I think that most people who know me knows that I love music of many kinds. I like listening to music and I did actually use to play music in my teens (although I was never anywhere close to being a virtuoso by any means). With that said, I usually don’t delve that deep into the structure and composition of the music or philosophise about / analyse the meaning of the lyrics that much. I can fully appreciate that doing so may increase the whole experience for some, but it’s just something that I don’t do very often.
One of the music genres that I have been into, of varying degree, since my early teens is Death Metal. I know that it’s definitely a genre that is not for everyone. However, I do think it is sad that the whole genre (and variations thereof) is discounted by so many as being “just growling and mindless noise” and that the genre is solely based on “evil” and shock value. On the whole though, a significant number of artists in this genre of music are excellent musicians and lyricists. Many of them are probably even better musicians than some classically trained orchestra musicians. The lyrics, in many cases, are actually deep and full of meaning. It’s not just gore and killing, but of course I’m not denying that gore and violence is a very common topic in the genre.
I would probably be the worst music critic of all time, because I find it hard to put a finger on why I like and don’t like certain genres, songs or artists. I either like it, or I don’t — I almost never have a way of motivating the reason for my liking or disliking. As with most things, there are exceptions of course… which leads me to what prompted me to ramble on about this subject…
One Death Metal act that I have liked ever since I listened to them for the first time is the band Death (yup, for those not in the know — that is the name of the band). Sadly enough, these dudes are not around anymore, other than in the record collections of their fans, since the singer, guitarist and general backbone of the band passed away a few years back.
A song that perfectly highlights what I mean by death metal, as a genre, actually not being devoid from substance or meaning is the song ‘Spiritual Healing’ from the album of the same name. The lyrics rather perfectly pinpoints some of my feelings towards religion in general.
Always locking the doors to your mind Escaping the reality that surrounds you Using faith as an excuse to kill A sick way of life is now revealed
All the prayers in the world can’t help you now A killer, a taker of life is what you are
Speak no more lies It’s your turn to die
Preach the good word Speak no more, prepare to burn A justified torture? From this may others learn
The life you took, a holy death, a grave mistake No changing your mind, your life you should pay
Practice what you preach Your loved one is now deceased Knowledge is at our hands Never to understand
Spiritual Healing
Blinded by the twisted ways you live Kill for religion, will the lord forgive? Idiocy has stricken your mind A real life hell you will find
Sure is trippy to spend 1500 hours moving Lego® blocks around. Although I must say that judging by the end result, it was 1500 hours well spent. This ranks as one of the coolest videos I’ve ever seen. Ever.
Since everyone is obsessed with the fact that the date 09/09/09 has come and passed I decided to do something special for this day. Since I listened to music (iPhone on shuffle) for a large portion of the day I thought it would be a fun thing to publish a track list of what was flowing through those earbuds.
79 songs, 4h 43m 10s total time, 374.2 MB
#
Title
Artist
Album
1|
God Save the USA
Pennywise
From the Ashes
2|
Martinez
2 Live Crew
Banned in the U.S.A.
3|
Catalogue
TTC
Bâtards Sensibles
4|
Promiscuous
Nelly Furtado
Loose
5|
Rock & Roll Damnation
AC/DC
Powerage
6|
St. Catherine St. [feat. Beans, Mr. Lif, P. Wingerter, Peanut Butter Wolf, and Verna Brown]