(Sub) Genres defined by lyrics?

[Ellestin]

Is that shIT legIT?

 

[einride]

Is that shIT legIT?

it's so cool, it's so hip, it's alright, it's so groovy, it's outta sight

 

[SonOfNun]

i don't buy it

i mean if you want to claim that a band who had a huge inverted cross in the gatefold of their first album, and who fully embodied the rock n roll hedonist lifestyle by drinking and fucking and smoking anything they could get their hands on, is a band "deeply influenced by christian spirituality and ethics" just because they also did "after forever" in some drug-fueled haze and wore big ass crucifixes around their necks, then be my guest, but that's a pretty small straw you're clutching at there imo

to me, it's all just for show and means nothing, either when they flirt with satan or god. it's imagery to help communicate the horror and doom and gloom and victorian graveyard atmosphere. this is what all the other doom bands hung on to.

the cross around the neck in the stock graveyard doom metal band photo is fashion. it means nothing to most of these people. it's like when rob halford brought leather from the underground london gay scene to heavy metal and everyone started copying judas priest. am i gay because i wear a leather biker jacket?

black sabbath predates metal formulating a well-defined ideological backdrop, but even then it came from rock 'n' roll and the blues which were clearly seen at the time as antithetical to and rebelling against christian values. christians weren't wrong when they were burning elvis presley records. rock'n'roll *DID* symbolize and embody the downfall of christian morals. was elvis a christian? so he would claim, but he did the devil's work.

Members of Sabbath have stated in interviews that the inverted cross was chosen by someone at the label without their knowledge and consent. The band didn't like it and thought it was unrepresentative of them and was in bad taste. Bill Ward said they were given the crosses they wore by Ozzy's father and they were seen as having some sort of protective role rather than a fashion one.* Tony Iommi considers himself a Catholic to this day and Geezer Butler has stated they all believe in God. There's no doubt that they had a complicated relationship with what they might call "organized religion" and were sometimes antagonistic to it, but they still believed in God and were not proponents of evil (which is a pretty common story for boomers). The song "Black Sabbath" is a clear warning against the occult/black magic/evil.* "After Forever" was intended to be a Christian song. When Geezer presented it to his bandmates he said "They rather liked it. We were all brought up Christian. We all believe in God."* Their whole apocalyptic worldview was influenced by Christianity and you can see this on other songs such as "Lord of This World," "Into the Void," and "Electric Funeral." Despite their complicated relationship with "organized religion," a lot of their image and early lyrical themes are just dripping with the Catholic spiritual and social teaching that at least Iommi and Butler were raised in. I'm not arguing that they were all upstanding, practicing Christians, but I think we can say they all believe in God, love, and life and oppose evil (the devil), hatred, and death and their lyrical themes reflect that.

While there may be some Doom bands that wear crosses for fashion, there are others (including some of the most important ones) that did so because they are actually Christians. Trouble and Saint Vitus took the template laid down by Sabbath seriously (and not just in the musical sense):



Prayer for the (M)asses (Hallow's Victim, 1985)

"Everybody wants to know
Where you get off
Thinking that you're bad because
You praise the dogs
Satan's evil you had
Better stay away
Or else with your stupid soul
You will have to pay

You wear your crosses upside-down
It shows that you're a fool
You don't realize
What he's got in store for you

The flames of hell
Burn eternally
They never die
You must think it will be fun
To forever fry

You scorn the good book laugh at me
Say I am an ass
But I'll have the final chuckle
When judgement's passed
I may not rise right away
I am not that pure
But I know I won't follow you
And that is for sure

Prayer for the masses
Pray for their asses"

Trouble (Psalm 9, 1984)

Revelation (Life or Death)

"Troubled is the world
Evil in the air
God is here to help
When Satan casts despair
Beast upon the earth
Christians dying
Satan says, "trust me"
He was only lying
Poor souls of earth
In hates desire
Eternal death
In the lake of fire

We don't need no sympathy
From those of you who'll live
We believe in dying
For things that God will give

Lucifer will rule the earth
Seven years of death
God will grant eternal life
For all of you we pray"

The Fall of Lucifer

"Lucifer, the angel of light
Wanted power, and chose to fight
Lord God, the creator of all
Is the power, met his final call

Choose the way that's in your heart
Conquer all the hate
You need all the love God brings
Don't fall in the hands of fate

Now the dragon, so he is called
Went to battle like fire he crawled
Lord God, mighty sword in hand
Slayed the dragon, will this ever end

Choose the way that's in your heart
Conquer all the hate
You need all the love God brings
Don't fall in the hands of fate

God's throne which was never done
Good must come at any cost
Lucifer, now the wicked Satan
Lives in fire, hate you, yes he can

Cast down from heaven
Thou hath been beaten O Lucifer
With all thy followers of sin
You shall die in flames of the fire

So you think that you believe
Satan just laughing in your face
Join hands give praise to the Lord
Be saved, O will you not be saved"

I could also quote Solitude Aeturnus, Count Raven, etc. If Black Sabbath represent the foundation of Heavy Metal and Doom is the closest approximation of early Sabbath (in both music and message), I think one can make the case that satanic messages in Heavy Metal are actually an inversion of the original messages of the genre.

*https://www.loudersound.com/news/bill-ward-black-sabbath-inverted-cross-was-a-promotional-ploy
*https://dangerousminds.net/comments/black_sabbath_in_1970_black_magic_is_not_our_scene
*https://www.salon.com/2015/06/14/we...he_gospel_according_to_black_sabbath_partner/

i think metal-archives now thinks that "pagan black metal"/"pagan metal" is a musical genre and implies more than just philosophy. i think this is a mistake because it will inevitably lead to the following:

genre: pagan metal
lyrical themes: christianity

and i think even you will agree that is nonsense. pagan means something. it means that you subscribe to a certain spectrum of world-views and it is antithetical to christianity. you're can be either pagan or christian, you cannot be both.

this is the same mistake they did in the 80's when they called black metal black metal instead of satanic metal. if it was still called "satanic metal" then folks would have to call their bands "christian satanic metal"

Why "even" me? I actually agree with you on almost everything you've said about genre categorizations. I don't even argue against your articulation of Black Metal as both a musical and ideological (satanic) genre. I think that Horde (Jayson Sherlock) should actually be given some respect for taking Black Metal ideology seriously and calling his music "Unblack Metal." In fact, Unblack Metal might be the only sub-genre that can be marked as a real and uniquely Christian sub-genre because it does the same thing Pagan Metal does (take Black Metal music and change the ideology).

 

[einride]

so listen, i had another wall of text written but i don't really care to debate the finer points of black sabbath's lyrics about rockets flying off into space or why you conveniently forget that "N.I.B." and "under the sun" are also black sabbath songs that exist

how about this

let's talk less about personal faith and more about judeo-christian morality, because you're evading my main point: it's all still rock'n'roll, and rock'n'roll is the counter-culture of youth rebelling against christian morals re: sexuality, hierarchy, etc. and then metal is an even more extreme and dark version of rock'n'roll. where is the christ in this?

so metal is counter-culture against organized religion and judeo-christian morality to begin with, and then in the 80's it was firmly cemented by a million bands that metal was not only bound to an intrinsic rejection of christian morals by its roots, but actually actively in opposition to it. that saint vitus and trouble (who absolutely was an explicitely christian band at the time, no argument there) wrote some overtly christian songs in like 1985 is really a nothingburger in terms of the overall trajectory and ideology of heavy metal. this was already post bathory and barely a year or so before GHOULS ATTACK THE CHURCH CRUSH THE HOLY PRIEST TURN THE CROSS TOWARDS HELL WRITHE IN SATAN'S FLAMES. i mean, it's 1985 for crying out loud. metal's pretty much done already.

so even if ozzy osbourne "believes in god" (so he says, while spending thirty years fucking groupies and shooting cocaine up his ass, but okay, let's say he's a christian for the sake of argument) he's still a performer of music which exists as rebellion against christian morals and so i don't understand why christians would even want him on their team.


edit: i cut out some of the angry bits because i don't wanna be that guy and maybe i don't actually think it's correct to hold some guy on a metal forum responsible for all the historical wrongdoings of christianity

 

[SonOfNun]

let's talk less about personal faith and more about judeo-christian morality, because you're evading my main point: it's all still rock'n'roll, and rock'n'roll is the counter-culture of youth rebelling against christian morals re: sexuality, hierarchy, etc. and then metal is an even more extreme and dark version of rock'n'roll. where is the christ in this?

so even if ozzy osbourne "believes in god" (so he says, while spending thirty years fucking groupies and shooting cocaine up his ass, but okay, let's say he's a christian for the sake of argument) he's still a performer of music which exists as rebellion against christian morals and so i don't understand why christians would even want him on their team.

That's because I think this gets us away from specifics and into abstractions and generalizations that neither of us is qualified to make because I don't think we're that well-versed in the origins of rock and roll or early 20th century American culture. I just don't buy this generalization that rock and roll was created with this intrinsic opposition to religion. That was the argument made by pearl clutching white suburban moms many years after the genre originated. Rock and roll has origins in country and gospel (with Pentecostalism being particularly important) among other things. How far back are we willing to go? To the 30s and 40s when many early rock and roll songs had gospel lyrics like ""If Satan starts to hound you, commence to rock and roll?" Rejection of Christianity in any meaningful sense is not foundational to rock and roll. Obviously there were or would come to be sexually suggestive lyrics, but I've heard antebellum music that is bawdier than 50s rock and roll (and you could probably go further back than that). This hardly constitutes a rejection of Christianity or a springboard for satanic messages. There's just really not much that is unique about early rock and roll in this regard to make those connections. I think we have to be more precise about what exactly transpired later on and that's what I've tried to do in this thread. In any case, I don't think this is something that we are going to agree on.

edit: i cut out some of the angry bits because i don't wanna be that guy and maybe i don't actually think it's correct to hold some guy on a metal forum responsible for all the historical wrongdoings of christianity

I appreciate that. I don't actually think we are speaking much about the same Christianity either historically or theologically so a little nuance and forbearance goes a long way.