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Metal Music as Philosophy

MountainDwarf February 20, 2018 at 02:08 6050 views 11 comments
https://www.wikihow.com/Write-Metal-Song-Lyrics

Above is an article on how to write metal lyrics. Metal began, according to the wikihow article, as a way to protest the Vietnam war. The topic list in step number two I would think would resonate with many a philosopher's mind. We look at step three and it becomes very obvious that metal has a philosophical nature.

What are your thoughts about Metal now that you've read all this?

Comments (11)

Noble Dust February 20, 2018 at 02:45 #154942
This is amazing
Sir2u February 20, 2018 at 03:09 #154945
Most musics is philosophical in some way.

Some glories the good of a culture, some protests the bad. And some just makes the makers and fans more stupid.
Thorongil February 20, 2018 at 03:57 #154971
As a composer of both metal and lyrics, I often incorporate philosophical themes and ideas, though not always self-consciously. However, as song lyrics are a form of poetry, and poetry is not the same thing as philosophy, I cannot agree that metal lyrics are a form of philosophy.

By the way, conforming to a prearranged list of topics and instructions from a WikiHow page is not very "metal." Most metalheads I know, including myself, would laugh at such a thing. Compose what you want, conventions be damned.
MountainDwarf September 21, 2018 at 20:54 #214086
Quoting Thorongil
By the way, conforming to a prearranged list of topics and instructions from a WikiHow page is not very "metal." Most metalheads I know, including myself, would laugh at such a thing.


You know, in a way you're right. I'm not sure that metal focuses only on negative aspects of existence, true. I think that it's just to get the ball rolling as like a beginners guide. They do make the distinction between what society says about such and such a topic and what you believe. Call me a conformist, but I think if you take away the list of topics it does inspire you to think differently.
Snakes Alive September 22, 2018 at 06:28 #214153
One of my favorite strands in metal lyrics is the paranoia over immanent nuclear destruction. It's died down in recent years, but it was great.

MountainDwarf September 28, 2018 at 02:12 #215862
Reply to Snakes Alive I personally love the nu metal scene. My first classic metal album was ride the lightning. Do you consider AC/DC to be metal? Cause I know some would debate that.
deletedmemberZKT May 29, 2021 at 15:45 #543791
Reply to MountainDwarf

AC/DC would be classified as “hard rock” and not in any subgenre of metal. Hard rock’s musical influences come from blues, its main musical components include blues and normally have much more coherent singing. There is a grey area with Black Sabbath which could be categorized as either depending on the song.

Jack Cummins May 29, 2021 at 16:04 #543806
Reply to Zazie Kanwar-Torge
I think this is a really old thread you have dug up but I quite like it because I have some kind of liking for metal music, although not as much as I used to. I have kept Ă  lot of the albums which I have, but don't listen to them that often because I think that they are probably not too healthy to listen to, personally and for any underlying ideas, such as Nazism, although I try not to interpret music too concretely. I think one of the darkest albums which I came across was Metallica's 'Hardwired to Self Destruct'. I bought it but, somehow, I felt that I should not go into that territory.

However, one album which stands for me is Slipknot's, 'When All Hope is Gone', as well as Korn's 'Issues' I do have some Marilyn Manson, but the one that I think works best is 'Mechanical Animals.' I also really like HIM and the crossover into goth. Also, I like hardcover and emo, especially My Chemical Romance.

I think that many people see metal music as negative, but I feel that it can be a way of transmuting the negative. I used to go to see live metal bands and even a metal music festival. I found the experience, including the moshpit, to be exhilarating, as a philosophy of integrating the negative, rather than projecting it outwards.
deletedmemberZKT May 29, 2021 at 16:12 #543815
Reply to Jack Cummins Just that one microgenre of black metal "NSBM" has nazi tendencies.
Jack Cummins May 29, 2021 at 16:19 #543819
Reply to Zazie Kanwar-Torge
I do agree that emo is the pop end of metal. But, what I think is interesting is that Andrew Lloyd Webber has praised and ranked My Chemical Romance's 'My Black Parade' album. I also see Marilyn Manson as an important postmodern artist, and I think that a lot of the painting and art on his album covers are done by him. I also read his autobiography and it shows the depth of his own reflection.
hypericin May 29, 2021 at 20:39 #543967
Reply to Snakes Alive
Hell of an album