Rock, metal, and "Satanism" scares
Looking up "Satanism" on Google News, I came across a metal album review which claims that "Satanism" scares concerning music are totally a thing of the past. However, in other parts of the world, there's still a stereotype that rock music (and especially metal) equals Satanism, judging by an African news story that popped up on the exact same page of Google News search results today.
According to this review of a metal album titled "Gods of the Earth" by a band called "The Sword,"
Can you believe that back in the early '80s, parents, clergy, school administration and other uptight muckity-mucks thought that two of the biggest dangers to youth were heavy metal and, get this, Dungeons and Dragons? The moral panic over both of them centered on their supposed ties to everything from the occult and Satanism to suicide and murder. Thankfully, society's grown up enough to realize how silly those ideas were.
The Sword hasn't, though. The metalheads' sophomore album is not only stuck in the glory days of metal and D&D outrage, but wishing those ridiculous allegations are true. Whipping up a cliched combination of Judas Priest, Black Sabbath and Slayer riffs and augmenting it with those fantastic themes of '80s metal that now seem so silly -- wizards, demons, sword fights -- Gods of the Earth is everything a middle-school PTA president circa 1983 would ever hope it to be. That is it's chock full of the sort of thing that could scare the hell out of the PMRC while simultaneously making it seem ridiculous to everyone else.
Well, maybe it now seems ridiculous to most people here in the U.S.A., at least outside the Bible Belt. But that's apparently not yet true in other parts of the world such as Africa, judging by an African news story that popped up just now: Rock band Nodd releases debut album by Mqondisi Dube, Mmegi (Botswana), Thursday, 24 April 2008. That story says:
Black cowboy hats, tight black leather outfits and the infamous prints on t-shirts, which have been largely associated with a cult often referred to as Satanism, make rock fans stand out from the rest.
Regarding the rock group Nodd:
As a group, they are aware that stereotypes are associated with rock music, as most people believe that those who play or listen to it subscribe to Satanism.
"To us it is just a kind of music. We understand that there are stereotypes around rock with people believing that it's for Satanists. "We are trying to do a new type of metal rock which we call alternative rock.
According to this review of a metal album titled "Gods of the Earth" by a band called "The Sword,"
Can you believe that back in the early '80s, parents, clergy, school administration and other uptight muckity-mucks thought that two of the biggest dangers to youth were heavy metal and, get this, Dungeons and Dragons? The moral panic over both of them centered on their supposed ties to everything from the occult and Satanism to suicide and murder. Thankfully, society's grown up enough to realize how silly those ideas were.
The Sword hasn't, though. The metalheads' sophomore album is not only stuck in the glory days of metal and D&D outrage, but wishing those ridiculous allegations are true. Whipping up a cliched combination of Judas Priest, Black Sabbath and Slayer riffs and augmenting it with those fantastic themes of '80s metal that now seem so silly -- wizards, demons, sword fights -- Gods of the Earth is everything a middle-school PTA president circa 1983 would ever hope it to be. That is it's chock full of the sort of thing that could scare the hell out of the PMRC while simultaneously making it seem ridiculous to everyone else.
Well, maybe it now seems ridiculous to most people here in the U.S.A., at least outside the Bible Belt. But that's apparently not yet true in other parts of the world such as Africa, judging by an African news story that popped up just now: Rock band Nodd releases debut album by Mqondisi Dube, Mmegi (Botswana), Thursday, 24 April 2008. That story says:
Black cowboy hats, tight black leather outfits and the infamous prints on t-shirts, which have been largely associated with a cult often referred to as Satanism, make rock fans stand out from the rest.
Regarding the rock group Nodd:
As a group, they are aware that stereotypes are associated with rock music, as most people believe that those who play or listen to it subscribe to Satanism.
"To us it is just a kind of music. We understand that there are stereotypes around rock with people believing that it's for Satanists. "We are trying to do a new type of metal rock which we call alternative rock.