Rock and Roll...You Devil You

Lately I have come across several articles pointing out the ‘evil’ in rock and roll. Most of these seemed to refer to songs in heavy metal as a subgroup of rock. For example, this quote was taken from a church supported website: “Today, at almost any "heavy-metal'' rock concert one can hear the audience being exhorted to rape and murder in the name of Satan” (Phau). The article goes on to back up this statement with the following lyrics from the song “Demons” by Rigor Mortis:

"We come bursting through your bodies
Rape your helpless soul
Transform you into a creature
Merciless and cold
We force you to kill your brother
Eat his blood and brain
Shredding flesh and sucking bone
Till everyone's insane
We are pestilent and contaminate
The world Demonic legions prevail"

This is one of the most extreme examples that I encountered, however it sums up the possible magnitude of evil messages in rock music that todays generations are listening to.

So is it just heavy metal that conveys these types of messages? Not according to my research. I came across this quote from rock star, David Bowie in taken from Rolling Stone magazine:

"Rock has always been THE DEVIL'S MUSIC . . . I believe rock and roll is dangerous . . . I feel we're only heralding SOMETHING EVEN DARKER THAN OURSELVES." (Rolling Stone, Feb. 12, 1976 quoted in Watkins 1995).

So even rock artists themselves, admit to the genre having an evil side to it. Perhaps no one does this more than, Marilyn Manson, who is widely known for his anti-christ views. But we will save this for another discussion.

There is no question that the rock genre seems to bring out the naughty or ‘dark side’ of artists and listeners alike. The genre has produced one of the most well known cliches: “Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll.” But does all rock have this underlying evil? I don’t think all rock artists and music is this however we certainly see through listening and watching, that rock has a tendancy to lean toward the ‘dark side’.

So how is this affecting rock music listeners? Well rock is on T.V. in music videos, on radio stations and of course has it’s own fashion sense, so we as consumers would be hard pressed to avoid it. So what do we do? The same thing we do when deciding how to eat...that is, think critically about how it will affect us. If we allow ourselves to eat unhealthy food for long periods of time, gradually we become fat, similarly if we allow ourselves to listen to satanic music and be sent evil messages through it, gradually it may start to affect us.

In the end, the decision is ours. Do we let bad messages rot our brain like candy rots our teeth?

References:

Phau, D. 2000, The Satanic Roots of Rock, Dial-the-Truth Ministries, viewed 1 June 2009, http://www.av1611.org/othpubls/roots.html.

Watkins, T. 1995, Rock Music: Devil’s Advocat, Dial-the-Truth Ministries, viewed 1 June 2009, http://www.av1611.org/rock.html.