, but Black Flag is still in heavy rotation. As is Slipknot and Disturbed.
My mom and dad had a bit of a freakout, but I handled it badly. And then I cut my hair in many and varied ways, and that didn’t help. If I’d just acted like it wasn’t a big thing, it would have been fine. But I (like you, from what you’ve said) identified with the music so much, so strongly, that I felt is was part of me and that my parents had to understand it to understand me. So I threw it in their face. I turned it up. I talked about little else. I snuck out and snuck into shows.
It turned out I was only partly right - hardcore was (and is) part of me, shaping my ethos and the way I think even today, but it wasn’t all that necessary for my parents to get it.
Music - particularly music with a social aspect to it like metal or punk - is better shared with your peers, not your parents.
My kid is into rap and a few other things (also Queen and show tunes? I don’t even know why) but that’s ok. He keeps it down, we share the bits I like, and it’s cool. I gave him tickets to Eminem for Christmas last year, but he was 17. But if he’d acted like it was all going to upset me and it was a really big deal, I dunno, I might have decided I didn’t like the influence.
Good luck!
Also, find a band called Snot. You’re welcome.
Edit as needed to change the names, then print this out, leave it where your mother will find it and go hang out at a buddy’s house.
"Dear Mom,
It is with great regret and sorrow that I’m writing this. I had to elope with my new girlfriend because I wanted to avoid a scene with Dad and you. I have been finding real passion with Stacy and she is so nice.
But I knew you would not approve of her because of all her piercings, tattoos, tight motorcycle clothes and the fact that she is much older than I am.
But it’s not only the passion…Mom, she 's pregnant. Stacy said that we will be very happy. She owns a trailer in the woods and has a stack of firewood for the whole winter. We share a dream of having many more children.
Stacy has opened my eyes to the fact that marijuana doesn’t really hurt anyone. We’ll be growing it for ourselves and trading it with the other people that live nearby for cocaine and ecstasy. In the meantime, we will pray that science will find a cure for AIDS so Stacy can get better. She deserves it. Don’t worry Mom. I’m 13 and I know how to take care of myself. Someday I’m sure that we will be back to visit so that you can get to know your grandchildren.
Love,
Your son, John
P.S. Mom, none of the above is true. I’m over at Tommy’s house. I just wanted to remind you there are worse things in life than the fact that I listen to heavy metal music.
I love you.
Call me when it’s safe to come home."