Religion in Music

[S<issors]

Just listening to some Celtic Frost and musing about this. Satanistic/anti-Christian themes have been a genre staple of metal since its earliest days, especially in the black metal scene, and nowadays Christian rock is also a sizable industry. Personally I don't have a problem with people holding their own beliefs, but I've always thought that making blatantly Satanistic music or blatantly Christian music implied a lack of innovation.

I know a lot of the genre giants have made this a big part of their style- take Morbid Angel, for example. I enjoy their sound, but I get the feeling I'd enjoy it more if they hadn't been invoking the fires of Hell every other line. It annoys me just about as much as the constant repetition of "praaaaise Jesus!" in Christian rock.

Discuss.

 

[Seance]

agreed

 

[stefan86]

it's all about how it's used in the music. if they band/artists brings something interesting to the table within the theme it can add to the music, if it's just random preaching it does the opposite

 

[angelofdeath9308]

listen to the band Deliverance

 

[derbeder]

most metal lyrics are horrible and this includes religious-themed ones as well. fortunately there are a couple exceptions. the lyrics in the last two deathspell omega albums don't annoy me for instance. ulver had the good idea of using rimbaud and blake for lyrics. so one can either write decent meaningful lyrics on these subjects or set good poems to music.

 

[Scourge of God]

There are good lyrics and bad lyrics of all stripes. I think something gets lost in the literalism of most fans' interpretations, they see 'hellfire' on the surface of Morbid Angel but not the metaphorical critque beneath.

 

[Braighs]

Repeating the same fuew words does not mean you are "deeply involved", it means you have nothing worthwile to say.
na na na
holy holy holy
fuck fuck fuck
its all the same.

 

[i aint play this]

I kind of see myself agreeing with Stefan. Dont' really have a problem with satanist lyrics, or lyrics in general lol. It is quite obvious that the satanist subject can get totally over the top and comical like Deicide, even though i usually support almost anything that goes against the hypocrisy of christianity. As for Morbid Angel lyrics, i think that they are pretty cool for the most part, Trey himself explained that they are metaphors, if you really pay attention and read between the lines you will realize that a lot of them are nihilistic statements, often dealing with spirituality, about being above humanity's futility and giving meaning to the things in life that you believe in, etc. Not that bad iyam.
But yeah it can get a bit annoying if you only say shit like ''fuck Jesus, hail satan'' all the time, it gets too preachy, lame, and childish. I enjoy these kind of lyrics if they are well written and thought provoking...and that just doesn't happen all the time, metal lyrics tend to be plain embarassing in most of the cases. It would be pretty cool if extreme metal bands followed the example of Death or Meshuggah...i personally enjoy their lyrics.

 

[S<issors]

It would be pretty cool if extreme metal bands followed the example of Death or Meshuggah...i personally enjoy their lyrics.

Yes.

 

[Scourge of God]

I'll take the latinate sophistication of Slayer over the whiny, obvious 'social commentary' of AIDS Chucky any day.

 

[derbeder]

tom araya says:
you bet i'm sophisticated

 

[Slayer101]

lol

 

[i aint play this]

I'll take the latinate sophistication of Slayer over the whiny, obvious 'social commentary' of AIDS Chucky any day.

lol @ aids Chucky

Btw, i enjoy some Slayer's lyrics too

 

[stefan86]

I kind of see myself agreeing with Stefan. Dont' really have a problem with satanist lyrics, or lyrics in general lol. It is quite obvious that the satanist subject can get totally over the top and comical like Deicide, even though i usually support almost anything that goes against the hypocrisy of christianity. As for Morbid Angel lyrics, i think that they are pretty cool for the most part, Trey himself explained that they are metaphors, if you really pay attention and read between the lines you will realize that a lot of them are nihilistic statements, often dealing with spirituality, about being above humanity's futility and giving meaning to the things in life that you believe in, etc. Not that bad iyam.
But yeah it can get a bit annoying if you only say shit like ''fuck Jesus, hail satan'' all the time, it gets too preachy, lame, and childish. I enjoy these kind of lyrics if they are well written and thought provoking...and that just doesn't happen all the time, metal lyrics tend to be plain embarassing in most of the cases. It would be pretty cool if extreme metal bands followed the example of Death or Meshuggah...i personally enjoy their lyrics.

Yeah this was about what I wanted to say, only I didn't have the energy to type it out hehe. An aggressive band can benefit a lot from having a deeper dark side to it. Dark philosophy and thoughts on life as a whole very much outshines mindless gore, aggression and bashing. Of course the two can be molded together as well.

While stuff like Deicide is fun to listen to, I could never take it seriously. I don't see why more Death Metal bands don't throwselves (without turning too political) into writing more in depth about human life. Death very much had that going with quite provoking songs like 1.000 Eyes, Altering The Future etc.

 

[Seance]

tom araya says:
you bet i'm sophisticated

lmfaooo

 

[stefan86]

lol @ aids Chucky

Btw, i enjoy some Slayer's lyrics too

Yeah, Slayer's 80s stuff is pretty well written. The jumpdafuckapp lyrics on the two latest are though

 

[Towedwart]

Bands should be able to write whatever kind of lyrics they want even if it consists of "We worship satan, and if you don't you are teh lamez." If you think a band is too preachy or you wish they didn't sing about god, satan, allah, whatever, then stop listening to it. Goes for any type of music. Now, as for whether or not it shows a lack of artistic abilities... well, tons of bands have pretty lame lyrics. The overtly satanist or christian bands are no exception.

 

[S<issors]

My main problem is that overtly religious bands tend to have a sort of "this can compensate for lack of songwriting!" attitude. Obviously not *all* of them- we're working in generalizations.

 

[i aint play this]

^Yeah, it is pretty awful when it gets to that point

 

[Towedwart]

Oh, I know how bad the Christian music industry is. I grew up only being allowed to listen to Christian music. There's a definite lack of creative energy. Everything they make in mainstream contemporary Christian music is years behind secular music and about 1/3 as good as what was done before. The fringe artists that get little to no support from the CCM industry, bands like Extol, Zao, mewithoutYou, and others of the "harder" genres are pretty hit and miss in terms of musical creativity. It's a pretty sure thing that a lot of them abuse the fact that they are Christian which means they have a pre-determined niche in the music marketplace, so as you said, S<issors, they don't have to be good musicians because they can just wave the banner of Jesus and people will buy their CDs.