Courtesy of The Grammys.

Jack Black may have won his biggest award yet when his comedy duo Tenacious D took away the Grammy for best metal performance. The apt comparison many have made is giving Weird Al the award for best rap performance.

Any writer interested in metal inked out a hard line against the Grammys. What fresh heresy is this? An old and international genre‰’s only accolade goes to Jack Black‰’s spoof band! The face of metal still stings from the slap and shines the spit off its shoes.

The context softened the blow somewhat. Tenacious D won the award for a sincere cover of a metal legend they loved, Ronnie James Dio. Dio died in 2010, sending ripples across the world of metal and sparking an album of covers and re-imaginations of his best work. Maybe Tenacious D was not so undeserving. Some hailed the move as diversifying metal.

The issue is that the Grammys are not a place to push genres forward, and even if it were, Tenacious D is no innovator. The Grammys reinforce whatever sells well in the moment, and there is nothing inherently wrong with that. Popular opinion and consumption matter and deserve some indexing. But even in that safe zone where artists receive a pat on the back for getting some hefty checks from nice labels, metal cannot know what to expect.

Reasonably a lot of metalheads got up in arms over the whole thing. The genre‰’s been around for a long time and had a lot of noticeable contributions to music culture, but even in the quiet, upset-less space that is the Grammys its highest accolade went to an (albeit very hilarious) parody band for a song with a recorder solo in it. The decision was bad even for an award ceremony mostly known for poor decisions. But the botched award is just a symptom of what grinds at a lot of metal lovers.

In comparison to other genres, metal often gets less attention. Metal has fewer media breakthroughs and seems to stay a niche thing. Metal does not need to be everyone‰’s cup of tea, and with a heavy and angry sound it probably should scare off a lot of listeners. Yet, bands in other genres with as much scary sound and fury make breaks metal bands can only dream of. I get this frightful feeling that a lot of open-minded indie kids end up assuming that metal has not released a song of note since the ’90s because the genre‰’s big hits don‰’t reach the front page of music publications. Or, even worse, assume metal only tells the stories of angry white dudes because the genre‰’s transformative acts have all their blurbs pushed to the back of the book.

In reality metal is an incredibly cosmopolitan genre. In Japan the metal scene produced Maximum the Hormone, a chart topping act that fuses J-pop and hardcore to make the most entertaining contradictions contained in one song. Their song “Alien‰” carefully crafts a joint message against entitled listeners pirating music and out-of-touch bands and politicians trying to stop the torrents.

Greece has got more going on than debt crises, as metal mainstay Nightfall pounds out skillful homages to the myths that made the constructed the country‰’s ancient heritage. In China‰’s ever growing music industry Ego Fall made a splash for its Mongolian death metal album. But Ego Fall might not even be the best Mongolian death metal band in China, as Tengger Cavalary and Nine Treasures both give the band a run for its money.

Part of why metal makes its rounds across the world is because it faithfully embraces the myth, culture and heritage of wherever it goes. Scandinavian metal obsesses endlessly over Norse mythology. Greek metal centers on the myths of ancient forbearers. The obsession with myth and legend makes metal oddly inclusive as no country lacks for a storied past.

When you boot up your browsers and try to get in on the music media‰’s next big dig, it is harder to hear about any of this. It is harder to hear about how Opeth made a dramatic shift from heavy to progressive metal with its latest album. You‰’ll have to listen close just to catch wind of how the one award the Grammys gives to metal went to a band usually lumped into the comedy category. Metal may have a story for you; it may be one of your unknown niches, but it would take a lot of digging to learn that. For a lot of listeners, metal still seems a small and nasty niche.

Honestly, it brings me no fury. Metal fans (and fans of other equally under-covered genres) have not been robbed or wronged, just pushed aside. The sidelining of the genre does not hurt us who love it all that much. It probably won‰’t even hurt metal bands much. It just sucks for any outsider open to new music. They‰’ll hear Slipknot and assume every metal act sounds the same. They‰’ll catch the recorder in Tenacious D‰’s Dio tribute and think that‰’s an out-of the box innovation for a genre full to burst with much stranger shit. They‰’ll assume this genre has no more stories left to tell. Worst of all, they‰’ll assume it‰’s another niche they don‰’t belong in, and that‰’s a damn shame.