Musical evolution, and whatnot. *trigger warning at end*

[Sinister Intents]

I'm partly drunk at the moment, so fuck it. I've been working on how to start a thread specifically on what I hate in death metal music, but it's evolved into a different idea that also encompasses that.

When I was very little I had literally no knowledge of music. I didn't know the band The Who from AC/DC, or Green Day from INXS. I didn't know their was such a thing as pop, electronic, rock, or even metal. I started off listening to the punk and rock my mom would let me listen to like The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Aerosmith, et cetera. I enjoyed it even though I didn't know what I was listening to because of my Asperger's and the other things I had to deal with at a young age. I would ask who this artist was or this song and promptly forget after being told.

My sister then tried to get me into music more and help me develop more of an understanding. She had me listen to stuff like Rise Against, System of a Down, Green Day, and various assorted pop. I didn't really care for the poppier type stuff. I like the punkier and more rock oriented stuff, but I failed to know the difference so I remained confused on what is what. Later I let a former friend of mine in school control my interests in music and he introduced me to stuff like Anthrax, Slayer, Rammstein, and Slipknot. I liked the heavier music and rejected what my sister was listening to. She was listening to The Black Eyed Peas and other pop type stuff I can't remember the names of at all.

I eventually just started to explore music myself and found what I like a lot. I was listening to more Thrash type stuff like Sodom, Kreator, early Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax, Possessed, et cetera. At that time I rejected the sound of death and black metal, I considered it trash based on my sister's opinion and the opinion of others. I still let others bring me to hate the various forms of metal, and I started listening to more electronic, pop and nu-metal. Later I began to listen to Cannibal Corpse out of boredom and the lyrics scared and disturbed the fuck out of me, so I again ignored death metal and its various forms.

I bought the Kataklysm album Heaven's Venom when it came out on a whim and didn't realize it was death metal at the time. I listened to it and thought "This is pretty fucking cool!" I then looked more heavily into melodic death metal similar to Kataklysm and I found bands like Hypocrisy, Arch Enemy, and Kalmah. I began to develop more of an interest in death metal and expanded form there. I started listening to grindcore and thoroughly enjoyed it because it was like punk and I love punk! I then expanded a bit more into the extremes of punk like crust and powerviolence.

Later for some reason I started listening to a lot of older country like the Charlie Daniel's band and Johnny Cash. That quickly died because I let others kill my interests again. I just said fuck it to letting people control me and started listening to more extreme metal like black metal and brutal death metal. I didn't care if I listened to NSBM or slam death metal because I was enjoying the music. Until I read the lyrics... Then I was just horrible disgusted and I started to research the music I was listening to more and developed and nuanced what I was listening to. I deleted all of the Nazi and anti women shit off of my ipod.

I thoroughly fucking hate some brutal death metal and slam death metal because of garbage like this: *trigger*
Gorgasm - Cum Inside the Carcass
OvCawCPV7-Y
lyrics: Dragging... you by the hair. Kicking
and screaming down the stairs. Into
the darkness. I can hardly wait until
I violate your carcass. Begging for
mercy only Intensifies my hunger.
Welcome to my den of torture. It
reeks... of the dead. Now bound upon
my altar... struggling to breathe.
Gagged with the genitalia from the
last slab of meat. Violently cutting the
flesh from your body I penetrate and
then... I kill and cum again. Hacking
and peeling and fucking and feasting
I penetrate and then... I kill and cum
again. Dump the remains in a rotting
heap. I'll shit what's left of you later.
That is just fucking disgusting. Why the fuck would anyone want to listen to music about raping and mutilating women?

Devourment - Fucked to Death
afdeDebZGig
lyrics: I'm sick of looking at these filthy ass fucking slobs
I need some slit to satisfy my dirty cock and if these pigs don't give it up
ill have to get my knife
Or stick a glock to their temple and say "give yourself to me" These urges
are controlling me
I need a **** around my dick
I need fresh blood
The voices tell me to kill

I creep in search of victims for my lustful needs
I find one and stab her repeatedly
Then drag the blood soaked victim deep into the woods I strip her, no' one
hears her screams
I beat her, I smash my fist in her face
Please kill me she says while breathing her last breath
I clutch my blade with all my might, stab her in the fucking guts

Now the fuckin' fun will begin
I slide my hard cock right in
What a feeling it is
to feel her still warm dead skin
Her limp body still bleeds profusely
with my knife I slice her pretty face,
I cant stop laughing.

My blood drenched cock is pounding so hard
It tears up the skin on my dick
Now my blood is mixed in with this fuckin' filthy diseased dead *****
I breathe heavy, mouth is open
By mistake I swallow blood, I have an idea
The blood gave me a jolt of new pleasure (in this blood)
I then take a chunk from her face and tear skin exposing bone (her skin
ripping)
Chunks dripping from my chin
I will eat her **** next

Spread open your legs [x2]
I slide in my wet blade
My dick is so hard my skin is ripping
Her blood sprays in the air like a fountain
Never in my life have I felt such pleasure
My heart is pounding
Killing is what I'm made for

Now I am full, another idea
I must take shit on this fuckin' *****
I let one fly onto her face
I then lean down and kiss this *****
The smell is insane, shit flows in my veins
It matters not, my cock is now hard again
I jerk off with shit on my hands
Lust still fills me, in time ill do this again
Again I must kill again [x4]

I don't consider this fucking metal! This is fucking disgusting!
What are other people's opinions of music that involves the rape, mutilation, torture, and murder of women?

Also please share your evolution in music, and what you love and hate in music.

[motion denied]

Pornogrind and things like that are trying too hard to be edgy. Utter shit.

[Sinister Intents]

Pornogrind and things like that are trying too hard to be edgy. Utter shit.

Indeed, it's utter fucking trash.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Old school country, blues, bluegrass, folk, etc. all of that is pretty cool. I think 'art,' is a reflection of reality. It would only make sense that disgusting stuff would seep into it. Even it's most perverse and sadistic bestial instincts, such as, for example, "cum inside a carcass."

[Per Levy]

i heard way better death metal in my time, but its ok i guess, as for the lyrics yeah they suck but lyrics suck for probaly 90% of all songs anyway.
and why are people listening to this? probally because they like the music and dont care about the lyrics, wich is even easier since death metal grunts are pretty damn difficult to understand that also applies to black metal. since the voice especially in these 2 gengres is instrument as well, just like a guitar or a bass.

as for my musical evolution, i was listening to rock like him and metallica and power metal like hammerfall when i was pretty young, and from then i went more and more extreme in the metal genrge especially black metal wich was totally my thing for many many years. nowadays i listen to a lot of stuff, but i still love black metal a lot and all that.
also for good death metal you might want to check out immolation they are pretty good and you might like the lyrics too.

[Sinister Intents]

^I've listened to a helluva lot of death metal in the last five years :) I love Immolation they're awesome!

[Tenka]

Yeah the lyrics are pretty shitty. It's not the vulgar sexist subject matter that makes them so, either. I never particularly cared for Death Metal apart from some time in my teens when I thought funny = all right and didn't care as much for vocal melodies. At that time I liked a lot of things. You could say I was tasteless. (Now I'm not one of those pretentious dicks who only listens to classical music and Golden Age rock, don't get me wrong...)

[Sabot Cat]

It's a tricky business incorporating darker themes into your art, especially if they can be construed as an endorsement. Although self-appointed moral guardians often use alleged sexism only when it's favorable to put down music by and popular among members of a marginalized minority (i.e. rap), I think the lyrics Sinister Intents points to can justifiably considered misogynistic.

What makes these misogynistic, and not just an exposition on the worse aspects of humanity?

Well, several factors, and to do that I will contrast those songs with Nirvana's Polly.

To quote some parts:



Polly wants a cracker
I think I should get off her first
I think she wants some water
To put out the blow torch


Polly wants a cracker
Maybe she would like more food
She asks me to untie her
A chase would be nice for a few

Polly is about the (true story) of a fourteen year old girl who was kidnapped, tortured and raped near a rocket concert. The entire song is from the perspective of the man who did it. But I don't think one can reasonably conclude that Kurt Cobain is endorsing any of these things.

The music is, to put in not-very-technical terms, mostly sad and somber. The entire song, despite being from the perspective of the rapist, is not devoted to him. It's devoted to Polly, who has her name in the title, and is the person who we learn the most about in terms of feelings. Polly is hungry, thirsty and in pain. By focusing on her pallid conditions, in addition to the downtrodden beat, it's clear that we're supposed to empathize with Polly in a tragic way.

In contrast, the tone of the song by Gorgasm (which sounds like a bad '90s antihero, but I digress) is completely different. By its very genre, it's more triumphant and tries to sweep you into its blood lust through the music. Polly is slow, and obviously wants you to reflect on what's being said and analyze it; this alienates you from any violent passion that the speaker represented in the song might've actually had. In contrast, Gorgasm is trying to threaten the listener or a specific person scorned. Gorgasm's song is not about this tortured person, and we aren't provided a context to empathize within the lyrics themselves. We are simply given scenes of violence against this 'you', presented from the first person, in a way that is clearly designed to make you think: "Wow, these guys are hardcore and badass. They'll fuck you up if you cross them." Hence you have phrases like "my den of torture" or "my altar" to valorize the murderer rapist with its pretentions to auspicious language.

Devourment's song is slightly different in that its not "you", but "she"; it's also fast and violent and wants you to become one with the killer in sound. Although there is a bit more nuance in that the entire act is depicted as rather disgusting, and we are provided more avenues to empathize for the victim and loathe the speaker.

These lyrics in particular point to this: "The smell is insane, shit flows in my veins", "I jerk off with shit on my hands", etc. And we are also provided situational irony: Although the narrator is " sick of looking at these filthy ass fucking slobs", he does the aforementioned disgusting acts and has a "dirty cock". We are also provided a cliched motivation for the killing: "The voices tell me to kill" and acts like a cliched villain as well, "I cant stop laughing."

Furthermore, the victims are called victims. "I creep in search of victims for my lustful needs/I find one and stab her repeatedly/Then drag the blood soaked victim deep into the woods". And the way the story is told makes you want to empathize: "no' one hears her screams", "her pretty face", and her most humanizing moment: "Please kill me she says while breathing her last breath".

Thus, I think the lyricist for Fucked to Death was telling a first-person horror story that doesn't endorse the acts involved although one can certainly see it that way. This is not as clearly spelled out as in Nirvana's Polly due to the dissonant sound of the music and the level of explicit gore of Devourment's song, but one can also make the case that we are not meant to empathize with the killer.

The same cannot be said for Goregasm, which is why I take issue with them. There is no hint of irony, no reason in the song that the band wants us to care about the 'you' who is tortured. Their song is a hearty and sickening glorification of (implicitly, as the gender of the 'you' is never defined) misogynistic, dehumanizing violence. Even their names give this way: Cum Into the Carcass is a command/description of what the rapist does, but Fucked to Death is a description of what happens to the victim. Nonetheless, both songs fail to approach this subject with any level of maturity, and I think Sinister Intents is right in criticizing their content and the broader trend of this kind of bullshit.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

All music is a cultural representation of the kind of material conditions prevalent in modern society. This is reflected in various manifestations as according to one's specific class and ideological outlook; so the contradictions of society, the reactionary and counterrevolutionary views, shift in appearance as artists from various tracts of life attempt to express their beliefs. Some of it is purely for commercial purposes (such as a great deal of Gangster rap) while others it is for ideological expression. In this case sexism and male chauvinism. As such, it is not surprising a large amount of anti-woman music gets produced: living in imperialist hetero-paterichal society, the mode of production concerning minority rule can often only find its most extreme expression (besides the physical manifestation, of course) in the larger world through means of "artistic expression", through the artist being able to say "it is not [anti-woman], but a statement." Sometimes it is a statement, more often than not, however, it is a thinly veiled (often no veil) attack upon a segment of society purely out of reactionary reasons. I do not know the history of the song the OP posted but I doubt the writer attempted to justify it as a statement or what-have-you. More likely, it is nothing more than purely another revolting song in a long history of revolting music designed to intimidate and oppress non-males. So in this understanding I do not see it as greatly different than the purposes of White Nationalist/ Fascist music- it spreads a reactionary message as part of a reactionary mission.

[Sinister Intents]

^Indeed comrade, and there is A LOT of this mysosginistic crap in the metal scene, it's rather pushing me out of metal, but their is also a lot of newer political metal coming out, and a lot of it seems very aware of this reactionary bullshit.

[Thirsty Crow]

^Indeed comrade, and there is A LOT of this mysosginistic crap in the metal scene, it's rather pushing me out of metal, but their is also a lot of newer political metal coming out, and a lot of it seems very aware of this reactionary bullshit.
Well, yeah there's all sorts of stuff in the metal scene.

Though, to focus on one of my most beloved genres, death metal - gore and violence infused lyrics need to be approached in a different way I think, and that is because of the essentially percussive nature of the vocal performance, which in combination with the overall aim of conveying dread, horror and other negative kinds of ambiance makes the lyrics pretty much secondary, and it is really derivative in all its gore forms from slasher horror movies. And from chatting about that kinds of stuff with other fans, it seems like many disregard lyrics to a good extent. Though, in my experience, well written lyrics can heighten the mood and impression of the underlying music.

Though, I'd say that this shouldn't be equated with things like NSBM. There is no mission here but to produce horrifying and intense soundscapes, at least none that I'm aware of actually (in the case of Gorgasm). The argument that such music, imagery and lyrical content in one way or another has heteropatriarchy as its source, and that it may often function as a small component in reproducing it, needs to be put forward. But to turn a blind eye to the real and significant differences between this and NSBM is not the way to go.

EDIT: when I think about it, it seems to me that DM lyrics can be understood broadly in approach like this:


Welcome to my theatre, the stage upon which I act,
Turning into a sumptuous perfomance, heiniously I hew and gash

coming from the masters of clinical obsession, Carcass (and finely written, though verbose as hell, lyrics). Maybe these lines ought to be interpreted as really self-referential (in a musical sense) and meta-textual. But still, I find it most of all a grisly sonic theater.