Ye Cove

Not trying to start a debate or anything, I just feel that this could create some interesting discussion.

Now, I guess it's quite well known that I listen to a lot of bands with... not-so-accepted beliefs. Such is the case with bands like Mayhem, Burzum, Behemoth etc, who are against religion in general (in the case of Behemoth); or have gone to the extreme, and taken part in church burnings, murders, etc, in a protest against christianity.

I've received scorn in the past from people, saying that it is somehow wrong for me to listen to these bands, because of the beliefs that these artists hold.

I do not feel that this is the case; I feel that an artist's beliefs do not in any way affect the quality of the music, the main qualifier I look for when listening to a band. I mean, what say, Varg Vikernes does on his own time, is his own business.

I merely feel that dismissing a band due to their beliefs is foolish... if one turned away every band he or she came across simply because of an artist's opinions, or actions they have committed, then that person would be missing out on a lot of good music.

Who here agrees or disagrees with me?

Those people are idiots, they're just using that as an excuse to try to make you stop listening to the music you like!

I like hearing about what artists do on their own time, thats one of the reasons I love dvd about a band instead of just a specific show, but I wont stop listening to a band because I disagree with them. This kinda reminds me of the time my priest called me a Heathen for listening to Hardcore. I then proceed to pull out my mp3 player and bring up the artist information for Mychildren Mybride, A christian Hardcore band. He then proceeds to call me a heathen some more, for "Desecrating the word of our lord"

Oh absolutely I agree. Metallica/Megadeth/Slayer's feud against each other, I still listen to all three of them. I don't care if Kerry King thinks that Dave Mustaine is a cocksucker, Dave can kick his ass, or Lar's feud on Napster. Idiotic they seem to be on certain things, I still won't stop listening to the music. And if I like it, I like it. Easy as that.

I believe that almost everyone inherently listens to or precludes music based on the artists' belief, whether they realise it or not, consciously or subconsciously. I hear this all the time, when people state that they listen to whatever they like, regardless of the artist. But I don't believe that's really the case. We all discriminate based on our personal beliefs, ie, social, political, religious etc.

For eg, for all those people on this forum that are not religious and have no problems with artists such as Behemoth, Marilyn Manson etc because they are anti religion. Would they truly feel comfortable listening to some Christian rock/metal bands? Be honest now, I don't think they really would. The very fact that they are Christian bands I believe would deep down irritate them.

I know I'm like that. In fact, I am not comfortable with any artist that is a Christian band, or one that is violently opposed to Christianity. I don't mind a band that has religious people in it. I just don't like extremes, period. One way or another. I don't like religious door knockers coming to my house, and I would not like some fanatical anti religious door knocker coming to my house that wants me to join in his/her protest religious movement. I'm a person that is most comfortable in the middle, and I don't like any artist that deviates away from that, regardless of which way that is, whether it's pushing their religion down my throat or burning churches. Extremism is extremism, just like in politics. I don't like Nazism, I equally don't like Communism. I wouldn't listen to any artist from either camp.

But as I said, I believe we all discriminate on our choice of artist based on our personal beliefs. If you don't believe me, just ask yourself this. Think of some ideology you are passionately against, and ask yourslelf would you listen to any band that promoted this? I don't believe any person can honestly say they would.

Actually, I am religious to a small extent. While I don't agree with the beliefs of bands like Burzum, Mayhem, Behemoth, etc, the fact that they hold those beliefs does not bother me in the slightest, and I don't feel like listening to these bands is going to somehow conflict with my own beliefs.

And so long as the musical quality is there, I honestly could care less whether they were a heavily Christian band, an anarchist band, a Satanist band, etc.

I mean, look at it this way. Sabbath put out a lot of music that dealt with occult or religious themes. Take Black Sabbath, Walpurgis, After Forever, or anything off of the Headless Cross album, for example. Same situation here, albeit not to the same degree. They did have a lot of religious fanatics on their tail all the time. But you can look past the lyrics to see that there is musical quality there, correct?

I have to say Butt dude, fantastic thread you've started. A really thought provoking one. And as far as your question is concerned, I have to say that in my case, many times I will say "NO".

It definately depends on your personal beliefs. It's funny, as your signature says, "Hate keeps a man alive-it gives him strength". And I am definately a bit like that. If you're the type of person that is very easy going, without strong opinions and beliefs on certain things, then sure, you can listen to anything without bothering you.

But I am not like that. I "hate" many things with a passion. I'll give you a great example: Cat Stevens. I like his music, and normally, I would buy a best of cd from him. But I absolutely loathe and despise his fundamentalist Islam so much that I cannot bear to do that. That is how deep my hate extends to. There is nothing more in life I despise than one group of people with their political, religious, social etc ideologies that rule over the lives of others. And of all ideologies, fundamentalist Islam would come near the top of the tree for me. If I had to choose a tyrannical state to live in, I would eagerly put my hand up to choose either Nazism or Communism over some, any, fundamentalist religious state. At least in Nazi Germany or Communist Russia, you wouldn't be put in jail or beaten for having a drink in the privacy of your own home. Or be a crime to have an intimate relationship with an unmarried person. Or have all these archaic rules how to dress. Or be punished for kissing a person in public.

I am a passionate supporter of Western democracy. It is the best political system on earth!! Sure, it's not perfect, but if you're not sure, go live in North Korea or Iran for 6 months and tell me I'm wrong. Go and talk to some elderly people who lived in the former eastern block nations, or lived in Hitler's Germany. Nothing beats freedom and democracy, and I'm opposed to any ideology that wants to interfere with it, and take our personal freedoms and ways of life away.

Religion is a bit of a sore point with me. I've been raised up in it myself, and have been burnt and hurt by it many times. I'm not an atheist, I still believe. But I despise much of the religious man made system. The difference between a religious oppressive state and a political oppressive state is this: A political state, eg, Nazism or Communism will aim to control you during your entire earthly life. A religious oppressive state will aim to have control over you not only in this life, but in the next. There's a world of difference between the two. Even Hitler and Stalin never threatened that you would burn in Hell forever if you didn't do everything they said.

So yeah, like I say, how many strong beliefs does a person have? That is what will determine whether they can stomach the music of a particular artist that contradicts their own.

While you may not get killed or arrested for having a drink in private or womanizing, you would have been imprisoned for doing other things on your own time. Like practicing your faith (Nazi Germany). I think that a military dictatorship is far more invasive than a theocratic government. I'm also inclined to believe non-theological dictatorships more damaging to the peoples as well. We can all agree that religion was, in essence, created to structure social order and maintain some form of slef-policing agent that is supposed to train the individual to think about morality when making decisions. Honestly, in the USSR, the fact that men weren't discouraged from womanizing and adultering resulted in alot of home lives. I've read much about Soviet Russia, namely A. Solzhenitsyn's Gulag series (true stories involving the mass arrests and imprisonment of people with different ideals), and the Cancer Ward.

1st place - democracy
2nd place - theocracy
3rd place - military dictatorship

There's a big difference between ideology and action--we all know that. Burning down a Church to show a point is much different from participating in a protest of Christianity or writing a song that expresses one's anger towards the injustices and hypocrisy many religions are stand upon. I believe most have the capacity to distinguish between what can happen and what should happen in life; those who aren't graced with that common sense are the people who tell The Butt he is a heathen for what he listens to, and they are wrong. It's okay to disagree with what a band does, but it's not alright to blindly harass those who listen to that band. Of course, supporting artists who do kill people isn't exactly the right thing to do, but that's what Limewire is for, right?
That being said, I strongly support protest of any kind: my country--the USA, that is--is a much better place for it. Take, for instance, Bob Dylan's song The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carol:

The song speaks out against racial injustices of the South from a time that was especially heated. That's the protest that I support--those who burn down Churches and kill people have something wrong with their beliefs.

Oh, I agree entirely. I disagree with the beliefs and actions of those bands that go so far as to murder and burn churches, being somewhat religious myself. Varg Vikernes, for example, may be a musical genius, but I believe wholeheartedly that he should remain in prison.

I can't say I agree that buying those artists albums is wrong though... they've put the work and effort into a piece of art to be enjoyed by music listeners such as myself; it's only right that they be paid for it, actions aside. (Note: I actually am not against downloading music in general... I'm merely providing a counter-argument here.)

This is a bit of a cliff-hanger issue for me and giving a definitive answer is sort of tough.

HOWEVER, I'd probably be more honest and accurate when I say that, overall, no the individual artiste's personal beliefs and attitudes, whether religious, social, lifestyle choices etc don't overly affect my own attitudes toward the artiste/band. For me, as trite as it might sound to some people here and elsewhere, I just strongly feel the actual "music" is always paramount, above and beyond all other considerations.

So, I wouldn't ever ditch some of the bands I listen to (and more importantly, LIKE a lot) if I learned those bands had a guy(s) that were in their own lives right-wing conservatives, gays, warmongers, paedophiles, racists or all other imagined outrages or indeed if their personal beliefs on a lot of the hot-button controversial issues of our time, markedly differed from my own strongly-held views.

My point is--- IF the 'music' they play rocks my world, I'd gladly take that every day of the year instead of self-righteously (and stupidly) shunning or abandoning the band. I would hate to let that get in the way of my love and enjoyment of the band's musical efforts. That said, I deeply despise Christian-oriented rock/metal, a whole lot more-I have to stress here--for their seriously shitty music than their infuriatingly idiotic and intolerable preachy lyrics and posturing. Conversely, because (while I'm no atheist) I have no truck with organized religion and its often tyrannical dogma, superstition, preachers and other religious clap-trap, I really enjoy God/religion-bashing lyrics in death metal. Again, I idolise top-notch dm, more for its awesome musicianship than for its relentlessly irreverent stance on some of life's conventional hypocrisies and half-truths---religions among them. As somebody that's always had a 'healthy disrespect' for all forms of 'authority' I find indoctrination of any sort is one the greatest scourges of societies everywhere and I'm stridently opposed to religious indoctrination, especially, which is only one among many other such oppressive practices. So yeah, I have no problems with bands that are overtly anti-religion and brazenly show it.

Also, while I'm basically not a great fan of 'politically-oriented' bands generally with all those socio-political lyrics to match, I gotta say that one of the many reasons an outright legend like Napalm Death, for instance, is one of my all-time extreme metal heroes, is that their unwavering 'political' attitudes almost exactly mirror mine. But, again I gotta point out that it's always mainly ND's awesome death-grind music that has kept my devotion to them alive. If ND had political opinions very different to mine, I honestly wouldn't think of giving up on them as long as they were able to make the terrific albums that they do.

Right now, I'd rather listen to my beloved DEICIDE's 'Fuck Your God' and it wouldn't hurt my feelings one bit..

So, because I hate fundamentalist Islam so much and cannot bring myself to buy a best of Cat Stevens album, I am "self righteous" and "stupid?" I don't think so. You obviously never saw the interview that I did, where he proposed that Salmon Rushdie should be killed for his publications. He became a religious loon. That put me off him totally. How am I expected now to listen to his music?

I do agree with your point about the actual music of Christian artists. They are overall woeful and a poor copy of secular artists. They are never original, they just regurtitate the secular artists.

And yeah, I can't stand political overtones in music, as much as religious ones. I don't like to listen to some artist with preachy religious lyrics, and I don't like to listen to another artist with their tirade against religion like Marilyn Manson. I just want to listen to music for musics' sake. I once heard the lead singer of the Australian band, Midnight Oil's Peter Garrrett lament that most bands stand for nothing, and how the Oil's stood for their political, social and environmental views.

I don't care for bloody social, political or religious views when I listen to music! Most people don't. I like to hear great riffs, great guitar solos, terrific vocalist, awesome drummers. Fuck the religion, the political correctness, the social philosophies, the environment etc. One thing that really annoyed me from 'The Eagles' latest album, "Long Road out of Eden" was the album having this current trend of political anti-American sentiments. It's nothing more than a bloody trendy fashion these days. You're not politically correct as an artist if you're not bashing America. No, that doesn't mean that I'm necessarily a fan of George Bush or support the Iraq war. Maybe I do and maybe I don't. But I recognise a fad when I see one. And 'The Eagles' have jumped on board with this one.

If you hate America and Western democracy so much, go and live in North Korea, China, Iran, Saudia Arabia etc. I don't agree with everything American, but it's miles better than the alternative. You'll never see me bash America.

Except American televangeslists.

no

This post is informative.

The only thing I read was the thread title...