55] Metal Music and threat to Mental Security

Is Death/Black Metal a threat to Mental Security?
ILLUMINATIONS
By Azly Rahman

I thought that after The Rolling Stones, rock and roll will no longer evolve to its most “dangerous” form. I was wrong.

Listen to these two pieces of music:

http://www.anus.com/metal/samples/underthepaganmoon1-3.mp3

http://www.anus.com/metal/samples/sepultura1-2.mp3

Can you understand the lyrics and figure out the harmony? What images come to your mind?

Next, read the entry below:

“The black metal scene gained some unsought mass media attention in 1991 when Mayhem's frontman Dead committed suicide by a shotgun blast to his head. His note simply read "Excuse all the blood". The ammunition was supplied by Varg Vikernes.
His body was discovered by Aarseth who, instead of calling the police, ran to a nearby convenience store and bought a disposable camera which he used to photograph the corpse for a future Mayhem album cover (Dawn of the Black Hearts). Apocryphal reports also claim that he then took some pieces of Dead's splattered brains and made a stew out of them and/or members of the band took bone fragments from their friend's skull and made necklaces out of them.”

So reads two paragraphs from wikipedia, on the beginning of Death Metal music.

Is our youth listening to more “mentally dangerous” music, such as Death Metal and Black Metal? Are their brains being fried by the fast, rhythmic, unsophisticated music with lyrics that glorify death, depression, and destruction? Who are its fans and fanatics? Why is this para-demonic music becoming a paralysis to our youth culture?

Educators, parents, and policymakers – why is our youth taking this path to freedom and creativity?

Threat to Mental Security?

Let us talk about this issue of alternative music in Malaysia – of Death/Black Metal and its threat to mental security. How could the Metallist go to the masjid, the Hindu temple, the Christian church, the Buddhist wat, or the Sikh temple and focus on the Ultimate Reality when their consciousness is already abducted and imprisoned by demonic forces?

Without playing any Death/Black Metal CD backwards, we can clearly analyze the messages behind the music. We need to understand the language that shapes this genre.

Death/Black Metal fans do not actually need to do “devil worship” – they are already possessed by terminologies that glorify the devil and the demonic. There is hope for them to repent and to “de-evolve” into ethical human beings with real human consciousness.

In the process of glorifying the sight, sound, and symbolism of the demonic, these predominantly Malay youth do not realize that they are also being bought by the international record companies that sell cultural junk to these youth who do not understand not only meanings in the lyrics but also the names of the bands. Poor command of the English language will also facilitate this mentally-fatal misunderstanding. They simply do not have any idea what the language of their music means, let alone the neuro-linguistic implications impacting their personalities..

Linguistic analysis

But first, let me do a quick linguistic analysis to prove that these lovers of demonic music are actually glorifying unholy death instead of celebrating the beauty of life. Educators well-versed in the translation can do similarly with other examples.

Look at these words that chronicle the development of this brand of music of the demons. It does not take a Noam Chomsky or a Jacques Lacan fan to analyze the nature of language that our youth, especially the Malays, are possessing themselves with and are loving the act and the art of unsophisticated music and do not add value to even the history of rock and roll.

Below are some of the names of Western Death Metal bands that our Malaysian Death/Black Metal fans are listening to and perhaps worshipping. I have provided translations to each.

Atheist, = Si Ateis/Manusia Yang Tak Percaya Keujudan Illahi
Autopsy = Pembedahan Keatas Si Mati,
Carcass = Bangkai Binatang,
Death = Kematian,
Entombed = Di Batu- Nisan kan,
Morbid Angel = Si Malaikat Jahanam,
Napalm Death = Kematian di sebabkan Bom Napalm (di gunakan di Perang Vietnam),
Obituary = Notis Kematian di Akhbar,
Possessed = Di Rasuk,
and Suffocation = Tercekik lalu mati Lemas.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_metal

Below are some of the names of Black Metal groups. I invite Malaysian linguists to help check the accuracy of translated words below to be read to the fans of these new genre of “creatively nihilistic” music.
Venom = Bisa
Hellhammer = Penukul Neraka
Bulldozer = Bulldozer
Mayhem = Keganasan dan Kehancuran.
Darkthrone = Singahsana Kegelapan,
Enslaved = Di Perhambakan,
Immortal= Tanpa Kematian

You can explore more of these names in this site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_metal
In addition to the glorification of the demonic aspect of Humanity and the naming of groups based on such pride, some of the titles in the track of a popular groups elaborate the nature of anti-Humanity. Lyrics from an album by the group Masacra (translated as Pembunuhan Kejam yang Berleluasa) for example, privide such imagery:

1. Enjoy the Violence
2. Ultimate Antichrist
3. Gods of Hate
4. Atrocious Crimes
5. Revealing Cruelty
6. Full of Hatred
7. Seas of Blood
8. Near Death Experience
9. Sublime Extermination
10. Agonizing World

Another example of tracks the group Morbid Angel (translated as Malaikat Jahanam) reflect the following:

1. Invocation / Chapel Of Ghouls
2. Unholy Blasphemies
3. Angel Of Disease
4. Azagthoth
5. The Gate / Lord Of All Fevers and Plague
6. Hell Spawn
7. Abominations
8. Demon Seed
9. Welcome To Hell

Source: http://www.anus.com/metal/about/blackmetal.html

Culture of Trash?

Death and Black Metal Malaysian music represents the advancement of the development of “trash culture” that continue to plague society that is already plagued with all forms of corruption. This “Metal” culture do not have a sense of authenticity nor peaceful and liberating dimension to its foundation. It preys upon those who themselves are lost through the social and educational system – those who had fallen through the cracks of an unfairly meritocritous system that often put the death spell to children’s intelligence.

The proliferation of the culture of trash is one way for consumer capitalism to divide, conquer, and victimize our youth. It is a by-product of our Open Sky Policy and largely our five-year economic plans that cultivate all forms of underground culture and subculture – cultures of resistance that actually do not add value to the advancement of an ethical civilization.

Our society will arrive at a juncture whereby the elders are no more to be respected, the “demonic apsects” of music such as in Black and Death Metal will continue to shape and hegemonize public discourse and the extreme excesses of modernization will rear their ugly heads and adorn our cultural landscape. The vehicle for this path of “progress” will be the economic and political ideology that subdivides people into “post-industrial tribes” ready to be consumed by market forces.

We have therefore developed a set of “subcultures” that are trashy in nature – from the way we conduct our politics to how we shop and play to the form of leisure we engage in. These are consequences of the corruption of the political, economic, and moral fibres that are designed by those who owns the means of political-economic and socio-cultural production and control.

We, as well as our youth of today and tomorrow are the recepients of the “gifts of this Malaysian nation of plenty” – including the youth that are school drop-outs, at-risks, incarcerated and those who are enjoying the glories of demonic music.

Metallists of Malaysia—think hard!

Only re-education and the re-thinking of our cultural policy will help devise ways to design strategies that will bring us closer to a utopia based on the true meaning of republicanism and socialism that bring meaning to the word “humanism”.

The world of many of our dispossessed Malay youth is a world of metallica made of black and dead souls. They must start listening to kronchong and ghazal! They must start looking at the larger picture of oppression and dehumanization.

But who will guide them through this siratul-mustaqim or the noble or peaceful path of human evolution?

Educators, unite! – You have nothing to lose except your own children and grandchildren to the chains of the Black/Death metallists.