Interviewer John MacGregor and guest Robert Fingolfin have over eighty years between them of being fans of heavy metal and hard rock dating back to the mid-1970s. John has extensive experience as a serious guitar player, music theorist, and maintains a vast archival collection of music (numbering in the thousands of CDs). Robert functioned as a radio broadcast disc jockey for The Total Rock Hour program which used to air on an East Texas radio station and tried out for the lead vocalist position of a heavy metal band near Tyler, TX (and failed spectacularly).
Are hard rock and heavy metal a good or bad influence? They answer strongly for the former but give details on the bad aspects of that genre as well. In addition, pop/chart music gets examined, too.
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Thanks for doing this show guys. I appreciated getting to hear your perspective on things, and Robert, in particular, you know that I respect you greatly.
But I found arguments in favor of this type of music to be very weak. I agree that other forms of music are worse in some ways, but saying that country music is bad doesn’t mean that Metal Music is good.
Having a few “professing” Christians and a couple of songs that have “Christian lyrics” doesn’t justify it either. The fact remains, that the lifestyles, the motives, the attitude and spirit behind metal music is worldly, sensual, and devilish.
I don’t believe music genre is a matter of preference either, and you understand this, in your condemnation of certain other genres. All music has a spirit behind it, regardless of the words. Metal music in general promotes a spirit that fuels the works of the flesh. The chief evidence of this, is that followers of metal music are, in general, haters of God. Despite the certain aspects you highlighted where superior results to other types of music may occur, it doesn’t make it godly; it just makes all the styles mentioned ungodly.
Also, I want to ask why we should conclude that metal music is “manly” when the musicians behind it dress like women? And why should we listen to a band like Kiss, which is Jewish and do not lead us to taking every though captive to Christ?
We must reject the ways of the world, in all forms. We don’t have to choose between various ungodly genres of music. We can reject them all.
I do agree with you on the aspect of the great musical ability of these guys, compared to what we have total. But that is no different than what we saw with the offspring of Cain, who were great innovators of their time. Ability and musical talent is not equivalent to creating music that causes people to love and seek God, and to obey him more fully. No case can be made that metal music does such, yet many an example can be demonstrated to show the opposite.
There were many comments made on both podcasts that were quite disturbing; the allegiance, loyalty; use of the word “hero” when describing those who have no fear of God. Romans 12:1,2 command us to renew our minds, and be not conformed to the world. You confirming the popularity of the genre only further condemns it, as that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God (Luke 16:15). This is particularly true, as we live in a crooked and perverse generation, and the 70s and 80s were not exception to this.
I am not taking away from the good points you brought out in the podcasts; but I believe this represents a more pragmatic, worldly type of wisdom, than a wisdom that comes from above. Nevertheless, I still learned a lot from listening and you give good reminders to balance out those of us who need it, so please don’t take all the critique as a total condemnation.
Anyway, hopefully you will at least pray about these things; I probably didn’t say anything you haven’t heard already, but those are my thoughts after listening to these. Many blessings to your family Robert!
Hans
Thanks for writing, Hans.
Perfect entertainment doesn’t exist and will never exist this side of heaven. I am a huge fan of C.S. Lewis and encourage people to read his books—especially the Chronicles of Narnia. But even that series is not free from bad theology. Think of the whole Tashlan episode from the last book in the series, “The Last Battle”.
And while Johnny Cash was a great example of the redemptive work of Christ, you can find erroneous beliefs in even his latter stuff (but much of it was good). As a side note, Johnny Cash performed his own version of the Nine Inch Nail song, “Hurt” (with NIN’s permission). It is so well regarded by one of the NIN members that he now considers that Johnny Cash effectively owns the song.
But back to the point at hand. I listen to a lot of classical music via Dallas’ classical music station, WRR 101.1 FM. A lot of classical music just isn’t that good. Much of it is boring, annoying, and depressing—or a combination of the three. The atonal stuff is lacking in melody and harmony. But much classical music is good, too. I am not giving up the good because of the bad.
The vast majority of songs sung in churches are horrible. There hasn’t been much good “sacred music” created since around 1800. Even the good stuff is typically poorly played and poorly sung. With contemporary Christian music, the horror scale gets pushed even further. Lyrically, much of it is Arminian, emphasizes emotions, and is anti-intellectual.
Country music is so musically backwards that if one practices any instrument for about a year, they can probably play 95% of all country music. Lyrically, most of it is trash and emphasizes divorce, drinking, anti-intellectualism, and low-brow culture. And in terms of vocals, most country music doesn’t require any vocal training—or talent.
So, that brings us back to hard rock and heavy metal. Most people are going to listen to some sort of music. I hope it is a form of music which raises the bar in terms of instrumental playing, composition, and vocals—as well as lyrically.
Now for some of your specific comments:
“Also, I want to ask why we should conclude that metal music is “manly” when the musicians behind it dress like women?”
Some did, but most haven’t. You are referring most specifically to glam & hair metal, which was generally a creation by record companies in order to generate sales. No less a source than Ronnie James Dio took hair metal to task for dressing like women and even went so far to say, “That’s not metal!”
See more at 1:40 through 2:45, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jU11NcH7nHQ
And consider this quote from The Spectator:
“Over the Atlantic, the Canadian prog-metal band Rush were dedicated followers of Ayn Rand. That other blue-collar blind alley of rock music, heavy metal, had plenty of conservatives here and in the United States, insofar as anyone involved cared about politics at all. Even the few metal bands considered cool by the left-wing music press were right of centre. In the 1970s Iggy Pop (James Newell Osterberg from Muskegon, Michigan) released a magnificent, howling opus called ‘I’m a Conservative’. Brilliant, brilliant satire, the liberal music press agreed, clapping their hands. Until Iggy said: ‘Uh, no, I actually am a conservative.’ So was Ted Nugent, and so were a whole bunch of others.”
For the article: https://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/12/its-not-just-kate-bush-big-parts-of-rock-n-roll-are-quietly-right-wing/#
“…why should we listen to a band like Kiss, which is Jewish and do not lead us to taking every though captive to Christ?”
Two of the founding members of KISS were Jewish, but two were not. When KISS had Gentiles on board, they created some good music. When they didn’t, when they brought in the Jewish guitar player, Bruce Kulick in 1985, they didn’t.
By the way, while the ball apes in the NFL were pushing Colin Kaepernick and Black Lives Matter propaganda last fall, KISS was pushing old-school patriotism at their concerts. Granted, I want nothing to do with patriotism, but what a rebuke of the NFL (they started doing this about the same time the Kaepernick movement got underway)! I’d much rather people listen to KISS than watch the wretched NFL.
See more at: https://www.rt.com/usa/358980-kaepernick-kiss-national-anthem/
“We must reject the ways of the world, in all forms. We don’t have to choose between various ungodly genres of music. We can reject them all.”
That’s radical pietism! Good luck pushing that off on your kids as they will almost certainly reject it (and rightly so). And how much more of your worldview will they reject if you push this sort of radical pietism on them?
You will never find perfect entertainment—or perfect books on Christian theology. Even someone like Rushdoony was by no means perfect in how he thought about several subjects. Perfectionism in any form tends to drive people mad.
Neither of us who did the program advocated people listening to music which is thoroughly anti-Christian, such as that which is produced by “bands” like Slayer, Venom, Merciful Fate, King Diamond, etc. What those groups produce has as much to do with metal music as pornography does with a good movie.
Respectfully,
Robert Fingolfin