The Horror of Heavy Metal

So, the Vh1 Rock Honors were on tonight. Though I listen to a lot of different music from rock to country and gospel to bluegrass, I’m not a big heavy metal fan. A few days ago, however, I happened to catch a “rockumentary” called “Heavy: The Story of Metal” and it piqued my interest. Anyway, one of the “Vh1 Rock Honors” tonight was none other than Ozzy Osbourne, the front-man for one of the most famous metal bands in history—Black Sabbath.

But back to why I became interested in the metal “rockumentary”—I found out over the couple of hours that I watched it that groups such as Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, and others had a pretty obvious connection to the horror genre. For those of you who are clueless about what kind of point I’m trying to make here, let me give you a little bit of background on the bands and why I feel they have a strong connection to what we’ve been studying the past few weeks.

Black Sabbath

The group’s name “Black Sabbath” came into being when the bassist Geezer Butler wrote a song of the same title. Geezer was a big fan of Dennis Wheatley, a famous British writer of occult and thriller novels. Supposedly Geezer dabbled in the occult himself. As the story goes, one night Geezer saw an ominous black figure at the foot of his bed and found an occult book missing the next morning. So the name “Black Sabbath” was born. Also, it just so happens that Boris Karloff was in a movie called “Black Sabbath” in 1963. When the group was rehearsing in a studio one day, they noticed that a horror movie was being shown in the cinema across the street. The band began to purposely write dark, ominous songs in an attempt to be music's answer to horror films. Even the cover of their albums resemble what many would label “horror." Check this out:

Here’s an example of some of their more "interesting" lyrics:

What is this that stands before me?

Figure in black which points at me

Turn around quick, and start to run

Find out I'm the chosen one - Oh no! (copyright of Black Sabbath)

Sounds like a pretty good example of horror to me!

But why stop with one example? Judas Priest is another really well-known heavy metal group (they’ve sold over 35 million albums). Here’s an example of their lyrics:

Any back alley street

Is where we'll probably meet

Underneath a gas lamp

Where the air's cold and damp

I'm a nasty surprise

I'm a devil in disguise

I'm a footstep at night

I'm a scream of the fright (copyright of Judas Priest)

And an album cover:

While I think Carroll has a very interesting theory about what art-horror should be, I think he is mistaken when he makes the assumption that a horribly impure monster is one of the main necessities. I can see music and lyrics like that of Black Sabbath and Judas Priest doing a better job at inciting art-horror than some of the movies we've seen in class (aka "The Thing"). The heavy, dark music can provoke feelings of dread and suspense, while the lyrics can be blatantly chilling. To disregard poetry, music, and "non-monster-containing" artwork as examples of horror is, in my opinion, to do an injustice to the horror genre. By including a variety of mediums--not just films and novels--we can make horror an even more effective, all-encompassing genre.