Has the rock and metal world always been secretly regressive?
I know we think of it as being music for outsiders, music that promoted individuality and embracing ones weirdness, but that's not really what it ever was. There has always been a much darker vein running through rock history, and it's only on occasion that it shines in the light where it becomes too obvious to ignore.
I'm asking this, because my recent experiences talking to other fans has made me doubt how many people associated with the music, both in the industry and as fans, care about anyone or anything beyond themselves.
This stems from my assessment of the first half of the year, and my once again mentioning how much Serious Black pissed me off with their song, "Out Of The Ashes". That track, on an album called 'deeply personal' by the band, sees the lyrics calling a woman a 'fucking whore' who is nothing to look at without her makeup, all because she chose to step out and leave the guy who comes across as feeling entitled to her devotion because he spent money on her.
If that's the way he treats her when he's angry, is it any wonder why she would leave?
Some other fans were not only unbothered by the language, they cheered how it pissed off 'the woke'. Further inquiry led down a path of political discussion, wherein it became clear that the attitudes cheered in the song, and espoused by the fans of it, are those of domination and humiliation.
The key takeaway was that anyone offended by this song should just shut up and live with it. So what if it espouses a hateful attitude toward women, wherein the songwriter feels entitled to slut-shame her because she didn't want to be with him anymore? So what if anyone who knows the members of the band could figure out who the song was about, and possibly harass her to her face? So what if the song is yet another example of toxic and hateful speech hanging in our culture, affecting us in subconscious ways we can't understand?
As long as the man giving off strong incel vibes feels better, everyone else is unimportant.
I raised the question at the time the song came out as a single, as to exactly how everyone through the band, production, label, and PR, all had no qualms whatsoever with this language. Now that the record has been out for months, and both critics and fans have not raised a single issue with it that I have seen, I'm left asking a different question; what the hell is wrong with us?
There's a direct line we can draw between this language and concrete action. When such misogynistic language is widely accepted, it's no wonder society has turned regressive and tried to curtail women's rights. When ridiculing 'the woke' engenders cum-stained high fives, it's no wonder LGBTQ people are being targeted in almost every sense.
Serious Black are nobodies, and their song isn't going to have any impact. Practically no one is going to hear it, so I'm not worried about damage being done. But it's indicative of the larger issue, and how we are not doing enough to be accepting of everyone, of treating everyone with respect, of demanding better of ourselves.
But this isn't a unique story, or even a new one. To this day, one of the most prominent radio personalities in the rock world still brings Ted Nugent on his show, and laughs with him as though he's everyone's 'funny uncle', despite him having written a song about raping a child.
The so-called 'glory days' were never that. While white men were being lifted up and brought out of the shadows by the power of rock, Nugent and Jimmy Page were allegedly having relationships with underage girls. They were viewed as idols regardless, and even now are legends, despite being what we would today call sex offenders. That isn't even to mention groupie culture, where rock stars were celebrated for treating women as a commodity, but the women were never afforded that same respect if they assembled quite the roster of conquests. The 80s were no better, when Motley Crue and many of the other hair bands spent the entire decade treating women as nothing but sex objects, even though so many of them were stealing hair and makeup looks from those very women. In the 90s, Courtney Love got blamed for Kurt Cobain's decisions, just like how Yoko Ono got blamed for breaking up The Beatles.
It's clear these strains of thought have always been present, but at least we can say they weren't fighting against a more tolerant culture at the time. As we have evolved, and hopefully become better, much of the music world hasn't. What were once whispers have become screams, what was once rumor has become a proud fact.
And here I sit, disheartened by how few people in the scene give a damn about anyone but themselves, by how many can laugh at how casually demeaning language gets thrown around, by how open and downright proud some of these people are of their toxicity.
A while back, I lamented that it was getting to be impossible to be both a music fan and a good person. As I watch the continued acceptance of this garbage, I have not been dissuaded of my initial point. I don't know if I want to call myself a fan, if these are the sorts of people it lumps me in with.
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