Do themes such as Satanism or Anti-Christianity Affect Your Metal Preferences?
- Thread starter Matt
- Start date
Well I guess a metal band could be influenced by culture. Let's say the band grows up in a heavily christian area and grows to despise it or love it, either way they would be influenced by it.
Neurotic
New Millenium Christ
music is bigger than us. it's all around in nature. so to me it's deeper than words.
p.s. JACO DOES OWN!
p.s. JACO DOES OWN!
do you honestly believe that the ONLY meaning music can have is ENTIRELY a product of culture?
Pretty much, there might be instinctive reactions to certain sounds that are completely universal but I would say that is slightly different from the 'meaning' we're talking about.
Sounds are not naturally percived as 'good' or 'bad' until we have given them those properties ourselves. I can find no natural correlation between an 'ugly' piece of music and the response it prompts beyond that which we have learned to experience. As Falco said recently the relationship between signifier and signified is arbitrary in language and I believe that holds true for music as well.
Edit: Thinking about it there are a few problems with this approach but I'll leave it alone and see what arguments people come up with.
skeptik
Member
- Feb 7, 2003
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I'm pretty sure there are sounds that naturally sound beautiful or pleasant to the human ear and sounds that naturally sounds ugly or discomforting, as demonstrated by various studies performed on infants with the voice of their mother using different tones of voice. I don't know of a test specifically that was used with musical sounds off-hand (though it's highly likely that there are several), but I think the previously mentioned study could be easily related to music anyway.
Demilich
Remember
I don't see music (a series of sounds and pauses between sounds) as symbolic in the same way as the written words. This is the argument people make when they dismiss lyrics: that they have more standardized universal meaning and thus leave less up to the imagination. I'm not arguing with you that reactions to different sounds are learned behaviour, simply that this learning is not exclusively linked to the culture you're raised in.
bah, i'm not in the mood for this kind of thinking this morning..too much school or something
bah, i'm not in the mood for this kind of thinking this morning..too much school or something
I'm not sure that isn't an inter-species thing though. Being able to register and interpret changes in vocal tone could be partially in-built to allow infants to adapt to speech and form early connections with people. It also could still be learned as I'm assuming these studies weren't carried out until after the mother and child had already spent time together.
Demilich said:
My point is that words, like sounds, carry no meaning inherent in them. They have been tied to meanings much more obviously and comprehensively than sounds but that does not mean sounds could not eventually come to be just as representational.
Well if I wrote 'tree calf half count blue square creation' only the individual words have designated meanings, arrangements of words can produce just as many meanings as arrangements of sounds, its just easier for us to talk about words using words. Talking about music using words is often incredibly hard, which is IMO why people sometimes say its impossible or irrelevant because music is 'beyond words'.
When I said 'cultural' I was talking generally about every meaning applied to sounds by humans.
Yeah looking back over your posts in this thread I can see it was much more interesting before I turned up, sorry.
PowerMetal1984
Member
I'm not religious at all. I would rather listen to metal with satanic themes than christian metal any day.
Under The Oak
Ens Causa Sui
From your name it seems you're more likely to listen to music about dragons and magical elves than satanic themes, lol.
Sonnenritter
Active Member
I would rather listen to metal with satanic themes than christian metal any day.
Why? Opposite sides of the same coin.
Demilich
Remember
Man this thread sure turned into pseudo ~intellectual mental masturbation
I love how people say this whenever they can't keep up with or don't want to take part of the discussion.
you're dumb!
PowerMetal1984
Member
I like bands like Venom, Mayhem, Slayer, Possessed, King Diamond/Mercyful Fate, Immortal, Emperor, etc. Many of these bands have satanic or evil themes.
Under The Oak
Ens Causa Sui
Good for you. Of course most of them used it as a gimmick, which is even worse than Christian bands that take themselves seriously.
I feel just the opposite. I don't feel that it is necessary for a band to take the subject matter of satanism seriously to write about it anymore than it is for an author or filmmaker who makes dark horror movies and books to be satan worshipers.
Metal is after all entertainment. I don't listen to metal to join a cult. I like dark evil music for the same reason I like dark evil movies.Nether has anything to do with whether or not the writer believes in and or worships evil as entity or not.
On the other hand I sure don't want some fool that is really serious about christianity yelling jesus is love, jesus saves blab blab blab over and over again
on one my cds.If it is done in a none intrusive intelligent manner like say someone like the band Trouble does it thats fine. I like Trouble a lot and have 4 of their cds.
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