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Metal Gets A Makeover; Bands Focus On Parties Rather Than Politics



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16.08.2006 - 14:19
animal

http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Music/08/1...r.ap/index.html

Metal gets a makeover
Bands focus on politics instead of parties

Monday, August 14, 2006; Posted: 1:21 p.m. EDT (17:21 GMT)


SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Heavy metal singer Chris Barnes didn't know what people would think of "Amerika the Brutal," an anti-war song he wrote after his cousin deployed to Iraq in 2003.

He heard a number of complaints -- but also received supportive e-mails from American troops in the war zone.

"It kind of sent a shiver up my spine because those are the guys I didn't want to offend by sounding anti-war," said Barnes, vocalist for the death metal band Six Feet Under.

Other metal bands are finding similar inspiration.

Lamb of God's albums criticize American foreign policy. Cattle Decapitation are ardent vegetarians who use explicit album covers and songs like "Veal and the Cult of Torture" to condemn the meat industry. Serj Tankian of System of a Down is co-founder of a nonprofit organization that works on social issues.

More than three decades after Black Sabbath conjured images of the dark arts, heavy metal is growing up. The genre is increasingly incorporating social and political messages into its dense power chords.

Cattle Decapitation vocalist Travis Ryan said his San Diego band's mix of charging guitars and an animal rights message is drawing a diverse crowd that includes activists as well as traditional metal fans.

"We've always had a lot of crazy crossover going on," he said before a recent show. "It's a pretty diverse crowd we have. I've never known what to make of it."

Twenty artists recently displayed art inspired by the band's last album "Humanure," in an online exhibit. Proceeds from sales of the art will be donated to animal rights causes.

Metal bands are also branching out into literature and mythology. Mastodon, which is headlining a summer tour with metal stalwart Slayer, patterned the concept album "Leviathan" around the story of Moby Dick. Death metal band Nile bases its songs and image around Egyptian mythology and iconography.

"Metal is expanding and evolving and becoming more diverse," said Canadian anthropologist and filmmaker Sam Dunn, who directed "Metal: A Headbanger's Journey," released on DVD this summer. "It's at a much more vibrant state than it was even five or 10 years ago."

Dunn is working on a sequel to the film with the working title "Global Metal" which will trace the popularity of metal overseas, especially in developing countries like Brazil, Columbia and Indonesia.

"It's becoming global and it's becoming a tool for social and political commentary," Dunn said. "It takes on a greater meaning in countries where people have had to struggle to survive. It takes on a much stronger political tone."

Metal artists "have responded to the culture and politics of the day," said Donna Gaines, a sociologist and author of "Teenage Wasteland," a study of working class New Jersey metalheads.

Metal music in the 1980s was often homophobic and "very white," she said, but current bands tend to be socially conscious and suspicious of political power. There's also more women in the audience -- and fronting the bands.

"This is another generation rising," Gaines said.

Heavy metal has always touched on social and political issues. Metal grandfathers Black Sabbath criticized the Vietnam War in songs like "War Pigs" and "Children of the Grave." Iron Maiden's "Run to the Hills" was an angry denunciation of the displacement of Native Americans.

But much of the criticism was blunted by dark imagery that panicked parents and led to the now ubiquitous "Parental Advisory" labels. Metal's punk brethren were seen as having a more learned world view.

That began to change when hardcore punk and metal fused in the late 1980s with bands like Dirty Rotten Imbeciles and Nuclear Assault. But metal was still primarily known for the excessive lifestyles and racy videos of glam bands.

The popular view of metalheads as mentally deficient goons was memorialized with the MTV cartoon "Beavis and Butthead," about two teen metalheads who terrorize their pudgy neighbor Stewart, who wears a T-shirt of the glam rock band "Winger."

More meaningful music was coming from the underground as popular culture embraced grunge and metal lost favor.

Napalm Death was a product of Britain's "Crass" movement, which fused anarchism and punk in the late 1980s. Vocalist Mark "Barney" Greenway, a vegetarian and peace advocate, is often pulled aside by fans who want to know more about his progressive views.

One recent song, "The Code is Red, Long Live the Code," takes aim at the spate of terror alerts in America with lyrics like: "Switched on to subdue when the masses switch off."

"It's really, really difficult sometimes to break through the cloud of apathy, so it's great when someone comes and asks why you are coming from your perspective," Greenway said during a recent tour stop in California.

"When you come into a country like America, when you challenge thinking, it's a great affront to some people," he said.

The lyrics on Lamb of God's two most recent albums have been expressly political, and the politics lean heavily to the left.

Napalm Death's Greenway is considering work as a political activist when his metal days are over, but he doesn't think metal will ever completely stray from hedonistic and supernatural themes.

"I appreciate that not everything has to be awareness raising or political," he said. "Music is also a form of entertainment and it should remain that way. Variety is the spice of life. Escapism is a good thing if it doesn't cloud your vision."

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"I got 1,000 years of power! Come and get me!" Robert McLain- Royal Oak, MI
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16.08.2006 - 14:36
Bas
Retired Staff
nonsense in my opinion, metal isnt becoming serious all of a sudden, it has been serious since the very beginning, maybe the lyrics of a band like Black Sabbath were more sinister then political, but the music of much of the bands listed is much heavier then Black Sabbaths music, so i dont see why the bands listed here are described as more mature

and as far as i know themes like mythology and literature are extremely common in metal since more then only 5 years...
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BAS - Beautifully Accented Sexiness
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16.08.2006 - 15:36
Valentin B
Iconoclast
it's more of a "the metal scene's current political and social tangencies expressed in the lyrics"
i believe this title is better than "metal gets a make-over.."
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16.08.2006 - 19:36
Sunioj

SOD and bands like green day use politics to gain attention and thats what I hate when metal bands use that for their gain because metal is supposed to be about non conformity. I love meat and thats all I can say!
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17.08.2006 - 01:51
PRIMAL FEAR
Account deleted
This is just stupid, I hate when the ignorant generalise (referring to the article)... They should complete some more thorough research before they come out with such statements...
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05.04.2007 - 06:51
Doc G.
Full Grown Hoser
Where the f*ck have I been? I thought metal always had its political sides....if there just noticing politics in metal now thats just mind boggling ignorance....
But the sequel to 'Headbangers Journey' is good news.
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"I got a lot of really good ideas, problem is, most of them suck."
- George Carlin
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06.04.2007 - 14:41
Hyvaarin

This article annoys the fuck out of me. Two reasons -

1. Metal has been overtly political from the fucking get-go. 'War Pigs' ring a bell? The political lyrics modern bands are writing are in no way more valid/political.
2. Why is it that a band/genre has to not only be political, but has to be political in a dumbed-down, in-your-face way to be of any intellectual/cultural worth?
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"Summoned By Words Never Spoken Before..."
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06.04.2007 - 16:22
APOHAKC
The Bard
This is really, I mean really stupid, not even worth to comment, I doubt that guy knows anything about metal philosophy or anything related to metal, activities or community. Probably his wife is rejecting him, or husband if is a girl...
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They say that we are gone but I can't let you down
The heathen faith will rise again we won't fail now
I know we cannot die forever is our time
Give my people back to me free from Christianity!!!!
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06.04.2007 - 17:42
SilentScream
Blasphemer
The thrash movement in the 80s was all about politics and social issues. That doesn't count?
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07.04.2007 - 14:48
Marcel Hubregtse
Grumpy Old Fuck
Written by SilentScream on 06.04.2007 at 17:42

The thrash movement in the 80s was all about politics and social issues. That doesn't count?


I was thinking the same thing. ALthough about of their lyrics were about politics and social issues the other half about partying and violence.
But apparently the people saying the above nonsense must have been thinking about the glam scene which was huge in the States at the time.
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Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal

Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight
Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.)
05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996

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08.04.2007 - 01:25
Himann
Orm KrigGud
Themes in Metal cover a lot of wide area's not just politics. It has been about politics in the past and its abt politics now. But politics isn't the only topic. Heck I think Sepultura is actually anti-politics.. The article shows ignorance and its probably written by someone who's just started listening to metal or someone who hasn't heard anything and just "wrote it for the story"...
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To be Draped by the Shadow of your Morbid Palace. Ohh, Hate Living...The only heat is warm blood

So Pure... So Cold
Transilvanian Hunger
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21.06.2007 - 02:51
Nazeef

I already read Barnes' interview in HARD ROCK magazine where he expressed his hatred towards G.W bush.
So, his deed was a continuation of what he felt since the beginning. He's a great guy and musician.
His attitude shows awareness, conversely to the most of his people!
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21.06.2007 - 04:02
Lowelas OF FIRE
Account deleted
'80's thrash bands would constantly have lyrical themes concerning social issues and politics.......

ummmmmmm Metal music in the 1980s was often homophobic and "very white," she said, but current bands tend to be socially conscious and suspicious of political power. There's also more women in the audience -- and fronting the bands.

I don't think Rob Halford was a homophobe, was he? :
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22.06.2007 - 15:05
animal

Written by Guest on 21.06.2007 at 04:02

'80's thrash bands would constantly have lyrical themes concerning social issues and politics.......

ummmmmmm Metal music in the 1980s was often homophobic and "very white," she said, but current bands tend to be socially conscious and suspicious of political power. There's also more women in the audience -- and fronting the bands.

I don't think Rob Halford was a homophobe, was he? :


A gay homophobe? That would be kind of like a skit Dave Chappell did about a Black White Supremacist.

http://www.govideocodes.com/v-13048-the-black-white-supremacist.php
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"I got 1,000 years of power! Come and get me!" Robert McLain- Royal Oak, MI
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22.06.2007 - 20:44
Lowelas OF FIRE
Account deleted
@animal: yeah i saw that one lol. Man these ppl don't know beans do they.
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07.10.2008 - 09:27
Introspekrieg
Totemic Lust
Ministry has been doing the political thing for a while haven't they? In fact, I believe that's the only time their music is ever worth a damn...
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07.10.2008 - 16:07
Kap'N Korrupt
Account deleted
Well, there weren't as many metal bands spreading the political and social message in the 70s as there are today are there? The only band I can really think of is Black Sabbath...sure, in the 80s there were a great number of bands spreading social and political messages but the "very white" homophobic type metal was in the main scene...so I guess that what this article is trying to say is that...sure, heavy metal bands always had social and political messages in their lyrics but it didn't become a widespread idealism in the genre until the 90s...
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07.10.2008 - 16:46
AiwiAstwihad
AiryanaKhvarenah
even our asshole governers know how deep Heavy Metal is in plotical/Social issues that are gravely scared of the influence it may bring to the youth beliefs. that's why they try to depict it just the opposite by showing/writing phantom documentaries/reports/articles on official TV/Mags/Web-sites/Newspapers.
ok those poor retards think Metallica is the name of a genre stablished by this regime's foes to bring it down. i'm not kidding, i really read an article in a web site stating that Metallica was formed by CIA against 'em.
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From the flood that's overwhelmed us and drowned us all
Must think, when you speak of our weakness in times of darkness
That you've not had to face
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