On False Metal

I traced the Death to False Metal phrase to Manowar, a band of the genre who made the distinction between True Metal and False Metal. The slogan of Death to False Metal is not so much a battle cry as it is a badge one wears to display that one is not a poser.

In what I've been reading on Metal, Manowar and the Death to False Metal claim, emphasis seems to be placed on keeping the genre pure. In a way it is meta, or meta(l) or metal about metal.

I always misheard the lyric in the Beastie Boys song "No Sleep Til Brooklyn" to being about about death to false metal something about a boiling kettle, but this would not be. Manowar would call the Beastie Boys false metal because they don't have a stake in metal, only dabble.

I also encountered a curious rhetorical shift. When discussing what false metal is, focus always goes to who it's by, but not what it actually is.

The Urban Dictionary definitions of false metal are entertaining if not enlightening: false metal

John Darnielle expands on ideas of false metal in Last Plane to Jakarta here

For more information about Manowar check wikipedia