Death Metal—What’s the Message?
A WILD-EYED, long-haired young man stands before an audience of cheering, chanting fans. He takes a bucketful of animal blood and entrails and dumps it over the first few rows. The fans laugh, wipe the stuff on themselves, and throw chunks at one another. This scene, according to Florida’s St. Petersburg Times, took place at a rock concert by a band called Deicide, which means ‘the killing of a god.’ This kind of music is called death metal, supposedly the most extreme form of heavy-metal rock. In recent years it has become more popular in Florida and internationally, ever since the success of an album entitled Scream Bloody Gore, by a band called Death.
The band Deicide is led by an avowed Satanist who claims to have hated God ever since a car accident left him with a J-shaped scar, which he is certain stands for either Jesus or Jehovah. He claims to hear voices urging him to kill himself, and he has burned a satanic symbol into his own forehead.
Even the more mainstream heavy-metal groups purvey messages that are hardly less grotesque. Time magazine reported that the two record albums by the heavy-metal group Guns N’ Roses sold over 1.5 million copies in three days. Yet, the albums continue what Time calls the band’s “unrelentingly sexist and uncompromisingly violent lyrics” and “their forays into xenophobia, racism and sadomasochism.” They also feature such themes as oral sex, homicide, and a profusion of profanities. Several chains of stores have refused to sell the records.
Heavy-metal rock, as well as some rap music, has come under increasing fire of late—and not only from religious fundamentalists and ultraconservative political groups; the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Academy of Pediatrics have also spoken out against the underlying dangers of the lyrics in both styles of music. According to American Health magazine, the AMA stated: “The messages portrayed by certain types of rock music may present a real threat to the physical health and emotional well-being of especially vulnerable children and adolescents.”
Are these types of music really dangerous? Well, consider the six common rap and heavy-metal themes that the AMA deems potentially hazardous: drug and alcohol abuse, suicide, violence, satanic worship, sexual exploitation, and racism. Can such themes be upbuilding?—Compare Proverbs 6:27, 28; Philippians 4:8.