The Devil’s Music

If a man sings a song to your little girl about having sex, what would you do?

If a man tells your little boy that it’s cool to shoot up and dress like a woman, what would tell that man?

If a man swears in your mother’s face, would you tolerate him?

If a man says your God is a fraud, and that His laws are worthless, would you give him your money?

There was a time when Americans would have been up in arms over these kinds of things, especially when these statements were produced in a mass-media form for youngsters.  Looking back 50 years ago, that seems almost fantastical: something from an alternate dimension in which people actually cared about statements, in which people actually believed that the person you were would determine what kinds of behaviors you exerted, and that inundating the mind with ideas would have some sort of effect upon the receiver.  Poppycock, we say today.  There is no Devil’s Music.

But if there is no such thing as Devil’s Music, then why were things considered taboo allowed into the home?  Not to say that the music industry is solely responsible for our collapsing society, but nowadays parents listen the Beatles as though the Beatles didn’t sing songs about doing it in the road or shooting heroin, both things our parents would probably (I’m guessing) tell us not to do.  Yet they allow others to frame it as legitimate–no, desirable–behavior.  And then they put posters up in their houses of the people who said it was good.  And what of the Backstreet Boys?  Singing sexual songs to 15 year-old girls is an act of pedophilia, at least in this man’s book.  So why do we pay money to people who do it?

Even worse, the world seems to be relatively passive about acts committed by the people they support, simply because the music created by that individual is pleasurable.   Michael Jackson allegedly molests little boys, and his fan base shrugs.  John Lennon leaves his child behind in poverty, and people think of him as a messiah.  R Kelley pisses on a little girl, and nobody cares.  The list could go on forever, because the truth is that our world of musicians is filled with rapists, liars, cheats, drug users, child-abandoners, pedophiles, thieves, blasphemers, and a ridiculous portion of idiots (Madonna): and the musicians willingly admit this on their records, right before injecting the records into your family. 

And so a pattern starts to emerge: worship, shrug, emulate.  A look at music history over the past 70 years will yield reports of increasingly disgusting behavior, and furthermore, behavior that wouldn’t have ever been accepted from any other people than idolized musicians.  The comedy film “O Brother, Where Art Thou” was almost scarily realistic, as you see a band of alleged criminals quickly pardoned by their fans.   No facts, no defense arguments.  Just good music.  Just like in real life.

And if anyone out there seriously believes that a music product is solely used for musical consumption, they need to have their heads checked out.  Music sells a lifestyle, a scene, a sense of belonging, a style of dress, an attitude to don, a sense of emotion, an archetype to copy.  You would have to be a fool to think that bands aren’t looking specifically for a cultural niche to brand themselves with.  This is what makes die-hard fans, which is what you need to economically survive in the world of music.  Even alcohol marketers do this.

So is this Devil’s music?  Don’t take my word for it: look no further than the Church of Satan itself.  As someone who’s very much familiar with the Church of Satan, I would encourage the reader to take a look at the nine (yes, just short of ten) Satanic Statements, and see if this doesn’t directly match up with most popular musical acts of our day.  It’s amazing to me that something so close to Satanism could have existed at the real explosion of the music scene in the 60’s, and yet has continued to morph into something closer and closer to actual Satanism with every passing decade.  If one spends time thinking about it, the most groundbreaking and fan-worthy musical acts of any decade were generally accompanied by moral acts and statements which propelled the artists into infamy, and subsequently created scenes which mimicked those statements.  By the time you get to Tupac, well, let’s just say he’s not as nice as the Beatles.

The saddest part about all of this is that I remember–as a youngster–discovering that Kurt Cobain was disgusted by his fans, even going as far as embedding lyrics about rape and murder on his albums, only to display his shock in other songs that his garbage was played on the radio, and his fans had no clue what they were singing.  Then he killed himself, a product of the lifestyle he lived, then neatly packaged and glamorized on posters and mimicked the world around.  So is that Devil’s Music?  Something in which anything can be tolerated and repeated, as long as it’s accompanied by a pleasurable feeling?  The answer is yes: even if it kills the message-bearer.

Because of this, there are many who would tell you that music (along with dancing and drinking) is the Devil’s property, but this is simply false.  To any Christians reading, all pleasures are creations of our God and naturally belong to Him.  It is the perversion and unrighteous pursuit of pleasure in which evil forces manifest themselves.  As such, there will be music in heaven, and it will be more energetic and moving than anything presented here on earth.  But rest assured, it will not be Dr. Dre or The Sex Pistols.

So ask yourself today if the music you listen to and promote is a manifestation of evil, and if you tolerate it simply because it makes you feel good.  If you cannot picture yourself listening to your music in heaven, chances are that you’re going to have to give it up.  And if you won’t, keep this in mind: a person who cannot give up a pleasure which corrupts relationships between them and people/God is an addict.  So what does that make us?

Analyze it, and if necessary, drop it.

This entry was posted on 1. September 2009 at 19:39 and is filed under philosophy, Theology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

| Print