If you have some examples, I might have some recommendations. Mainstream popularity is a weird thing now as there are more listeners for every genre. Metal is where I have spent most of my life being a fan so I may have something in the bank you’d like.
Recently caught “grandson” live. Bob Vylan was supposed to be their touring partner but then… facism. They’re not traditional punk in their sound but carry a lot of those ethos lyrically. The more recent stuff is like modern rage against the machine (and the show felt like those did way back)
Anyways, it was really inspiring to see a new generation embracing those ideas and sharing in them communally.
Kid Rock makes music for people that know the age of consent in every state.
Survival crafting. I spend my real life days trying to keep up on sheltering and feeding myself. I don’t want to “relax” by punching trees to make a fire to cook a bird I punched to death.
The pervasiveness of this in every game has limited the content I engage with the last 10 or so years. Everyone started chasing that Minecraft money and now it’s Ubi-fied into just about every mainstream title.
I don’t want to forge new weapons. I want to find them in a chest or earn them by killing a boss. I have bounced off of so many games the moment they ask me to learn a system of crafting. Keep that in it’s own genre and stop padding games out with repetitive busy work.
They did this in Portland during the pandemic. It lasted for about 2 1/2 weeks before they were sued into closing.
Fucking corpo shit bags.
Here’s a couple to try!
Gruesome - they fully embrace that era and ape it pretty well.
Cryptopsy - a bit more tech death but lots of that Chuck style guitar work.
Tomb Mold - these guys rip live, are named after a bloodborne item and make sweet ass old school death metal.
Undeath - another band that keeps the classic death metal spirit alive. The production on this album is pure early 90’s Florida. They also fucking destroy live.
Cheers! Hope you enjoy.