Heavy metal
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*Judas Priest - Religious themes, leather, motorcycles, ergo, metal. | *Judas Priest - Religious themes, leather, motorcycles, ergo, metal. | ||
*KISS - Sexual themes, ergo, metal. | *KISS - Sexual themes, ergo, metal. | ||
| − | *DragonForce - Lyrics all about dragons and fighting | + | *DragonForce - Lyrics all about dragons and fighting, ergo, metal. |
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*Led Zeppelin - Led, almost like lead, ergo, metal. | *Led Zeppelin - Led, almost like lead, ergo, metal. | ||
*Megadeth - Bad spelling of "death", ergo, metal. | *Megadeth - Bad spelling of "death", ergo, metal. | ||
Revision as of 23:10, 23 December 2008
Heavy metal music is a form of music that is pretty heavy, and also pretty metal. It scares most conservatives and fundamentalists due to being fairly anti-authoritarian, as well as having many bands that use Satanic imagery, though most only for shock value, like the band Mercyful Fate. This Satanism is usually confined to the Black Metal genre, which is quite possibly because Black Metal is a largely atmospheric genre, and thus bands that create "evil" atmospheres tend to use Satanic imagery to fit it. They also use corpse paint quite often.
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Black Sabbath
The original heavy metal band, Black Sabbath didn't make many anti-Christian songs, though some could be held as criticisms of Christians that acted superior to others. They did use Satan in their lyrics fairly often, but this was usually because they based many of their songs off the whole concept of horror movies, that people paid to watch to get scared. For example, in their self-titled song, Satan is mentioned often, but only in terms of a story, rather than glorification. What they did have, however, were many pro-drug songs, such as "Sweet Leaf". This is because they liked drugs.
\m/
The 'horns', where the hand is formed into a fist, and the pinky and index finger are raised, is a generally universal sign of metal and written as \m/, which imitates the shape. It has been claimed to be Satanic (it's sometimes referred to as "the sign of the devil, dude"). However, the person responsible for its popularity, Ronnie James Dio (not his real name), says that it was actually a sign used by his grandmother to ward off the "evil eye", or to give it, and this sense of mysticism felt appropriate for Black Sabbath, which he joined after their original vocalist, Ozzy Osbourne, had left. By placing two fists side by side and extending only the index fingers to form a "\mnnm/" kind of shape, you get "two much metal for one hand".
Satanism
Satanism is common in the Black Metal genre. However, it is commonly admitted to be simply to set the atmosphere, rather than an explicit belief in Satanism. One of the few people who seem sincere about their Satanism is Glen Benton of Deicide, and he also claims to have seen Bigfoot. It has been pondered that heavy metal could be responsible for the corruption of our youth with the idea of bigfoot. One of the most infamous metalheads for 'Satanism' is Varg Vikernes, who also happens to be a pagan, rather than a Satanist. He is accused of Satanism due to allegedly burning down a church, but he claims to just want to get rid of Christianity from his Scandinavian homelands. He's currently in jail for killing a guy. The lead 'singer' of Slayer, a famous 'Satanic' thrash metal band, is actually a Christian.
The song 'The Number of the Beast' by Iron Maiden is often claimed to be Satanic. Rather than debunking this, we shall let you find and read the lyrics, and thus realize why saying that it is a Satanic song is idiotic.
Violence
Like Satanism, violence is also a common theme in Metal. It is widespread through the genres, though it is most common in Thrash and Death Metal. However, it is, again, generally for the impact, and not many Heavy Metal bands seem to actually endorse it. For example, the band Ballistic wrote a whole album containing songs about killing people, with titles such as "Silent Killer" and "Corpse Stacked High", but their members are not known for killing people silently and feeding off the power of you. If there is violence associated with Heavy Metal gigs, it is usually associated with the Thrash Metal genre, due to the speed and aggression of the music, though it is hardly "expected", and is probably more common at punk shows. However, excessive violence, going further than just some fairly rough moshing, is actually quite rare, and has probably happened to hard rock band Guns'N'Roses more than most Heavy Metal bands. Especially Doom Metal bands. In fact, it is probably impossible to go around bashing people up and rioting at a Funeral Doom concert. In a Drone Doom concert, the crowd is probably unable to move.
Personality of Metal fans
A 2008 survey found that Metal fans are typically "gentle, creative types who are at ease with themselves." This is of course a huge blow to the credibility of legions of fifteen year olds who want to annoy their parents with their "rebellious" branded T-shirts. The surveys and studies mentioned that the personality types of people who like heavy metal are most like those who listen to classical music, make of this what you will. [1]
Heavy Metal on Wikipedia
On Wikipedia, most articles about Heavy Metal bands are plagued by ridiculous, nit-picking edit wars about which indistinguishable micro-sub-genre their fans think it belongs in. Some talk pages even have sub-pages just for these arcane, pointless debates which nobody else gives a shit about. Hey, it's just the music, man!
Christian Metal
There is also Metal with Christian themes. All too often, it is unoriginal music that is sold as a "christian alternative" to Satanic or secular Metal. However, it does have some good eggs, such as the band Trouble, whose album Psalm 9 is a classic Doom Metal album, while other famous Doom Metal bands, such as Candlemass, used Christian theology as a basis for their songs, though more in terms of storytelling than actually endorsing Christianity. Stryper is widely believed to have started the Christian Metal genre - the only problem is, Stryper was not in any meaningful sense "Heavy Metal" since their music (mostly hair metal) was indistinguishable from that of Poison, Motley Crue, or the RATT. Stryper also dressed in yellow and black spandex bumble-bee suits and had hairdos apparently inspired by the 1970s band Angel.
A place for fandametalists to argue over which bands are really metal and which aren't
- Black Sabbath - Black; dark moody, Sabbath; religious themes, ergo, metal.
- Def Leppard - Bad spelling of "deaf", ergo, metal.
- Iron Maiden - Iron, self explanatory, ergo, metal.
- Judas Priest - Religious themes, leather, motorcycles, ergo, metal.
- KISS - Sexual themes, ergo, metal.
- DragonForce - Lyrics all about dragons and fighting, ergo, metal.
- Led Zeppelin - Led, almost like lead, ergo, metal.
- Megadeth - Bad spelling of "death", ergo, metal.
- Metallica - Metal in the name, self explanatory, ergo, metal.
- Mötley Crue - Practically INVENTED the Heavy Metal Umlaut, ergo, metal.
- Mötörhead - Motors are usually made of metal, umlauts, ergo, metal.
- Pantera - Named after the Spanish word for Panther, religious themes, ergo, metal.
- Poison - Oooh, poison, ergo, metal.
- Ratt - Who? Meh, ergo, metal.
- Slipknot - Well, the kids like 'em, ergo, metal.
- Stryper - Erm... bad spelling, ergo, metal.
See also
External links
- The Metal Archives are a list of nearly all metal bands, along with reviews.