#Metalgate: MetalSucks Reaffirm Themselves as Social Justice Warriors and Leftist Apologists by Misinterpreting Metal Lyrics

axl rosenberg anime

Axl Rosenberg (Matt Goldberg) of metalcore blog MetalSucks recently reaffirmed his website’s social justice warrior stance in an editorial entitled “Stop Saying Politics Have No Place in Metal”. Rosenberg points out that Tony Iommi’s guitar tone was a direct result of the  socioeconomic circumstances of his upbringing but incorrectly assumes that Black Sabbath’s lyrics were written by Ozzy Osbourne’s even rougher childhood when they were in fact primarily written by Geezer Butler who was obsessed with the occult, the work of Aleister Crowley, and horror fiction and films. Rosenberg then uses the lyrics from “War Pigs” to attempt to show that Black Sabbath had strong political undercurrent. All dedicated fans of the band know that the song was originally titled “Walpurgis” about the Witches Sabbath on Walpurgis Night and the label forced them to change the title as they thought it too overly satanic. The anti-war lines are just expressing that politicians and generals sending off young men to die for only the benefit of the leaders in the rear is evil too and actually reflects popular opinions of World War I as much as Vietnam. Attempting to attach any political significance to these is preposterous.

Rosenberg then namechecks such songs as “Run to the Hills” without even bothering to pay attention to the second half of the song where Iron Maiden revel in the slaughter of Indians, “Keep On Rotting In the Free World” without a clue in the world that Carcass parodying a Neil Young song, and Dave Mustaine’s career paranoid contrarianism in a pathetic attempt to prove that that “metal” (less than half the songs he cites are actually metal) musicians are predisposed to the same lefitst political views as himself. Steve Harris is a Tory, Carcass merely militant vegetarians and gorehounds, Chuck Schuldiner was pro-death penalty, Dave Mustaine boasted of building border walls in the Eighties, and Eric Hoffman is a die-hard conservative to say the least. Rosenberg slandered them in the hope of giving himself an imagined ideological base to attack artists he views as politically questionable in the manner of Mao’s Red Guards.

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41 thoughts on “#Metalgate: MetalSucks Reaffirm Themselves as Social Justice Warriors and Leftist Apologists by Misinterpreting Metal Lyrics”

  1. Ggallin1776 says:

    I think it would be more appropriate if the heeb was wearing the star,oh well.

    On the topic of war pigs,i don’t remember any of the band members saying anything about walpurgis nacht,only about the song being in protest of the war….and it was the label that put the inverted cross in the self titled so i don’t see why they would make them rename the song due to “satanism”.

    1. Rainer Weikusat says:


      Unbeknown to the band ‘Black Sabbath’ was launched in the US with a party in San Francisco with the head of the church of Satan, Anton Lavey, presiding over the proceedings. For Sabbath, it almost scuppered their US touring plans, the launch coming in the wake of the murder of Sharon Tate […] By the time they finally hit the US in late ’70, Sabbath had had time to record their second album ‘Paranoid’ […]. According to Butler, it was originally meant to be titled ‘Walpurgis’ (aka the witches sabbath) after a track on the album. In the wake of the controversy stirred up around the band, the track and the album title were revised to ‘War Pigs’, the song’s lyrics being changed during the recording process.

      [Reunion booklet]

  2. Interracial Porn and Arghoslent says:

    I’m sure it’s entirely coincidental that he’s a jew…

    1. Many Jews are right wingers.

      1. morbideathscream says:

        Sure, there’s jews out there with right wing views, but they are most definitely a minority. Most jews have Matt Goldberg’s mentality. What he’s doing is Judaism 101. Pure Marxist tactics. Jews are the original sjw’s.

    2. C.M. says:

      Notice the girl tenderly caressing his face with a big green dildo. Notice her badge. Jew police. That’s exactly what they look like.

  3. pat redux says:

    “Rosenberg then namechecks such songs as “The Trooper” without even bothering to pay attention to the second half of the song where Iron Maiden revel in the slaughter of Indians”

    The Trooper is abut the Crimean War. I think you were referring to Run to the Hills, but even then, that’s a mis-interpreatation of the lyrics.

    1. Brain fart there as similar riff. “Run to the Hills” starts with the Indian’s perspective but the faster, more metal part of the song is from the point of view of the white man conquering them and yes Maiden make it sound quite fun.

      1. Ludvig B.B (vOddy) says:

        They make war sound glorious on The Trooper.

        People who can only view things in binary black and white will therefore condemn them for glorifying and romanticizing murder and suffering.

        People who understand metal know what’s really going on: The beholding of war in its entirety, which includes the horrible suffering as well as the beautiful part of human nature that allows us to transcend our survival instinct and march to our deaths.

  4. dude could you not says:

    Yeah, politics have a place in metal! But only our particular Frankfurt school postmodern egalitarian politics. any other kind we’ll write a whiny passive-aggressive article about.

  5. Deport All Hipsters says:

    I don’t even care if you inject politics into metal. Just don’t make it boring stupid and bland. AKA SJW political correctness.

  6. Ok, so we all know that Matt Goldberg is a communist faggot.

    But really, what are your thoughts on the newest Dark Funeral and Ungod albums?

  7. OliveFox says:

    You gotta admit, when he says, “Hell, everything is political, period!” he really has a good point.

    Oh snap, I just remembered, he doesn’t have a good point. Sorry about the mix up.

    1. OnlyInDeath says:

      I can’t be the only one who had high school teachers that used that line to try and motivate their students to be interested in the subject.

      “Everything is politics!”–Civics teacher
      “Everything is numbers!”—Math teacher
      “Everything is science”—Science teacher
      ad nauseum

      Just shows how lazy the MS article is. He understands politics on the level of a 14 year old, and metal, art, and metaphor not at all (5 to 1 somewhere on that site there’s a piece where they say Slayer lyrics got better when they started writing about “real world” things in the 90s and onward)

  8. LostInTheANUS says:

    I don’t remember Slayer being overtly political, then again I’ve never listened to any album past Seasons in the Abyss and the only songs I can think of off the top of my head which can at least be thought of as being vaguely political (Chemical Warfare and Mandatory Suicide) are gore porn more than anything else.

    1. HH says:

      Silent Scream can be interpreted as anti abortion.

    2. Billy Foss says:

      What about Behind the Crooked Cross? It’s about bad faith from a Nazi perspective.

  9. Ludvig B.B (vOddy) says:

    Lol.

    He’d be better off claiming that politics have no place in metal, because when you look at which politics are actually held by the great composers…

  10. C.M. says:

    MetalSucks is vulture fodder. This is poking a carcass with a stick, just agitating the flies. Let them rot in festering slime.

  11. buttstbhfam says:

    Is that Axl (((Rosenberg))) in the pic there? He’s like the prototypical leftist nu-male. The lack of muscle, the beard covering a weak jawline, the receding hairline. It’s all there.

    1. Rosenberg certainly looks like a guy with abnormally low levels of testosterone.

  12. White Man's Power says:

    Golberg? Social Justice? But Brett told me Jews are totally traditional and metal’s greatest ally

  13. Alright motherfuckers ! Mind not all that social justice jewery and pay heed to the best American heavy metal band in ages !!

    They are from Flagstaff Az and are called EXILED.

    tHese underground dudes play the best heavy metal since Iron Maiden.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9eL4pBOl0o

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_h9OcvcREw

    1. trystero says:

      There is spirit to it though the Iron Maiden comparison is unwarranted. Thanks for linking.

  14. Scot says:

    Axl’s point is that metal bands have always written about political topics, and people should quit whining. Is that true, kind of, but not the whole story. Yes in the 70’s and 80’s bands like Black Sabbath and Metallica had some political songs. Usually political songs back then tended to be a little vague in terms of who the song was about, so the listener could come to their own conclusions. The songs had themes and topics that most people could agree on, no matter what their party affiliation is. War pigs and Disposable Heroes, everyone agrees that it sucks that people get sent off to war and could die. There is not going to be much disagreement or controversy over that sentiment.

    In the 90’s that seemed to shift to where the songs were becoming about a more specific person or group. Now political bands are attacking average citizens for believing a certain thing or voting for the wrong candidate within their songs.

    Ministry is an example of a band who I like their sound, but I can’t stand the fact they are constantly belittling the average citizen because they didn’t vote democrat.

    1. Rainer Weikusat says:

      Writing political lyrics or lyrics which can be interpreted as political is different from writing editorials about people’s “political standing” wrt to something the editor happens to be convinced of.

      1. Scot says:

        I agree. I used to look at that site on a regular basis, but then a couple of years they really ramped up the political grandstanding and SJW whining. I can listen to songs with political messages that I may not agree with, but I draw the line with things like Al Jourgenson saying that anyone who doesn’t vote democrat is stupid, and Metalsucks eats that shit up.

    2. Veneral disease says:

      Punks whined about Reagan and Thatcher for how long? This in turn caught on like fungus and spread elsewhere.

      1. Rainer Weikusat says:

        It’s rather the fungusses catching on.

      2. Scot says:

        a terrible fungus too, that spread from the underground to the mainstream. I tried to listen to punk awhile ago, but the lyrics were mostly annoying, and music boring and repetitive, it grew old fast. I think the only punk bands I listen to anymore are Social Distortion and Misfits.

        Still one of my favorite moments was when Johnny Ramone thanked President Bush at an award show, and then watching all the crybabies heads explode over that.

        1. morbideathscream says:

          Bands like Discharge, Amebix, Cro-mags and early Agnostic Front are quality hardcore punk as well. But yeah, most punk is shit, a few good bands have emerged from the punk genre, but that number is very tiny. The pc liberal antifascist bullshit is what stopped from getting into the punk scene when I was younger.

          Perhaps, we can name this fungus, fungazi haha. Kind of fitting, don’t you think?

          1. Kind of fitting, don’t you think?

            Yes, especially given that Fugazi was the headstone for hardcore punk.

      3. Vigilance says:

        They still whine about Reagan actually.

  15. Internatio reloaded says:

    Most of those “communists” you complain about are in reality following more or less consciously some variant of Frankfurt school (a school whose left-sounding slogans are mostly here to dress up the fact that their main point is that the majority of people are hopelessly brainwashed so identity politics from the upper middle class should be considered as the best “revolution” that can be done).

    That’s as close to marxism as the latest djent shit released sounds close to Unquestionable Presence.

    I don’t want to change your politics, but get the correct vocabulary at least.

  16. Nathan Metric says:

    Really? Breaking the Law is political? I thought Breaking the Law was about having a lust for life. Life sucks ass. The universe is aggressively indifferent to you and if you want to make your life better it is going to require a strong force of will. I thought THAT was the message of Breaking the Law. Not some lame ass political point about poverty and crime.

    1. Ludvig B.B (vOddy) says:

      Your interpretation is better.

      1. Nathan Metric says:

        My method of analysis is controversial at times. I don’t interpret music on the uber-objective level rather I interpret music on the phenomenological level. There is often difference between what the vocalist is saying and what the emotional significance of the song is. For example, Bathory’s song “The Return…..” seems like a dreadful song on paper, but when you actually listen to it you experience the passionate sense of anticipation of the artist. Almost as if he treats “evil” as synonymous with virtue and vice versa.

        1. Almost as if he treats “evil” as synonymous with virtue and vice versa.

          That was part of the point of black metal: all that we are told is good, is not, and much of what we are told is bad, is not.

        2. Ludvig B.B (vOddy) says:

          Music must be understood holistically. Does the music sound like a protest anthem? Or does it sound like it lusts for life?
          Does it complain, or is it excited?

          The music itself proves what the context of the lyrics is, very clearly in the case of Judas Priest.
          It’s not a lament. It’s the sart of an adventure.

  17. Rainer Weikusat says:

    There’s (in programming) a concept called duck typing: If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, regarding it as a duck is sufficient for most practical purposes. So, there’s a guy who writes for a blog called »Metal Sucks«, who likes to style himself like a hand-knit sofa cushsion and uses Axl Rosenberg as nom de plume — what does this communicate?

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