Every time we post about Japanese pop-metal act Babymetal, a bunch of people feel the need to comment about how they’re not real metal or whatever. Even when we say their album rules, and that bands like Lamb of God and Rob Zombie dig them, and that the girls in the band are aware of everyone’s ire, commenters come out hating them, and us, for not waving the banner of true metal.

But this weekend, Babymetal announced the following on Twitter:

METAL GOD and FOX GOD will join in July!

BABYMETAL Announces AP Music Awards Performance With Rob Halford https://t.co/POecPliTf4 @billboard — BABYMETAL (@BABYMETAL_JAPAN) May 29, 2016

Yup, Babymetal will perform at the AP Music Awards with none other than Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford, a dude arguably more metal than anyone else on earth. This is a dude so metal that when he came out of the closet, the metal community accepted his sexuality with open arms.

Which begs the question: how much more do Babymetal have to do to appease the metal community? What else is there, to make heshers stop getting upset every time they’re mentioned. I mean, they’re playing with HALFORD, for fuck’s sake–shouldn’t anyone who does that be given a pass?

Of course, this assumes that the metalheads railing against Babymetal are doing so rationally, which is naive on my part. These whiners are primarily angry that something so pop-oriented is treading on what they consider sacred ground that is automatically poisoned by mainstream attention of any sort, and are venting their anger at the non-metal world at large via an easy target. It’s like when someone road rages out at you on the highway–they don’t hate you, so much as they hate their lives.

Anyway, Babymetal and Halford will perform together on July 18th at the Schottenstein Center in Columbus, OH. You can vote on nominees and get your tickets here. We look forward to hearing about how Babymetal is just pop music and not true metal in the comments.

[via Team Rock]