One of my 'Brothers in arms' wrote this article. Read this and reflect on yourself if you have been stereotyping the genre of Metal.
In the past few years, the winds of change have been blowing through our tiny island. With all the emphasis on thinking individuals, creativity and expressing oneself, it seems almost that these words have become fashionable not only in the corporate world but also with our government and by extension; even our educational institutes. The changes in various fields are evident and quite heartening with our tertiary students taking up various entrepreneurship endeavors, the arts scene belting out various critically acclaimed plays, censors easing up on the criteria on movie screening and well even the content being broadcasted on local television becoming more thought provoking; signs of our country evolving to become a more cosmopolitan and thinking nation. In essence we’re sort of practicing what we preach.
Yet however, that’s less than what we can say about what is being aired on our airwaves. There sadly seems to be a deep chasm between our thinking reflected in our general art that addresses themes in reality and the music that is omnipresent in our airwaves. I’m referring more blatantly to the four English radio stations that are playing pop songs locally. I know of many people who have given up listening to the local radio altogether because the content and musicality of the pieces are boring and repetitive.
All the songs played generally seem to be about Boy, girl relationships and the emotions related to them. More recently and perhaps to me disturbingly, there also seems to be growing focus on promiscuity and the intoxicating idea of hedonism married to a decreasing standard of musicality where Sean Kingston can wholly rip off the bass-line for “stand by me” and call it his original “beautiful girls”, with the general population actually shamelessly supporting it enough to make it into the charts. If music is to be considered an art form and art is to be a reflection of life than by logical extension one who listens to and abides by such music has no life, or more generously a life based solely on the animalistic virtue of procreating, nay, the act of intercourse without procreating. Unless of course, I seemed to have missed out on public policy somewhere and all this is just a means of subtle conditioning to make our population procreate more rampantly. And we blame our youth? I, to date haven’t been able to not let my imagination run wild with some of the songs I hear on air; perhaps my peers have an easier time disregarding the lyrics.
Yet if one is to listen to such songs and disregard the lyrics and considering they do not have a lot going on for them musically as compared to say folk, jazz or classical music than this pieces of music are just white noise that we hear, hampering our internal cognitive functioning. The cliché western philosophy axiom “Cogito, ergo sum”, I think therefore I am shows how much our internal thinking shapes our existence. The powerful medium of music influences what we are able to think by what we hear. If I’m listening to the radio the whole day by virtue of the pervasiveness and accessibility of it as a mass communication media, than, obviously my preoccupation will be to become attractive and get into a relationship not to achieve greater things in life nor question the state of the environment around me. Karl Marx said that religion is the opiate for the masses, in the modern context I strongly disagree; the pop culture seems to be serving that function.
I’m not being a fanatical despot here that is arguing for the extermination of all things pop on the airwaves, but rather am questioning for the need of four local English radio stations playing the same genre. In fact I think in its own place pop is good because a lot of people do identify with its musicality and its themes. Does that than mean it should be doctrine all of us should be subjected to? Isn’t it time for change, a balance of things that reflects us more fully? I am here arguing for the introduction of metal onto our airwaves.
Firstly the media and social context is already ripe for such a musical art form to be broadcasted on our radio. As a avid fan who lives and breathes the music I assure you that there is less censorship in most metal songs than there was in the chorus of Fifty cents’ P.I.M.P (apparently abbreviating the word makes less offensive and its not even the entire title of the song yet). It is not a radical out of place idea that I as a fanatic am arguing for, rather it is a natural progression. More importantly, even though our genre has no air time and exposure what so ever, there is a decent turnout when big bands (Megadeth, Slayer etc.) come to Singapore. That suggests that there is already a sizeable demand for this genre that warrants at least a weekly late night show on our airwaves. Even Metallica was sold out in 1994 when the internet wasn’t around; it seems rather ignorant of groundwork demand that our island does not already have such a program on an English channel. Yet moving away from the commercial viability of such a program I’ll hope to break some misconceptions about metal and explain why it has the prerequisites of a good art form.
Before going green became trendy and many corporations are fallaciously advertising themselves as green to get a bigger market share, Metallica already wrote a song about the what pollution was doing to the earth in their track “Blackened”; it is considerable irony that they didn’t play it at Live Earth which shows why metal-heads think they have sold out. Dave Mustaine, frontman of Megadeth brilliantly encapsulated the irony of democracy by phrasing a simple yet catchy chorus, “peace sells but who’s buying”. More recently, he combined his piercing wit and awesome musicality on the state of the United Nations by releasing the album “United Abominations”. Such a marriage of thought and music is not a one off incident in the genre but is even a reality much closer back at home in Singapore. Old timers Rudra has been able to deal with concepts of Hinduism from mythology to meta-physics in their songs and even newer bands like Absence of the Sacred are able to poetically portray the themes of apocalypse or modern decadence. In such a scenario it just seems that both the public and the bands are losing out by not being exposed to each other just because of some strange misconception that may exist about the genre.
At this point it seems only appropriate that I comment on the musicality of the genre, however it seems to be a pointless endeavor firstly because there is no real way to justify that it’s good music because opinion is subjective and also because of general consensus that metal is noisy; I do not know how much effect my words may have. I can tell you that metal drummers use advanced techniques such as double pedals, an entire band can play at blistering speeds of 260 beats per minute, guitarists incorporate a whole bunch of influences from Arabic-feel licks to blues scales for solos, many bands are heavily influenced by classical music and there are even jazz interludes by technically superior bands; but will that have any real difference to you, the reader, if your unwilling to put your prejudice aside and look beyond the supposed noisy wall of guitar distortion? I know plenty of people who are able to appreciate the music without needing to be hardcore fanatics having a collection of rare demo tapes or accessorizing for concerts. All that is required is just a discerning ear and open mind, and such an audience, only the vast reach of radio can provide for music.
At this point I can imagine a whole array of different groups responding to this and giving countless different reasons why metal should not be allowed, predominantly the issue of anti-religious lyrics. If slayer, one of the first bands to introduce anti-religious lyrics into metal can play in Singapore within the constraints of the law- that is that they could not play any songs that had anti-religious lyrics- I do believe that there is enough content to run such a radio program with such measures in place, as is being done by Vicious Volume on Ria. But more importantly, isn’t the stuff that is already being played on our radios with the idea of objectifying women and pre marital intercourse, more sacrilegious to any religious teaching than saying there suggesting that perhaps with all the evil and inhumanity evident in the world that there maybe no higher entity? Unreasonable hate is just as dangerous as blind love, which is why I’m not suggesting that there should not be any controls in place. A late night weekly slot is better than no slot. And many may argue that there is already a great show in the form of Vicious Volume on Ria. It’s a great way to learn my national language considering that I do not know Malay but from a broader perspective is that implying that only my Malay speaking counterparts enjoy metal music which is in English, or are the four local pop music English stations overflowing with fantastic content to not spare Burhanudin Buang(the deejay of vicious volume) a slot?
The properties of the metal genre, that qualifies it as an intellectual musical art form does not warrant its conspicuous absence from the airwaves apart from the sole factor of social inertia. There is demand for it as shown by the influx of international metal bands coming to Singapore. There is the social acceptance for such an art form as pointed out earlier in terms of its themes and language. There is a need for the media to give the public something different that can satisfy the aural capacity and mental one. Most importantly there is a need to give our local scene a platform. Most metal musicians have invested so much of effort into the music to achieve a standard in their respective instruments, even though they know they probably will be not able to do anything with it. So what drives them? Pure unadulterated passion to do what influences them so deeply. Not even the fleeting fancy of monetary reparation. That is without a doubt true inspiration for any artiste.
This platform can give much deserved recognition to so many talented local metal musicians that inadvertently burn out after one or two albums because it does seem pointless as age catches on. Most importantly, in metal, the origins of the band matter so much that no one can go against it as your roots matter and hence it affects your themes and music. You do not become a faceless product to sell on the global stage when your music spreads; rather you put your country on the world map due to the passion and brotherhood that this genre has to offer. There is potential to have truly Singaporean identity in the metal scene and a radio show can contribute to it. Even our existence as a secular democratic nation in south-east Asia is a valid enough reason to give metal a platform because we have a natural advantage over our neighbours. And personally, if Singapore truly wants to be an arts hub and prove to the world we are just not a copy cat nation doing a pre-requisite set list of things to allow us to clink wine glasses with the first-world countries of the world, the most apt representation of that may just come about by having our Asian version of a metal festival; it will have very little to do with how much revenue it generates, how beautiful it looks, or how courteous we maybe to those funny accented foreigners (just kidding really) but how much passion and believe we have in the music and in our own local musicians’ ability to bring the house down..
-Shiva Rai
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