Metal and politics

[tardocaust]

When Dave Mustaine (frontman of thrash metallers Megadeth) in February made a number of homophobic comments and supported GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum, much of the metal community was in uproar, fearing Mustaine's words would paint an unrealistic picture of metalheads or even youth as a whole. But this year's Communist Party USA National Conference ought to have cleared up that misconception.

The two-day event saw a large number of Communists gathering to talk about the upcoming election and discuss plans for the future - and many of the faces present belonged to youth. Of those, a large number were music fans. One of them, Tory Smith (22), had a few things to say on how he became interested in the Party, and on metal's sometimes-abrasive relationship with politics.

Smith, who works in grocery markets as a Pepsi salesman, is Chairman of the Nevada Communist Party. "I live in Las Vegas, where I moved in 1996," he said. "I've been in the Communist Party for six months. I studied history in school - I've always really been into history, but what particularly inspired me was the Cuban Revolution - you know, how a small country could rise up to American imperialism like that."

So how did he become more politically involved?

"Well, not having any outlets to be active in politics, I went researching and reading books on the subject. Once I graduated from high school, that's when I started coming across Marx and Lenin.

"After a while, I wanted to find other people that I could relate to - so I googled 'Communist Party of America.' Now, I read the Peoples World and Political Affairs...I think it's a great online source of information; [a way to get] outside the garbage on FOX News."

The ongoing fight for the rights of undocumented citizens is also an important aspect of the struggle to Smith, who noted, "I'm half-Hispanic, so the immigration issue touches me very strongly."

http://www.peoplesworld.org/despite-negativity-of-some-metal-fans-join-in-today-s-struggle/

[tardocaust]

"Metal is expanding and becoming more diverse. It's becoming global and it's becoming a tool for social and political commentary."

These words were spoken by anthropologist and filmmaker Sam Dunn in a report by MSNBC. Dunn directed Metal: A Headbanger's Journey, a 2005 documentary that studied the cultural aspects of metal, as well as opinions on it and the supposed controversy surrounding the music genre. The film debuted at the 2005 Toronto Film Festival.

Lamb of God's songs criticize American foreign policy; Cattle Decapitation are vegetarians who use explicit artwork and lyrics in order to speak up for animal rights; Iron Maiden's "Run to the Hills" was an angry reaction to the displacement of Native Americans; and Six Feet Under vocalist Chris Barnes wrote "Amerika the Brutal" - a powerful anti-war song - after his cousin was deployed to Iraq in 2003.

http://www.peoplesworld.org/heavy-metal-s-progressive-journey

[Nightspirit]

Potential up and coming generations of extreme metal fans have and will always uproar against preexisting racist, inclusive and in-crowd values present in their preferred genre BECAUSE THE MAJORITY of metal is white, male and heterosexual; of European apostatic Christian background, in favor of non-religion, anti-religion or elder religion and are mildly to significantly xenophobic towards anyone currently or formerly Christian, Jewish or Muslim excluding themselves.

Extreme Metal, or at least the right kind (Slayer; Morbid Angel; Burzum) has endorsed hate and war since the beginning, not kumbaya.

[scourge]

While some metal is protest or hedonist in its content, I don't believe metal is properly defined by such attributes. Rather, these are defining attributes for punk and rock music, which along with country and rap, unlike any metal, includes self pity. Once we move beyond the temporal conditions of the individual or stressed collections of contemporary people and into realms that are not mundane, we can get some great works of art again. Still, content that is not strictly limited to the human condition leaves us with only one among the attributes great works require.

[Dylar]

See, I saw the commie in the Burzum shirt and figured, "This guy is just confused."

[Nightspirit]

While some metal is protest or hedonist in its content, I don't believe metal is properly defined by such attributes. Rather, these are defining attributes for punk and rock music, which along with country and rap, unlike any metal, includes self pity. Once we move beyond the temporal conditions of the individual or stressed collections of contemporary people and into realms that are not mundane, we can get some great works of art again. Still, content that is not strictly limited to the human condition leaves us with only one among the attributes great works require.

I watched a documentary on Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" today. One thing that absolutely blew my mind was the echoing of DLA-ANUS-Deathmetal.org ideals. One thing that I think the mods have drilled into the heads of the readers is that artistic metal is almost universally impersonal; this was a topic of focus throughout the documentary as one of the recurrent themes. Black Sabbath failed to comment on any of the topics they were covering, neither supporting nor denying the use or morality of anything based on a trivial [human-singular] opinion. What they did was show people the harsher side of reality through their song lyrics and illustrated the severity of the situation through atmospheric evocation of their music. At one point they said something along the lines of "Almost everyone wanted joy from Sabbath, and they never got it."

Fucking metal -|-