Episode #4 - 3/26/10

Jesse's out of town this week for Spring Break, so I thought I might take this opportunity to play a setlist that I've had in my back pocket for some time. The list is, in a way, about the history of Heavy Metal. Or perhaps more appropriately, about the stigma surrounding heavy metal. This week's setlist is about suicide. That and the relationship that heavy metal music and specifically the stigma surrounding heavy metal have with self-destruction. Indeed, of the songs on the list, only a few actually concern suicide directly. The rest either use suicide as a (perhaps reductive) metaphor for a number of things (war, religion, life, death, substance abuse), describe historical events (e.g Jonestown cult), and/or actually are only commonly mistaken for having anything to do with suicide whatsoever. That this last category exists has been the greatest instrument in the creation of metal's dangerous stigma. Indeed, the Ozzy and Priest songs were both subject to landmark court cases in which case the "offending" artists were respectively sued for responsibility of the suicides of young men. Much as the PMRC's insistence that metal and hard rock were corrupting America's youth led to the Explicit Lyrics stickers that have so accelerated record sales, heavy metal music, despite its naturally dark atmosphere and serious content, has gained most of its reputation from those ignorant enough to label it as such. Metal was never Satanic before the religious said it was.

Metal music's content tends more towards both the philosophical and the vulgar than much of today's mainstream music, but I think for the most part, the genre's best work gravitates around the former. Perhaps this has greatly to do with metal's attitude of "no boundaries", "pushing the envelope", and about connecting with listeners in a very deep, personal way, particularly with the uglier sides of life. Hence, much metal is about struggle, life, death, war, hatred, religion, blasphemy, and any number of topics, simply because they're deeply important, deeply connecting elements of the human race and merit discussion. I could go on about how the "metal
concert" is akin to the primal human gathering and is, in itself, a great release for its listeners, through moshing, crowd-surfing, motion, or simply reveling in a unity of spirit (and admittedly, I just did), but this might distract from today's theme.

The following are all excellent songs (Spooky Tooth aside), but you won't find suicide among them outside of metaphor, misattribution, or hyperbolic extension.

Opening Sample from Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire"
In Flames - Take This Life

Ozzy Osbourne - Suicide Solution
Judas Priest - Better By You, Better Than Me (Spooky Tooth cover)

Megadeth - A Tout Le Monde
Pain - Suicide Machine (Cut short by technical difficulties)

Sentenced - The Suicider
Sentenced - Excuse Me While I Kill Myself

Metallica - One

Black Label Society - Suicide Messiah
Nightmare - Battleground for Suicide

Manowar - Guyana (Cult of the Damned)

This show is archived for your perusal/amusement/deal-with-it at:
http://wmbr.org/m3u/Heavy_FM_20100326_0200.m3u

As always, archives are located here:
http://wmbr.mit.edu/cgi-bin/arch