Metal Music and the Loss of Faith

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_madeleine
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Re: Metal Music and the Loss of Faith

Post by _madeleine »

ludwigm wrote:
madeleine wrote:Are y'all Puritans?
No, I am not.


Here is one of my favourite musics - and its background:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvezKgSIJiM

... and in a more modern - someway caricaturistic - version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aq2hem5DJ4

The last minutes of those musics are pure metal - I think it was in 1859.
I watched it first when I was 5 yo. You can say I was indoctrinated.

Warning!!!
The videos are not compatible with Mormon dress code (no ballets are, by the way).
Don't answer if You (all) didn't watch the whole video - at least the first one!


Wow, that first video is amazing. You saw Ekatarina Maximova?

Like many good Mormon girls I had classic piano lessons when I was growing up. I don't play any more, but Mozart and Black Sabbath have a similar appeal to me. :)

The sad thing is, there is no cultural instruction behind what I was learning. For example, I was cranking loud Mozart's requiem, without any clue whatsoever a) what they were singing, b) why and c) the cultural/religious context. I just liked the music. I was stunned when I heard a Catholic choir sing Kyrie Eleison. I was shaking my head for weeks over my ignorance.

Then the other day I heard this on the radio. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNKbHJ3PTu4

Good Lord, I had no idea what this song was about when it was popular, and I was singing along!
Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction -Pope Benedict XVI
_selek
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Re: Metal Music and the Loss of Faith

Post by _selek »

Headbanger salute to you, Nightlion!

}=-
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_Bret Ripley
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Re: Metal Music and the Loss of Faith

Post by _Bret Ripley »

madeleine wrote:Then the other day I heard this on the radio. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNKbHJ3PTu4

Good Lord, I had no idea what this song was about when it was popular, and I was singing along!
First time I heard that song I thought the chorus was "Carry a laser gun (something something ...)"
_madeleine
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Re: Metal Music and the Loss of Faith

Post by _madeleine »

Bret Ripley wrote:
madeleine wrote:Then the other day I heard this on the radio. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNKbHJ3PTu4

Good Lord, I had no idea what this song was about when it was popular, and I was singing along!
First time I heard that song I thought the chorus was "Carry a laser gun (something something ...)"


Me too! Apparently, I can't hear lyrics very well. I was telling my husband when the choir is at Mass, Mass goes longer. He asked why, and I said, well, take the Kyrie, when we sing it without the choir, Kyrie Eleison, Christe Eleison...three times, done. With the choir, it's Kyyyyyy riiiiiiiii aaaaaaayyyyyyyyy Eyyyyyyyyy layyyyyyyyyyyyy sonnnnnn. Takes like five minutes. lol. And he immediatedly says, "wasn't there a pop song in the 80's with those lyrics"?

:confused: :lol:
Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction -Pope Benedict XVI
_Blixa
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Re: Metal Music and the Loss of Faith

Post by _Blixa »

madeleine wrote:Are y'all Puritans?

I went through a long NIN phase, until a friend pointed out it was despairing. Which, is probably why I liked it. But then I went through a phase where I was anti-despair.


Not Puritans, just genre nerds. NIN is not metal in my book. But push back to industrial's genesis and you've got Einstürzende Neubauten. Love, love, love those guys. The proof is in my screen name.
From the Ernest L. Wilkinson Diaries: "ELW dreams he's spattered w/ grease. Hundreds steal his greasy pants."
_huckelberry
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Re: Metal Music and the Loss of Faith

Post by _huckelberry »

Blixa wrote:I doubt it. I suspect it has more to do with youth subcultures and the formation of early identity. I don't think it changes or affects much at the core of an individual. I could be wrong; there is something to be said about how the mass concert experience works to produce collective identities of all kinds.

I don't think "Satanic" metal music has a deep impact on most, however, some of the subgenres like Norwegian and Swedish black metal (which If I recall correctly are rival and opposing groups) has motivated a search for pagan worship---something not entirely the same thing as Devil worship (though there are those juvenile church burnings).

Blixa,
Yesterday I was having a discussion about Sweden with my younger brother. He lived in Sweden for a year while in high school, 1972 . He picked up an interest there with pagan parts of culture .His impression was Christian belief was very limited and at least some interest in Pagan cultural background was alive. If so Black metal would be relating to an ongoing interest. An image which stuck in his mind was cultural blandness and uniformity in many outward aspects of life. People kept areas of custom where they could release from the sober uniformity. Strong emotions keep their own place for release. It is like a contrast between winter Bergman darkness and mid summer enthusiastic release.

I have no familiarity with black metal but checking the internet the image I found seemed in part to me to be like these characteristics under great amplification.

It might be really difficult to claim a particular music will have a predictable effect. After all Helter Skelter meant some thing different to Charlie Manson than it did to most other listeners. (is the song one of many progenitors of metal music ?)

One person might hear a song as a holloween party. Another person might decide it is better to take the imagery with deadly seriousness. Church burning does not seem quite in the same category of juvenile as tp the neighbors front yard..
_Blixa
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Re: Metal Music and the Loss of Faith

Post by _Blixa »

huckelberry wrote:
Blixa wrote:I doubt it. I suspect it has more to do with youth subcultures and the formation of early identity. I don't think it changes or affects much at the core of an individual. I could be wrong; there is something to be said about how the mass concert experience works to produce collective identities of all kinds.

I don't think "Satanic" metal music has a deep impact on most, however, some of the subgenres like Norwegian and Swedish black metal (which If I recall correctly are rival and opposing groups) has motivated a search for pagan worship---something not entirely the same thing as Devil worship (though there are those juvenile church burnings).

Blixa,
Yesterday I was having a discussion about Sweden with my younger brother. He lived in Sweden for a year while in high school, 1972 . He picked up an interest there with pagan parts of culture .His impression was Christian belief was very limited and at least some interest in Pagan cultural background was alive. If so Black metal would be relating to an ongoing interest. An image which stuck in his mind was cultural blandness and uniformity in many outward aspects of life. People kept areas of custom where they could release from the sober uniformity. Strong emotions keep their own place for release. It is like a contrast between winter Bergman darkness and mid summer enthusiastic release.

I have no familiarity with black metal but checking the internet the image I found seemed in part to me to be like these characteristics under great amplification.

It might be really difficult to claim a particular music will have a predictable effect. After all Helter Skelter meant some thing different to Charlie Manson than it did to most other listeners. (is the song one of many progenitors of metal music ?)

One person might hear a song as a holloween party. Another person might decide it is better to take the imagery with deadly seriousness. Church burning does not seem quite in the same category of juvenile as tp the neighbors front yard..


You're right. I was unclear how to connect the (at least as reported) black metal influenced church burnings to the overall meaning of the subculture. "Juvenile" was a compromise; I wanted to neither endorse nor condemn, and I chose a poor compromise word. I should have explained further: I suspect, from the limited bits I know, that scandinavian black metal, in all its various national permutations, is more about seeking pagan origins than "devil worship." From that angle, striking out against Christian symbols (churches) is much more like a kind of cultural/political resistance to a colonizer, than it is an embrace of anything "Satanic." That said, I would favor symbolic attacks on symbols over the burning of structures which could endanger human life.
From the Ernest L. Wilkinson Diaries: "ELW dreams he's spattered w/ grease. Hundreds steal his greasy pants."
_honorentheos
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Re: Metal Music and the Loss of Faith

Post by _honorentheos »

My first Pearl Jam concert contributed to my loss of faith, though it took many years.

I had what can only be described as a religious experience there that was so elevating only one church-related experience of the many I've had could compare. I thought about that for years as an active member, wondering why or how this could happen? Some of the answers I found and even accepted for a while are kin to Nightlion's OP. But that didn't stand up when I really thought about it deeply. It was a sense of pure love, of oneness with everyone in a stadium too large to be able to know even a small percentage of those present. It was deifying and made me want to be a better person by exposing me to that better side of myself already there inside. It was everything good, beautiful, and true that I could aspire to be part of.

Because I could no more deny this experience than any of my church-based ones, it ended up contributing to my leaving. One of the hardest parts of leaving for me was getting over the Mormon-defined experiences of feeling the church was true. Of feeling the Book of Mormon was of God. Of feeling that the priesthood had been restored to the earth, that I was part of an eternal family. This experience outside of the accepted settings for when spiritual experiences should occur forced me to be critical of these experiences in a way I may not have been able to have been without it. Once I rejected the metaphysical "Mormon" narrative of "why" these feelings happened, I could make sense of this experience even if I won't say I consider it easy to explain from a biological or "rational" perspective either. But whatever it is, it's germ is in the essense of what it means to be human and alive.

I understand why religious minded people see something imitative and evil in secular music. In some ways I can see how it's one of many ways religious socializing seeks to tame the primitive in us. And music does get to the primitive inside of us. That's not always good, either. But it's real. I'm all for real these days.
The world is always full of the sound of waves..but who knows the heart of the sea, a hundred feet down? Who knows it's depth?
~ Eiji Yoshikawa
_huckelberry
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Re: Metal Music and the Loss of Faith

Post by _huckelberry »

"You will find me if you want me in the garden
unless it's pouring down with rain
You will find me waiting through sping and summer
You will find me waiting waiting for the fall
You will find me waiting for the apples to riped
You will find me waiting for them to fall"

Blixa,this does not sound as if its black metal you are favoring. Being completely unfamiliar with your group I checked a lyrics site found this quote .

This sounds a better foundation for rejecting Christian imperialism than Viking battle axes. The Viking spasm of bloodletting was a bit imperial itself.
_Blixa
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Re: Metal Music and the Loss of Faith

Post by _Blixa »

huckelberry wrote:"You will find me if you want me in the garden
unless it's pouring down with rain
You will find me waiting through sping and summer
You will find me waiting waiting for the fall
You will find me waiting for the apples to riped
You will find me waiting for them to fall"

Blixa,this does not sound as if its black metal you are favoring. Being completely unfamiliar with your group I checked a lyrics site found this quote .

This sounds a better foundation for rejecting Christian imperialism than Viking battle axes. The Viking spasm of bloodletting was a bit imperial itself.



Oh I agree Neubauten are nothing close to black metal or, I would argue "metal" itself. The (arguable) originators of industrial music, they are on the same family tree as madeline's NIN---which is industrial after it leaves the junkyard and sets up shop in the studio.

Some of my favorites:

Kollaps

Yu-Gung (a remix, but good)

Haus Der Lüge

Image

All my lovlies!
From the Ernest L. Wilkinson Diaries: "ELW dreams he's spattered w/ grease. Hundreds steal his greasy pants."
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