Music

Why do mainstream listeners find it difficult to consider extreme metal music (e.g. death metal, black metal, etc) aesthetically pleasing? Some forms of progressive death metal (e.g. bands like Opeth) do an excellent job of balancing truly 'beautiful' and 'sublime' elements. Can it be, that due to an aversion on worldview level, people do not recognize the aesthetic elements?

I listen to all types of music but have a hard time with the screaming in extreme metal. It just jangles my nerves. But it is true, I think, that certain life perspectives could render it difficult to detect the beauty in certain types of music. For instance, I imagine that people with a particular view, would not find it easy to grasp the beauty of some of Tupac's songs. Opinion and prejudice definitely influence our aesthetic sensibilities.

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It is said that good art communicates things. Music, though, doesn't appear to communicate anything beyond vague aesthetic-emotional sensations (if we ignore experimental music that communicates about itself by, for example, playing Beethoven's 9th using only objects taken from a lower-class family home). Yet people also say of music that it is a "universal language". I'm not a musical expert, though, so I'm not clear on all this. Does music communicate anything beyond sensations/emotions? What can it communicate? How does that communication take place?

I see no reason to think of communication as consisting solely of the transfer of information and concepts. Communicating emotions is by no means trivial. Philosophers such as Kierkegaard would also contend that emotions contain cognitive content as well.