For similar reasons, I no longer listen much to anything by Ministry or NIN. A couple song's off of Pretty Hate Machine, but, oh, god, the later albums?. Ditto for avoiding most of Powerwolf. I'll take cheesy Dragonforce "take on the bad guys" epic music over over-the-top satanic playacting, no matter how talented, thank you.
Sabaton is a band I can respect the hell out of but just do not like. And I've tried.
Ministry . . . now there's another band that is pretty open in its devil-worshipping ways. "It's just for show" is something I get pretty tired of hearing about from fans and musicians alike.
One of the things I've grown to dislike in the medium is how nobody ever grows up. Listening to the first Replacements album and following them to where Paul Westerberg ended up is a journey of seeing someone mature.
In contrast there was an interview with the guy from Lamb of God back when he hit his thirties bragging about how he still sees the world the same way he did when he was 18. And he's not alone. There are plenty of bands today that brag about not having grown or learned anything at all since they were dumb kids. Why would I want to listen to anyone like that? What could they possibly ever impart on anyone?
It's one thing to specialize in humor or jokey songs like Weird Al or Reel Big Fish. It's another when you still write "serious" edgelord music in middle-age that can only appeal to thirteen year old emo kids from 2004. If you've never learned anything, what could you possibly have to say that is worth hearing?
Even as a teenager I always thought it was strange how Congress would have hearings denouncing MTV, and the same people going on about moral decay would have another hearing the next day lamenting all the restrictions on business, and how if the market were more free, life would be better for everyone.
I got so much out of listening to heavy metal, both picking up on references to history and literature that inspired me to learn more and catching references as I got older that made me feel like I had some insider knowledge. Just the other day I was playing Holy Diver and I caught the line “ride the tiger” and thought, these guys get it.
Great comment. Congress are basically gigantic hypocrites, Democrat and Republican. They each have their particular thing they worship, and none of them are good. I feel for the one or two people there who actually have a conscience. They either don't last long, or more frequently, get co-opted into the machine. It is no place for good people.
Heavy metal is, my criticisms in this post aside, one of the most intelligent genres along with prog. This probably sounds mean, but here it is: heavy metal is GENERALLY where lower-class, intelligent, sensitive, misfit kids gravitate to, and prog is GENERALLY where middle- and upper-class intelligent, sensitive, misfit kids gravitate to. I'd love to undertake a full sociological study about this someday.
Nov 29, 2023·edited Nov 29, 2023Liked by Alexander Hellene
I would say that most of the lyrics in heavy metal and its subgenres are pretty stupid. So, while I like the music very much because it is oozing testoterone, I never cared very much for the lyrics. I just read them sometimes for a cheap laugh. From my perspective, the vocalist is just an additional "instrument" making awesome noise.
I would agree that there are exceptions (maybe the mentioned Iron Maiden and Dio, as well as the Polish Death Metal Band Vader) but they are drowning in a sea of irrelevant lyrics.
Would you say that it is possible to be(come) a Christian and still listen to bands like Slayer with the Satanic image?
“ Would you say that it is possible to be(come) a Christian and still listen to bands like Slayer with the Satanic image?”
Yes. Although I stopped listening to Slayer, and Tool as well, because it just made me feel bad. That said, I get people who eschew openly satanic music outright. That’s what I’ve been doing the last few years.
I know devout Catholics who love Ghost, so you never know.
I can understand that someone stopps listening to Slayer as they have been bad since the Nineties. I still very much enjoy their early albums from the Eighties.
I always had the impression that Slayer use the satanic imagery only as shock value, but you could argue that they (and other bands like Venom) paved the way for the Norwegian black metal bands where members went on a killing und church burning spree in the Nineties. So, where is the first step over the line?
I think there’s a distinction to be made between people playing with imagery and people who embrace ideas. There’s generally an overlap, but of course, artists can play roles (think Dee Snyder and Alice Cooper) while remaining devout. I think the bigger danger are groups that profess faith but actively subvert it. Maiden and Sabaton are true bards and great jumping off points for history.
“Groups that profess faith but actively subvert it…”
Yup! Like all those bands who started as Christian bands or at least Christians, got a taste of that sweet, sweet cash and lifestyle, then renounced their faith. I imagine their young fans do too, which is probably the point.
Also: one’s faith must be pretty weak if that’s the case, but humans—all of us—are unbelievably easy to influence.
The question is whether we were either always that easy to influence or only nowadays due to our weak faith. If I look at people like the Amish, they don´t appear easy to influence.
I think one could teach a history class solely based on Iron Maiden songs. The only reason I would hesitate to do so is that I am holding out for Bruce Dickinson to do so himself.
The PMRC won in the end because they were ultimately correct in the main point: you can't have a free-for-all of degeneracy be your industry. Eventually it will all collapse on itself, and that is what happened to the music industry. They were wrong in their approach and in their confused Boomer morality, but every industry should be responsibly managed. A kid should not have to sift through pornographic junk at a record store to find that blues album he heard on Little Stevie's underground show. However, the PMRC were not the right people to enforce that--it was also a case of too little, too late.
Unfortunately it took much too long for anyone to even attempt to rope in an industry that saw hedonism and self-destruction as the be-all end-all of life. I think of that Boomer atheist that went on about how he knew there was no God because he listened to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band on a couch with headphones when he was younger. And he wasn't alone in that sort of insane belief. Critics like Lester Bangs actually stated they were looking for religion replacement. So they all began to worship themselves. It's no wonder that eventually led to the bottom of the barrel known as Pitchfork and Fantano.
I would say this attitude is what eventually led to the industry decaying into what it is today. It's a bunch of teams of execs and hired hands pushing out payola product to continue their hedonistic lifestyle unabated. People like Gene Simmons and Dee Snyder helped create this world just as much as Tipper Gore and David Geffen did. And they all, in the end, got what they wanted. It wasn't better art or entertainment.
I wonder how different things would be if Boomers didn't try to retcon rock music into being about "rebellion" because all of the nonsense today rolls out from that false belief.
At the end of the day, though, I don't think the PMRC was incorrect. The problem is the fact that government was the only institution who actually seemed to care about what kids were being exposed to. As much as it kills me, time has proven them, like it has with the rest of the maligned "moral majority" correct. However, the sad fact now is that it's the various private industries themselves, including music, who enforce their own set of censorship guidelines and blasphemy laws. Though I hate to admit it, I think the PMRC had its heart in the right place. What do you mean about "confused Boomer morality"?
I'm curious to hear who that Boomer atheist was who claimed Sgt. Pepper turned him away from God. I have listened to that album hundreds of times and cannot discern any such message.
The industry is garbage for the reasons you mentioned, which I think also stem from marketplace worship. No need for risktaking--just keep pumping out new product for people to get excited about next product.
The issue with rebellion is that, once the rebels win, they work to squash any threats, including other rebels.
The problem with the PMRC is the same with the ACT in that both were headed by Woodstock-style hippie boomers who didn't have very well thought out moral systems to judge art by. The biggest problem with their parental advisory warnings is that they were not even applied correctly. I remember several albums that had them that contained maybe a couple of light swears overall and some that that were deeply graphic and/or nihilistic that had no warning at all. The problem with being a moral police comes when you don't share your morals with the people you're policing, and I think that's why it was ultimately doomed to fail. By the 1980s/1990s, shared morality and beliefs were already dying out.
Now? Good luck finding any modern pop garbage not full of inappropriate content. The old joke used to have been porn was so easy to find on the internet that you have to try to not find it. All anyone actually has to do to find it in reality is turn on the radio or listen to a "Top 40" payola track.
Though I don't think it's coincidental that once things like the Comics Code Authority or Hays Code fell away, said industries began to decay. They may not have been perfect, but they both led to far better material than what said industries pump our today. You need some sense of morality to guide you.
Admitting that much of our remaining identity in the US is essentially pure industrially optimized consumerism would be very painful to the boomers, and their spiritual descendants.
That's so interesting that this is about music and the title instantly brought to mind two pieces of music. I was not expecting it to be about music, but of course that makes perfect sense given the tale referenced.
For similar reasons, I no longer listen much to anything by Ministry or NIN. A couple song's off of Pretty Hate Machine, but, oh, god, the later albums?. Ditto for avoiding most of Powerwolf. I'll take cheesy Dragonforce "take on the bad guys" epic music over over-the-top satanic playacting, no matter how talented, thank you.
And why I love Sabaton
Sabaton is a band I can respect the hell out of but just do not like. And I've tried.
Ministry . . . now there's another band that is pretty open in its devil-worshipping ways. "It's just for show" is something I get pretty tired of hearing about from fans and musicians alike.
One of the things I've grown to dislike in the medium is how nobody ever grows up. Listening to the first Replacements album and following them to where Paul Westerberg ended up is a journey of seeing someone mature.
In contrast there was an interview with the guy from Lamb of God back when he hit his thirties bragging about how he still sees the world the same way he did when he was 18. And he's not alone. There are plenty of bands today that brag about not having grown or learned anything at all since they were dumb kids. Why would I want to listen to anyone like that? What could they possibly ever impart on anyone?
It's one thing to specialize in humor or jokey songs like Weird Al or Reel Big Fish. It's another when you still write "serious" edgelord music in middle-age that can only appeal to thirteen year old emo kids from 2004. If you've never learned anything, what could you possibly have to say that is worth hearing?
That’s a great point. Lamb of God’s singer also actually killed a dude, so…yeah…
Even as a teenager I always thought it was strange how Congress would have hearings denouncing MTV, and the same people going on about moral decay would have another hearing the next day lamenting all the restrictions on business, and how if the market were more free, life would be better for everyone.
I got so much out of listening to heavy metal, both picking up on references to history and literature that inspired me to learn more and catching references as I got older that made me feel like I had some insider knowledge. Just the other day I was playing Holy Diver and I caught the line “ride the tiger” and thought, these guys get it.
Great comment. Congress are basically gigantic hypocrites, Democrat and Republican. They each have their particular thing they worship, and none of them are good. I feel for the one or two people there who actually have a conscience. They either don't last long, or more frequently, get co-opted into the machine. It is no place for good people.
Heavy metal is, my criticisms in this post aside, one of the most intelligent genres along with prog. This probably sounds mean, but here it is: heavy metal is GENERALLY where lower-class, intelligent, sensitive, misfit kids gravitate to, and prog is GENERALLY where middle- and upper-class intelligent, sensitive, misfit kids gravitate to. I'd love to undertake a full sociological study about this someday.
I would say that most of the lyrics in heavy metal and its subgenres are pretty stupid. So, while I like the music very much because it is oozing testoterone, I never cared very much for the lyrics. I just read them sometimes for a cheap laugh. From my perspective, the vocalist is just an additional "instrument" making awesome noise.
I would agree that there are exceptions (maybe the mentioned Iron Maiden and Dio, as well as the Polish Death Metal Band Vader) but they are drowning in a sea of irrelevant lyrics.
Would you say that it is possible to be(come) a Christian and still listen to bands like Slayer with the Satanic image?
“ Would you say that it is possible to be(come) a Christian and still listen to bands like Slayer with the Satanic image?”
Yes. Although I stopped listening to Slayer, and Tool as well, because it just made me feel bad. That said, I get people who eschew openly satanic music outright. That’s what I’ve been doing the last few years.
I know devout Catholics who love Ghost, so you never know.
I can understand that someone stopps listening to Slayer as they have been bad since the Nineties. I still very much enjoy their early albums from the Eighties.
I always had the impression that Slayer use the satanic imagery only as shock value, but you could argue that they (and other bands like Venom) paved the way for the Norwegian black metal bands where members went on a killing und church burning spree in the Nineties. So, where is the first step over the line?
I think there’s a distinction to be made between people playing with imagery and people who embrace ideas. There’s generally an overlap, but of course, artists can play roles (think Dee Snyder and Alice Cooper) while remaining devout. I think the bigger danger are groups that profess faith but actively subvert it. Maiden and Sabaton are true bards and great jumping off points for history.
“Groups that profess faith but actively subvert it…”
Yup! Like all those bands who started as Christian bands or at least Christians, got a taste of that sweet, sweet cash and lifestyle, then renounced their faith. I imagine their young fans do too, which is probably the point.
Also: one’s faith must be pretty weak if that’s the case, but humans—all of us—are unbelievably easy to influence.
The question is whether we were either always that easy to influence or only nowadays due to our weak faith. If I look at people like the Amish, they don´t appear easy to influence.
I think one could teach a history class solely based on Iron Maiden songs. The only reason I would hesitate to do so is that I am holding out for Bruce Dickinson to do so himself.
Sabaton too, so I’ve heard.
The PMRC won in the end because they were ultimately correct in the main point: you can't have a free-for-all of degeneracy be your industry. Eventually it will all collapse on itself, and that is what happened to the music industry. They were wrong in their approach and in their confused Boomer morality, but every industry should be responsibly managed. A kid should not have to sift through pornographic junk at a record store to find that blues album he heard on Little Stevie's underground show. However, the PMRC were not the right people to enforce that--it was also a case of too little, too late.
Unfortunately it took much too long for anyone to even attempt to rope in an industry that saw hedonism and self-destruction as the be-all end-all of life. I think of that Boomer atheist that went on about how he knew there was no God because he listened to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band on a couch with headphones when he was younger. And he wasn't alone in that sort of insane belief. Critics like Lester Bangs actually stated they were looking for religion replacement. So they all began to worship themselves. It's no wonder that eventually led to the bottom of the barrel known as Pitchfork and Fantano.
I would say this attitude is what eventually led to the industry decaying into what it is today. It's a bunch of teams of execs and hired hands pushing out payola product to continue their hedonistic lifestyle unabated. People like Gene Simmons and Dee Snyder helped create this world just as much as Tipper Gore and David Geffen did. And they all, in the end, got what they wanted. It wasn't better art or entertainment.
I wonder how different things would be if Boomers didn't try to retcon rock music into being about "rebellion" because all of the nonsense today rolls out from that false belief.
At the end of the day, though, I don't think the PMRC was incorrect. The problem is the fact that government was the only institution who actually seemed to care about what kids were being exposed to. As much as it kills me, time has proven them, like it has with the rest of the maligned "moral majority" correct. However, the sad fact now is that it's the various private industries themselves, including music, who enforce their own set of censorship guidelines and blasphemy laws. Though I hate to admit it, I think the PMRC had its heart in the right place. What do you mean about "confused Boomer morality"?
I'm curious to hear who that Boomer atheist was who claimed Sgt. Pepper turned him away from God. I have listened to that album hundreds of times and cannot discern any such message.
The industry is garbage for the reasons you mentioned, which I think also stem from marketplace worship. No need for risktaking--just keep pumping out new product for people to get excited about next product.
The issue with rebellion is that, once the rebels win, they work to squash any threats, including other rebels.
The problem with the PMRC is the same with the ACT in that both were headed by Woodstock-style hippie boomers who didn't have very well thought out moral systems to judge art by. The biggest problem with their parental advisory warnings is that they were not even applied correctly. I remember several albums that had them that contained maybe a couple of light swears overall and some that that were deeply graphic and/or nihilistic that had no warning at all. The problem with being a moral police comes when you don't share your morals with the people you're policing, and I think that's why it was ultimately doomed to fail. By the 1980s/1990s, shared morality and beliefs were already dying out.
Now? Good luck finding any modern pop garbage not full of inappropriate content. The old joke used to have been porn was so easy to find on the internet that you have to try to not find it. All anyone actually has to do to find it in reality is turn on the radio or listen to a "Top 40" payola track.
Though I don't think it's coincidental that once things like the Comics Code Authority or Hays Code fell away, said industries began to decay. They may not have been perfect, but they both led to far better material than what said industries pump our today. You need some sense of morality to guide you.
Admitting that much of our remaining identity in the US is essentially pure industrially optimized consumerism would be very painful to the boomers, and their spiritual descendants.
You nailed it. Isn't it sad?
I've come to the realization that any economic system based on UNLIMITED EXPANSION can either only fail at worst, or produce an awful culture at best.
That's so interesting that this is about music and the title instantly brought to mind two pieces of music. I was not expecting it to be about music, but of course that makes perfect sense given the tale referenced.
Which two pieces of music did this bring to mind?
Nailed to the Wheel by Edguy and then Tales of Brave Ulysses by Cream. The latter being kind of the obvious go to.
The obvious choice is very often the best. Great tune!