A billion years ago I was in high school. I painted my denim jacket with skulls and flames and I listened to a LOT of heavy metal. I touched the death metal a bit, I thrashed to the thrash metal and spasmed to speed metal. I appreciated the over-the-top silliness that was GWAR and had a secret place in my heart for what some of my friends called “wuss metal”…. But really it was the core of Metallica and Megadeth that took my breath away, kept me headbanging and angry. I had time for Danzig, but always knew he was sort of silly. I had an ear for Anthrax, but didn’t Love them like my friends did. I had yet to discover the Life-changing sound that was Alice in Chains and Rage Against the Machine. With regard to the history of histrionic, overblown, distorted ROAR I listened to Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, but they seemed so washed out compared to albums like Rust In Peace and And Justice For All.
It was the 80s. We Lived under the background threat of the cold war and of the heat death of nuclear war and the lyrics of Polaris and Blackened spoke to me more than they should of. It was glorying in our mutually-assured-destruction. Hatred for the system. “Military intelligence, two words combined that can’t make sense” made sense to me then and it sort of makes sense to me now. Filled with hyperbole and sweep scales and pinch harmonics and frankly juvenile lyricism there was just so much URGENCY there and I was definitely plugged into the ferocity of it all.
And I still listen to a lot of it. For as much as there was a militant sound to it all and songs like Metal Militia and Killing Is My Business certainly seemed to be calling out for violence, the meaning behind One was clearly anti-war, and Megadeth had derived ALL their imagery, their very NAME from nuclear war, and though their songs didn’t specifically say “put down the guns my friends!” they certainly painted bleak pictures of where we were headed.
As I grew as an artist myself I’ve always appreciated the musicianship, and as a metal head, though lyrics like “Tremble you weaklings, cower in fear, I am your ruler, land, sea and air, Immense in my girth, erect I stand tall, I am a nuclear murderer I am Polaris” may lack in subtlety and fail on the basis of poetry, I still could get behind yelling them at the top of my lungs.
But as I’ve gotten older my heroes have changed. Metallica, starting as early as the Black Album, has swung more and more towards the Libertarian world view. Hell, they INTRODUCED me to what the “Don’t Tread On Me” flag meant. Since then James Hetfield seems to just be rolling on down the pit of dark imagery montage rather than spouting any particular meaning, but Dave Mustaine is DECLARING for the right wing with their latest album, growling “A shiny new agenda, birthed from a depraved mind. Of failing us on purpose, to culturally sanitize. Its opiates for the masses under cloak as hope and change. The “new normal” or just more of the same?”
Sigh.
I bought it. A friend’s on it. I wanted to have it and I bought it on CD because they’ve always got good sci-fi-themed art and having another album with Vic Rattlehead staring back at me is a point of pride… but I’m sad to see who my heroes are demonizing. Maybe I can take some consolation in the fact that they’re kind of doing it subtly. I mean, they’ve always been against the system, and frankly I can get behind a fair amount of what they’re saying. But whereas before I feel like Peace Sells and Countdown to Extinction were declaring that Armageddon was here in the hope that by holding a mirror up to the horror someone would put the brakes on, now it feels like they’re overplaying the chaos in the streets and the demonization of the president in an almost Fox News kind of way.
And maybe that’s just silly of me. It’s a heavy metal band. As a metal head myself, I definitely Live on that edge of patriotism and hatred of American culture – a Love of the nation that allows for such a culture, but hate of the system that perpetuates it. I Love the new disc. I’m thinking too much about it. But slightly regretting giving money to an artist who’s interviews show him to be kiiiiiind of an ultra-conservative Christian homophobe.
