How does one make a political metal mix for someone who already has "War Pigs," "Peace Sells," "Cult of Personality" and "Bring the Noise?"
Dissidents
Metallica, "Blackened"
System of a Down, "B.Y.O.B."
Faith No More, "We Care a Lot"
Living Colour, "Pride"
Guns N' Roses, "Civil War"
Suicidal Tendencies, "Send Me Your Money"
Marilyn Manson, "The Love Song"
Saul Williams, "List of Demands (Reparations)"
Lamb of God, "As the Palaces Burn"
Revocation, "Pestilence Reigns"
Megadeth, "Symphony of Destruction"
Ministry, "Thieves"
Gojira, "Vacuity"
Motörhead, "God Save the Queen"
Sepultura, "Kaiowas"
Rage Against the Machine, "Wake Up"
Body Count, "Cop Killer"
Misery Index, "Traitors"
Answer: It's hard, but not for lack of songs. How to pick just one selection from Rage Against the Machine or System of a Down? Is Tool's "Ænima" political enough? Is Saul Williams' "List of Demands (Reparations)" metal enough? There are already enough political metal mixes, with names like Psalm 69 and As the Palaces Burn. How can anything compete with those?
I ended up pulling up a little from everything. This is for someone who probably agrees with Cattle Decapitation philosophically if not melodically, so I'm throwing down the biggest metal trump cards. I picked "Blackened" over the other ...And Justice for All contenders by virtue of the fact that it rocks the hardest, and "Symphony of Destruction" for not having a verse about the Punisher, plus being still sadly relevant in an era of Morsis and Putins. Sepultura's "Kaiowas" landed here for proving that a metal band didn't need amps, or even lyrics, to send a message about forced evictions of natives in Brazil. I also dug up "We Care a Lot" from Faith No More's pre-Mike Patton days, a gleefully incisive takedown of the Live Aid and "We Are the World" celebrities which I'd still pit against anything Bono and Bob Geldof are doing today. I'll add that "We Care a Lot" predated The Book of Mormon ("I am Africa") and Get Him to the Greek ("African Child (Trapped in Me)") by at least 20 years.
More recently, the Political Metal flag has been raised by French progressive environmetalists (sic) Gojira and relentlessly confrontational deathgrinders Misery Index, the latter of whom earn the Thomas Paine and John Brown references on "Traitors" by being one of the only metal bands to put as much care into their lyrics as their music. But my favorite is Revocation, whom match their politically-charged lyrics (they recently debuted a song called "Fracked") with the most sophisticated metal that these ears have found over the past few years. "Pestilence Reigns," a chilling depiction of air raids, solves all of my problems with neo-thrash and technical death metal, giving the former a death metal makeover and the later a sense of songwriting direction.
Finally, I couldn't put together a political metal mix without including the most controversial metal single of all time. If you haven't heard it, that's because it's been banned from CD release since 1992.
Man With the Iron Fists was everything that I hoped a RZA-helmed kung fu adventure would be. That being said, I assumed that hearing Motörhead's "Iron Fist" in the score would be too much to ask for.
Kung fu metal is an untapped niche. There are more than enough horror-themed metal bands (White Zombie, GWAR, the Misfits), and some terrible sci-fi ones (anything that sounds like Fear Factory), but no metal band has incorporated martial arts into their music the way that the members of the Wu-Tang Clan have. Most likely, kung fu metal would end up sounding like the System of a Down and Tom Morello collabs with the Wu-Tang on the Loud Rocks comp. But hopefully, it would sound more like Motörhead.
Nothing conjures up action like Motörhead's music--one of the sharpest reviews I ever read compared Lemmy's tones to the sound that Snoopy's plane makes when he's fighting the Red Baron. The lyrics, like a kung fu movie screenplay, are just there to sound cool in the fray. "You know me, evil eye/You know me, prepare to die/You know me, you can't resist/Devil's grip, the Iron Fist" could be dubbed into Shogun Assassin. If Man With the Iron Fists gets a sequel, and it definitely deserves one, I'm hoping that RZA includes "Iron Fist."
This week, I saw the Deftones, System of a Down, Cannibal Corpse and Between the Buried and Me. Last Thursday, at Coney Island's free concert series, Joan Jett handed each of them their asses on a plate.
Decades after she's had any sort of commercial success, Jett is still one of rock's most likeable characters. She blurs the punk-pop line tighter than anyone from the Clash to Green Day, and has found enduring appeal as a headbanger, punk, feminist, pop star and gay icon, both as a legend and a cult figure. She is not a great songwriter, as seen by any of her covers-heavy records, but she is a top level showman and interpreter, best experienced in the flesh.
Taking the stage to the Beastie Boys' "No Sleep 'Till Brooklyn," Jett and her Blackhearts blazed through an 80-minute show that covered everything a casual fan would want to hear. Other than a mid-set break into some moderately lame new songs, Jett subjected us to an admirable hit list, including "Bad Reputation," "Crimson and Clover," "Do You Wanna Touch Me?" and of course "I Love Rock N' Roll." She stripped the polish off "I Hate Myself for Loving You" and shook the self-consciousness from the Runaways' "Cherry Bomb," establishing herself as a perfomer in charge of her own vision, no matter how Kim Fowley remembers in.
Jett's most underrated ability, besides being the only lead singer in rock history who looks tougher when she smiles, is her guitar playing, a raw-toned weapon with a rockabilly knack for soloing. The Blackhearts, an expendable team of younger musicians who didn't always hit their cues, gave songs like "Love is Pain" and "The French Song" garage band character that emphasized Jett's tendency to sound both DIY and commercial. The band's missteps were all part of the Joan Show, and proof that there wasn't a bum note or a pop chorus that she couldn't electrify.
Seven years after their last album, System of a Down still sound like mainstream metal's last stand. They're still the newest cutting edge metal act whose CDs could be sold at Target, the most modern metal band to write a tolerable song that your sister knows the words to. At Jones Beach Theater last Sunday, they gave no indication that they'll be releasing new music, even if that may be exactly what underground metal needs right now. System's ability to be avant-garde and popular was reflected in the line outside the venue, where Wiz Khalifa and Daniel Johnston t-shirts met.
Headbangers will always need our System of a Downs. Gripe all you want about it not being kvlt enough for you, but you never would have discovered grindcore if you hadn't heard Pantera, and there is an abundance of exciting underground metal bands with no modern gateway artist. Either System have to make new music, or Pig Destroyer is going to have to start writing choruses.
Openers the Deftones tore into "Rocket Skates" moments before the sky turned black and released a torrential storm on the band and attendees. Undeterred, either by their own professionalism, the crowd's energy or the fact that their biggest foe was still the Jones Beach acoustics, they boosted a standard "Best of the Deftones" setlist by employing the weather into their show. "This is some Michael Jackson shit happening, without (mechanical) fans," commented singer Chino Moreno, while the winds and downpour gave songs like "Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)" a grandeur that they never could have found in the Deftones' usual club setting.
System of a Down opened with "Prison Song," an anti-incarceration anthem that alternates between singer Serj Tankian's barked statistics and guitarist Daron Malakian's squeaked imitation of a crack-smoking Hollywood dwelling. It was a reminder of how the band originally stood out, by blending goofy irreverence and dour politics somehow never undermined each other (most System-y shirt: an armored vehicle with an erected tank gun that read "MINE IS BIGGER THAN YOURS.") Like Malakian's hero, Frank Zappa, System's songs danced between cheery melodies ("Bounce," "Cigaro,") and guitar spazz outs ("Suite-Pee," "Sugar,") often in the same composition ("Chop Suey," "B.Y.O.B.") If anything, the band's sense of humor gave their politics more weight than the self-serious riot acts of Rage Against the Machine and Lamb of God.
But like Rage, System of a Down showed last Sunday that they are best as a unit. Tankain's solo records or Malakian's Scars on Broadway have been struggling to come up with anything as instant as "Needles" or at wrenching as "Hypnotize" ever since System of a Down announced their hiatus in 2006. By last Sunday's show, they've still "got it," and if SOAD never records again as a band, it would the metal community's loss.
Anti-war rallies would be more effective if they played more metal. Why is it always "Get Up, Stand Up" and never "War Pigs," "One" or "Civil War?" Few arts can depict the brutality of the battlefield as unnervingly as metal.
Bands have built careers on protesting war (Rage Against the Machine, System of a Down, Misery Index), even when the songs don't reflect their creator's own beliefs (Megadeth). Every time Lamb of God decry the government for mistreating its military, they are stepping into a pool with Slayer's "War Ensemble" and Sepultura's "Territory."
But before we get to an anti-war metal mix CD, remember that today is not about chickenhawk politicians who sacrifice the working class and stigmatize anti-war sentiments as being anti-troops. Today is about the brave men and women who risked and gave their lives in wars that, to paraphrase Trotsky, were interested in them, even if the fighters weren't interested in war. In modern music, no great band has honored these heroes more than Iron Maiden. Here's a playlist for today.
1. "Aces High" (from Powerslave, 1984)
Maiden's best show-opener starts with a history lesson (Churchill's "We Shall Fight on the Beaches" speech) and peaks with a chorus that soars as high as a Battle for Britain pilot. Watch out.
2. "The Trooper" (from Piece of Mind, 1983)
Inspired by Lord Tennyson's The Charge of the Light Brigade, "The Trooper" memorializes the British soldiers who died in the failed Crimean War charge. History books aren't as kind as they should be, so thank Steve Harris for taking it into his hands.
3. "Women in Uniform" (single, 1980)
Maiden hadn't found their best voice yet--they were still employing singer Paul Di'Anno and covering bands like Skyhooks, who wrote this well-meaning but stupid ode to a group that never gets enough credit. Some day women in combat will get the anthem that they deserve, but until then the least someone can do is Maidenize it.
4. "Where Eagles Dare" (from Piece of Mind, 1983)
"The world is grown so bad, that wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch," quoth the Bard in Richard III. Centuries later, the Shakespeare of Metal sung of those who are boldest when the world is at its worst.
5. "Die With Your Boots On" (from Piece of Mind, 1983)
A modern twist on the "With your shield or on it" adage? A tribute to a comically inaccurate Errol Flynn movie? This fan favorite is up for interpretation, but hear it today as a salute to the fearless armed forces.
