Was glam metal misogynistic?

muckie wrote:

Not to derail the thread, but I found it interesting that Zombie mentioned the issue regarding Mein Kampf royalties because I had the same question on my mind recently. Look up the Wikipedia entry for it and look at the copyright/royalty section. Apparently, when Hitler died, the estate went to the Bavarian government and they are a lot stricter about censoring it than Americans have, who obtained the rights to the english/US translation and are much more free spirited about teaching it. Also, the original German version will be going into the public domain either this year or the next, but there will still be reservations about the context in which it is taught, read, or distributed.

I'd just like to point that we've now officially gone from misogyny in glam metal to ideological differences with musicians to Weird Al vs. Coolio now to Mein Kampf royalties and public domain status.

Everyone involved with this threat deserves a round of applause, because that's pretty entertaining.

Runicen wrote:

Everyone involved with this threat deserves a round of applause, because that's pretty entertaining.

This is so unexpected, I, uh, I didn't even have a speech prepared. Uh, but I would like to say this: Tardiness is not something you can do all on your own. Many, many people contributed to my tardiness. Uh, I'd like to thank my parents for never giving me a ride to school, the L.A. city bus driver for taking a chance on an unknown kid, and, uh, last but not least, the wonderful crew at McDonalds for spending hours making those egg McMuffins, without which I might never be tardy.

ZombieHavoc wrote:

Runicen wrote:

Everyone involved with this threat deserves a round of applause, because that's pretty entertaining.

This is so unexpected, I, uh, I didn't even have a speech prepared. Uh, but I would like to say this: Tardiness is not something you can do all on your own. Many, many people contributed to my tardiness. Uh, I'd like to thank my parents for never giving me a ride to school, the L.A. city bus driver for taking a chance on an unknown kid, and, uh, last but not least, the wonderful crew at McDonalds for spending hours making those egg McMuffins, without which I might never be tardy.

DakotaRogers wrote:

"Rapechase" is one of the few At War songs that doesn't completely suck ass.

Thrash metal is all about riffs. Most of these bands' lyrics aren't meant to be overanalyzed in this way, especially when they're written by young kids and the goal was to merely offend and to shock.

Wait, wait, wait. But I've seen you complain about bands singing about zombies, pizza and beer. More than once. Admittedly those kinds of lyrics are beyond way over used in current thrash. But a song about a group of dudes chasing a woman through the woods, making a game of the whole thing, to rape her, shouting "F*** that b****!" right before some heavy riffage...that's more tolerable than beer?

ZombieHavoc wrote:

Runicen wrote:

Everyone involved with this threat deserves a round of applause, because that's pretty entertaining.

This is so unexpected, I, uh, I didn't even have a speech prepared. Uh, but I would like to say this: Tardiness is not something you can do all on your own. Many, many people contributed to my tardiness. Uh, I'd like to thank my parents for never giving me a ride to school, the L.A. city bus driver for taking a chance on an unknown kid, and, uh, last but not least, the wonderful crew at McDonalds for spending hours making those egg McMuffins, without which I might never be tardy.

It's not a proper acceptance speech unless you cry!

ZombieHavoc wrote:

Wait, wait, wait. But I've seen you complain about bands singing about zombies, pizza and beer. More than once. Admittedly those kinds of lyrics are beyond way over used in current thrash. But a song about a group of dudes chasing a woman through the woods, making a game of the whole thing, to rape her, shouting "F*** that b****!" right before some heavy riffage...that's more tolerable than beer?

Metal wasn't always the politically correct medium that it is now. When I see lyrics such as those, it's a breathe of fresh air, even if they're depraved. But as far as quality is concerned, I'll take the beer-swilling Tankard guys any day.

I'm positive that their motivations were not as malevolent as what you're thinking. Perhaps they recently saw The Last House on the Left and wanted to write a song on the subject; or maybe they wanted to craft a song so horrible, they would get a hell of a lot of "free advertising" from the PMRC. After all, Slayer did make a career on writing songs with controversial lyrical themes.

But my point is, there's no sense in letting disingenuine/idle words (in this case, lyrics) have this much power over you. Personally, I'd much rather enjoy the sick solos and riffs, as opposed to being reduced to a puddle at the very mention of rape.

DakotaRogers wrote:

ZombieHavoc wrote:

Wait, wait, wait. But I've seen you complain about bands singing about zombies, pizza and beer. More than once. Admittedly those kinds of lyrics are beyond way over used in current thrash. But a song about a group of dudes chasing a woman through the woods, making a game of the whole thing, to rape her, shouting "F*** that b****!" right before some heavy riffage...that's more tolerable than beer?

Metal wasn't always the politically correct medium that it is now. When I see lyrics such as those, it's a breathe of fresh air, even if they're depraved. But as far as quality is concerned, I'll take the beer-swilling Tankard guys any day.

I'm positive that their motivations were not as malevolent as what you're thinking. Perhaps they recently saw The Last House on the Left and wanted to write a song on the subject; or maybe they wanted to craft a song so horrible, they would get a hell of a lot of "free advertising" from the PMRC. After all, Slayer did make a career on writing songs with controversial lyrical themes.

But my point is, there's no sense in letting disingenuine/idle words (in this case, lyrics) have this much power over you. Personally, I'd much rather enjoy the sick solos and riffs, as opposed to being reduced to a puddle at the very mention of rape.

Yeah, to me it just seems like the band was trying to be as shocking as possible.

I listened to Spread Eagle's "Open to the Public" album while working out earlier tonight and thought of this thread when the song, If I Can't Have You, came on.

F'n Heart of Metal, man!

DakotaRogers wrote:

ZombieHavoc wrote:

Wait, wait, wait. But I've seen you complain about bands singing about zombies, pizza and beer. More than once. Admittedly those kinds of lyrics are beyond way over used in current thrash. But a song about a group of dudes chasing a woman through the woods, making a game of the whole thing, to rape her, shouting "F*** that b****!" right before some heavy riffage...that's more tolerable than beer?

Metal wasn't always the politically correct medium that it is now. When I see lyrics such as those, it's a breathe of fresh air, even if they're depraved. But as far as quality is concerned, I'll take the beer-swilling Tankard guys any day.

I'm positive that their motivations were not as malevolent as what you're thinking. Perhaps they recently saw The Last House on the Left and wanted to write a song on the subject; or maybe they wanted to craft a song so horrible, they would get a hell of a lot of "free advertising" from the PMRC. After all, Slayer did make a career on writing songs with controversial lyrical themes.

But my point is, there's no sense in letting disingenuine/idle words (in this case, lyrics) have this much power over you. Personally, I'd much rather enjoy the sick solos and riffs, as opposed to being reduced to a puddle at the very mention of rape.

We're getting into some topic drift with this one, and I may be alone with this, but sometimes I just want to be ENTERTAINED by my entertainment media. I played through Bioshock: Infinite recently and, while it has a great plot and writing, it's a first person shooter. Seriously, I want some mayhem, some action and some fun out of it and the ending of this game (AND its DLC in particular) is an exercise into staring down the Nietschean abyss. Seriously, it's some depressing crap!

There's a time and a place for challenging art (even disposable art), but we've also hit an era in which EVERYONE is making dark, challenging, gritty art and it does tend to overstay its welcome. With metal songs about rape and the like, I wonder if part of the problem isn't "realism fatigue" at this point. At one point, writing stuff like that was shocking and original. At this point, it's just kind of depressing and samey. It's the difference between listening to a Sabaton song about WWII and watching Saving Private Ryan.

I wasn't big on Infinite myself, mainly cause it was too much of a departure from the previous games in the series, I didn't like the ending either, not cause it was depressing, but because it had a truly ridiculous amount of plot holes that made it much more laughable then profound like the developers intended.

I pretty much hate everything that's based around a time paradox, I can't keep up with it all; but I did love Bioshock: Infinite. I somehow managed to keep my composure long enough to beat the game on 1999 mode.

Vexer6 wrote:

DakotaRogers wrote:

ZombieHavoc wrote:

Wait, wait, wait. But I've seen you complain about bands singing about zombies, pizza and beer. More than once. Admittedly those kinds of lyrics are beyond way over used in current thrash. But a song about a group of dudes chasing a woman through the woods, making a game of the whole thing, to rape her, shouting "F*** that b****!" right before some heavy riffage...that's more tolerable than beer?

Metal wasn't always the politically correct medium that it is now. When I see lyrics such as those, it's a breathe of fresh air, even if they're depraved. But as far as quality is concerned, I'll take the beer-swilling Tankard guys any day.

I'm positive that their motivations were not as malevolent as what you're thinking. Perhaps they recently saw The Last House on the Left and wanted to write a song on the subject; or maybe they wanted to craft a song so horrible, they would get a hell of a lot of "free advertising" from the PMRC. After all, Slayer did make a career on writing songs with controversial lyrical themes.

But my point is, there's no sense in letting disingenuine/idle words (in this case, lyrics) have this much power over you. Personally, I'd much rather enjoy the sick solos and riffs, as opposed to being reduced to a puddle at the very mention of rape.

Yeah, to me it just seems like the band was trying to be as shocking as possible.

That is the case with a lot of them.

Also, since people are mentioning rap music in terms of misogyny, let's take a look at the lyrics to the Lil' Kim song "How Many Licks":

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/lilkim/howmanylicks.html

This is like a gender reversed thing, since it's done by a woman. Any men speak out about it or saying that she is misandrist and only looks at men as sex objects? Nope.

Required Fields wrote:

Also, since people are mentioning rap music in terms of misogyny, let's take a look at the lyrics to the Lil' Kim song "How Many Licks":

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/lilkim/howmanylicks.html

This is like a gender reversed thing, since it's done by a woman. Any men speak out about it or saying that she is misandrist and only looks at men as sex objects? Nope.

---

I'd just call her a skanky whore. I don't consider it a double standard to harbor any suspicions based on behavior exhibited by someone, that because of their gender, will naturally gravitate to that could undermine their integrity or morals. People will always find exceptions, but there are still general truths that have mostly stood the test of time which most PC crybabies try to deny or 'change'.

muckie wrote:

I'd just call her a skanky whore. I don't consider it a double standard to harbor any suspicions based on behavior exhibited by someone, that because of their gender, will naturally gravitate to that could undermine their integrity or morals. People will always find exceptions, but there are still general truths that have mostly stood the test of time which most PC crybabies try to deny or 'change'.

Nope, I've read this about seven times and still have absolutely no clue what you are saying!  

Boris2008 wrote:

muckie wrote:

I'd just call her a skanky whore. I don't consider it a double standard to harbor any suspicions based on behavior exhibited by someone, that because of their gender, will naturally gravitate to that could undermine their integrity or morals. People will always find exceptions, but there are still general truths that have mostly stood the test of time which most PC crybabies try to deny or 'change'.

Nope, I've read this about seven times and still have absolutely no clue what you are saying!  

I'm just being tongue-in-cheek. But still slightly serious. I'm just saying Lil Kim needs to watch out or she'll end up in a ditch because of the Hell's Angels.

Society has never, in the main, been terribly cool with people venting their spleens. On some levels it makes sense. It's one thing to have a bad day and go off half-cocked and say, "I want to blow up my office/school." That's 100% harmless. Unfortunately, we also live in a day and age where there have been more than a few people who've said that and then done it.

Ditto for the sexually heated stuff. A guy can be pissed at his ex and write all sorts of horrible things he'd like to do to her and that's 100% fine provided it ends there. Ditto for a scenario with reversed genders. Unfortunately, some people think the only way to be safe is to curb the speech because, somehow, that magically curbs the behavior. You can say unflattering things about an ex or a member of the opposite gender without being a misogynist/misandrist, but most people can't read the intent behind the words, so they panic when the words show up.

Personally, my attitude is that you should be able to say whatever the hell you want and it's the ACTIONS that need to be punished in whatever way is appropriate. You can't pre-empt violence, crime, or whatever, so this "guess work" just attacks people who, by venting their spleens, DON'T end up actually doing wretched crap to other people.

Required Fields wrote:

Not really. I mean, most of the bands weren't taking themselves too seriously.

This topic really isn't a soapbox for, but if I were to play devil's advocate, the statement above was just a way of not taking any responsibility and it was the credo that those within the industry were living by. It's just "boys being boys". It would be interesting to see how many of those within the industry ended up having girls, and if they did, the following question should be posed: "Would you let your daughter date some early version of yourself"?

metalinmyveins wrote:

Required Fields wrote:

Not really. I mean, most of the bands weren't taking themselves too seriously.

This topic really isn't a soapbox for, but if I were to play devil's advocate, the statement above was just a way of not taking any responsibility and it was the credo that those within the industry were living by. It's just "boys being boys". It would be interesting to see how many of those within the industry ended up having girls, and if they did, the following question should be posed: "Would you let your daughter date some early version of yourself"?

Hell, that's a question most people should ask themselves. I don't think guys need to be singing songs about their sex lives in order to do stuff that they'd never want done to their daughters. Likewise, I think a guy (or gal) who never, in any form, came up with some kind of power fantasy or whatever - whether it was a lyric, a poem, a painting, a fanfic, or just a Facebook rant - when things didn't go right in their relationships didn't have a pulse to begin with (exception obviously for those charmed folks who never had dirty dealings with other people).

I'm reading Roger Lancelyn Green's telling of the King Arthur stories. That could have counted as a power fantasy back in its time.

What it can teach is that, misogyny happens when one rejects the honor of Logres intended to save the beautiful, distraught damsels of society, in favor of outright oppressing them. Take it as a metaphor.

The idea of a man restricting a woman to fulfill some lowly means to an end for his sake only is equivalent to stealing her and locking her up into a tower.

We're getting a little social psychology 101 with this direction, but I think even that reading is kind of playing into this whole "men and women have set roles" thing. Yeah, when we were fending off predators with sharpened sticks and rocks, the male predisposition to upper body strength meant that the dudes were the ones with the sticks and rocks (don't read too much into that) and the female predisposition to lower body strength meant that the gals where picking up the kids and bolting back into the cave. Ok, fine.

In a modern age, the notion of gender establishing a "role" beyond just the biological aspect of having children is kind of antiquated. From that perspective, the idea of misogyny or misandry is kind of backwards on its own because it renders men and women just objects on which actions are committed. They don't have agency, they don't get to choose their involvement, etc.

So, back to the topic at hand, if a guy writes a song that pretty well flies the flag that he's a dirtbag, women are fully at liberty to say, "This guy is a prick and I have no interest in talking to him, let alone knocking boots." and going off to do something that entertains them instead. Likewise, is it really the guy's fault if a woman either doesn't care about his views or doesn't respect herself enough to find someone who will respect her? Well, he's still a prick, but he didn't MAKE her that way.

I think what I'm getting at is that it's a complicated topic. But, at the bottom of it, there isn't one group "doing" and another group "being done to" one way or the other. That's kind of an absurd writing off taking place there.

That said, can we agree that "Used to Love Her" is a hilarious song?

Would you guys classify this song as misandrist?

I don't know but I like that song.  And I had to look up what "misandrist" meant.  Interesting, I knew there was a word for men who hate women but I've never heard the word for the opposite.  So in answer to your question I don't know that that song is misandrist but she's obviously been hurt by men multiple times.  Good tune though, I need to check out their EP.

EDIT:  OMG!  I found another song by this band on YouTube called "1-800-Miss-ur-guts" and it's absolutely awful.  I thought that auto-tuning stuff thrown into that song RF posted was kind of cute but apparently they do that all the time.  Ugh.  Terrible.

At the time....in the 80s....I thought glam bands as one hit wonders.
But dug they were there. Representing say 15% of Metal.
I was shocked how Metal turned glam. 70%.
It was downhill from there as the music mongrels n buildings decided that direction.
It was crash and burn for the entire scene.
As if Joe Biden was calling the shots.