Christian Jesus Metal
 

I'm disappointed with the satanism so frequent among MB metal fans. Not that I'm into religion or anything, but all this 666 skull & crossbone devil worship business, along with the anger and implied violence, is starting to make me queasy.

Why are metal fans so often taken up with satan worship, pentagrams and general dark imagery? What's wrong with something like:



In sum, why has metal been hijacked by the excessively bleak and morbid?

When do you think it was hijacked?

Are you suggesting metal and its fans have always been like that? I mean, what about in the early days, NWOBHM and so forth. That wasn't all through-and-through morbid, satanic and evil.

I don't think its always been like that, no. I was just wandering when you thought it became prominent.
What does NWOBHM stand for?

I'm really not sure when it became prominent. Presumably long before Reign In Blood came out. But, I don't think metal was 90%+ enshrouded in morbidity of the utmost extreme until maybe some time in the 90s?

I suppose Black Sabbath were into all that, not massively though. The earliest i can think is Led Zeppelin played backwards :D
I'm thinking probs late 80's/early 90's.

New Wave Of British Heavy Metal

Black Sabbath's lyrics had a christian undertone and used vague referances to occultism to point out how bad it was more so than glorifying it.

Lol this thread is funny... I hate christian jesus metal as much as gore/devil/black metal so ya.

this is true. but they definitely used the dark imagery to their advantage. people need to keep in mind that the world was a much different place in 1970 than it was in 1990. just the name 'black sabbath' pissed off old ladies because it implied negative connotations about a holy day.

the free press they received from church groups taking their lyrics out of context definitely didn't hurt their career. being that they, along with alice cooper, were the first really large scale shock rockers they didn't really need to go that far to scare all the soccer moms of the day. by the time the 90s rolled around the kids who ignored their parent's warnings about the devil music of black sabbath were parents themselves and weren't going to be shocked by the same tricks again. so things did inevitably get ramped up.

but from the get go metal has always been about aggression and darkness, isolation / rejection from society, aside from communication breakdown and the break in whole lotta love does anything in zeppelin's catalog sound remotely like metal? now compare that to 'black sabbath' the song - first track on the first album? that still sounds effing METUHL! today.

metal didn't get hijaked until the 80s when church groups decided to try recruiting disciples through cheeseball crap like the video linked in the OP. it's more contrived than the last #1 timbaland produced.

jack black said it best. METAL! it comes from HELL!