Image and Metal - Is Image important?

Yes and No. Most heavy metal fans would like to say No, but the truth is that all forms of genre's have an Image which associates with the music. 
Image can be nothing, but then again it can be everything. Ofcourse the Image shouldnt be placed before the music like most "bands" do today.

Going back to Images associated with music, Norwegian Black Metallers in the late 80's started wearing Corpse paint or WAR paint, Black Leather, Inverted crosses, 10inch spikes covering almost every part of their body, Long Hair (well, generally an "image" associated with Metalheads in general), Photoshoots in forests, etc. Bands from the L.A. Glam scene decided to replace leather with lace and puff their hair up to look more and more like their girlfriends, and putting on every inch of makeup they could get their hands on while dragons, swords and castles are generally associated with Power Metal.

As you can see Image is one of the main communicators of meaning in the metal subculture.

The thing is, the importance of Image in metal is kind of a "skeleton in the closet" which our people tend to ignore, something they already know of but dont usualy "talk" about. We claim to reject "image" but usually tend to judge bands, fans or each other based on how well they live up to the images we've been programmed to accept. Image IS important in metal, 
and Metalheads DO judge people according to it.

However there is a big difference in image in Metal and image in popular mainstream. Image in popular mainstream is as you can see artificialy created and the people who accept it do so, unquestioningly and even unconsciously. We (of the Metal Culture) at least created our OWN image which realated to our own culutral background. 
People like "Maddona" or "Britney Spears" are almost forced to change their own image from album to album, whilst Metal bands are kind of Forced to keep theirs (Yeah like you didnt scream out "sellouts!" when Metallica decided to change what they looked like). and for another example im sure you wouldnt be quite enthused to imagine your favourtie black metal band (exDimmu) performing onstage wearing just 
jeans and "smily faced" t-shirts.

But there's some thing which Our culture has, which the popular culture hasnt. Imagine (you dont have to "imagine", just by a mere stroll down the street somewhere around MC you could see for yourself) this dude decides that Black Metal is "cool" and starts to grow his hair, wears an inverted cross around his neck, wearing T-shirts with band names which cannot possibly be deciphered, which has a picture or album cover of a goat being brutaly raped by this beast who could possibly fit the descrption of satan, passing himself as a "tr00" Black Metal fan caring or knowing absolutley nothing about the substance of the music. The Black Metal fans around him will recognize him as a poser almost immediatly. But why?? he wears an inverted cross, and he has the new downloaded version of "Gorgorath's new album Pontagram" (Thanx for that Gambit ;)), But its sadly false and insulting, and would deliver absolute contempt for the people who truly LOVE Black Metal. Whilst in the popular culture or mainstream world, merely complying with the image conventions would result in unquestioning acceptance, because there is no substance behind most of those images. It is THAT factor which makes the whole difference to us. Its that factor which makes us accept Metal's conventions and rejecting those manufactured by popular culture at large.

You know it probably might be a bit stupid or excellent idea at the same time to try and come up with something very weird, something which people never thought of doing. A place where no band dared to go, come up with something Unique or modify it a little bit and break the rules you know. (Hey Wolves in the Throne Room are a pretty big Black Metal band in the states and they dont use corpse paint or spike or anything manufactured in the Norwegian era, they just come on stage and just play music which generaly is defined as Black Metal) Cmon isnt "going against the flow" something which Metal inspired us to do? 
Some people might not be quite ready for it yet. Or there might be more people than you think who like a change now and then, people like myself.

Who care's anyway? Image or no image, good music will always be good music.