Metal and Censorship

I seriously hate censorship when it infringes my rights to share something, especially when it comes to music.

I mean, I can understand why it may be necessary in certain settings because there might be minors present but why should it be limited with music?

A friend and I were talking once and he told me he didn’t like how the modern metal scene was all about “safe” topics compared to traditional metal he and I both like. It felt like now all of a sudden there’s a restriction on what artists can write songs about because in today’s society it’s like we have to walk on eggshells so we don’t offend anyone.

I don’t give a shit if I hear a song by GWAR that is about…. any form of violence basically, because if it has a killer riff, I’m going to listen to it. Good tunes is good tunes to me.

I also feel it is enforced in sharing the music I love. Last month, I was on a couple of Discord servers that had some off-topic music channels. Since I had just seen Rob Zombie live, I shared the “Superbeast” song on those channels. The link was deleted from the Dreamlight Valley server in less than twelve hours.

Internally outraged, I politely asked why the mods would delete it. One of them simply responded that they wanted to keep everything family-friendly on the server. Oh really?

You didn’t seem to have a problem with the Motörhead song I shared months ago, some people liked it too! I’m sure there were some Zombie fans present on the server somewhere besides myself.

Anyway, I didn’t see anything inappropriate in the music video of Rob’s song, just Rob being Rob the sexy motherfucker that he is, Sheri in a silver jumpsuit being a warrior, and a lot of flashes and effects. That’s it.

But to avoid burning a bridge I simply responded this:

I’m sorry, but I can’t be in a server that is going to enforce restrictions on what kind of music I can share.

That was all I could type out to avoid stirring the pot and then I left the server before the mod could respond. Better to leave on my own terms than to be involuntarily booted right?

I guess that means I’ll no longer get exclusive offers in the game for being a member of the server but c’est la vie.

I know what you’re going to say, their server, their rules, not to mention it’s Disney. But regardless I have always firmly believed that when it comes to music, everyone should have the right to share what they love, no matter the genre, lyrics, content of the music video if there is one, etc.

I saw pop music videos with tons of sexually suggestive content before I turned eighteen. I saw some Alice Cooper fans under eighteen at the concert I went to where he co-headlined with Rob. So I don’t see what the problem is with kids seeing this kind of content.

On the other hand, I remember reading an interview with Mr. Lordi where he said he saw kids coming to the band’s gigs and they were weeping at what they saw. He claimed that parents weren’t doing their research and only saw Lordi as a Eurovision winning band that would be fun for everyone.

So yeah there’s two sides to this whole matter. I don’t like restrictions put on me to keep things friendly for the kids and see nothing wrong with parents taking their kids to a metal show. But sometimes I’m also like, seriously people, why are you getting upset about mature content? You should have done your research!

What can be done? Well I don’t think we should restrict music topics and themes. If it’s a sensitive topic to you as a parent worried about what your kids see before they come of age or simply because you survived a traumatic ordeal, or feel oppressed, fine but if other people like that song for just that it’s a badass song, don’t try to ban or restrict its spread.

That’s my rant for today. Peace.

👽Emily