There is always one… but hold on. What about the hypocrisy?

There is always one… but hold on. What about hypocrisy?

Phil Anselmo, front man of Heavy Metal band Pantera posted a heartfelt apology for his disgusting behaviour at a gig. He stood on stage, during a public gig, and forcefully bellowed “White power!” If that was not racist enough, he topped it of with a Nazi salute.

Sadly, many of my friends and comments of discussion boards illuminated the fact that, despite feeling deeply embarrassed and disappointed, we were neither entirely staggered nor disturbed by the incident. Pantera had some questionable lyrics, and Phil has made a few questionable comments in the past.

Heavy metal has its very few overt racist bands. The last few decades has seen a large, diverse audience, and thousands of non-white musicians becoming part of the essence and tapestry. Heavy Metal has its racists, but it is nothing more than a realization that society itself has issues with racism, and like a lot of things, heavy metal is not going to be immune to it.

And just like in society there is blind hypocrisy.

Heavy metal has waltzed with racist and fascist representations. Anyone with a brain would know Marilyn Manson’s “AntiChrist Superstar” or Rammstein, who borrowed video cuts from Nazi film director and editor Leni Riefenstahl in their music video “Stripped,” were subverting the fascist imagery and constructing a thesis about the necessity and value of personal freedom.

Slayer’s great guitarist (RIP brother) was openly mocked and criticised for the song “Angel of Death,” about the atrocities of Joseph Mengele,the SS psychopath doctor at death-camp Auschwitz. Hanneman was shocked that people, or how anyone, could have seen it as an endorsement of fascism and war crimes. The song is graphic, dark and very unnerving. It confronts the horrors and darkness of Mengele. It makes us uncomfortable. We remember how nothing like this should ever happen again.

Despite Heavy Metal’s core values contrast the intellectual and emotional stupidity of racism, we are let down by Anselmo. Metal speaks of strength in unity, defiance of the unjust, and triumph over darkness. It launches upwards, not underwater, drowning the less fortunate.

However there is hypocrisy. Robb Flynn from Machine Head openly put his band on the line when he said in a video that Anselmo’s racism was disgusting, and he will never play alongside Pantera again. Top stuff. He said, Metallica guitarist Lars Ulrich said something racist, there would be outcry, because he is not popular.

However.

Because Anselmo is respected, his racism has been kept under the blankets until the recent video of his “White Power!” comments and his salute. There is one issue. Lars has did the same thing as Anselmo, as did James Hetfield. Scot Ian from thrash metal band Anthrax said that Phil Anselmo should donate to the Simon Wiesenthan Centre, an organisation against anti-Semitism and holocaust denial. But Scott’s prior band, Stormtroopers of Death has songs entitled

Speak English or Die

Fuck the Middle-East

Kill Yourself

If we were to ask Scott Ian, Lars Urlich or James Hetfield about this, we’d be told it was just a joke, a piss-take, “that was then, this is now” kind of thing. It would be brushed off, along with Phil Anselmo’s racist and inflammatory antics. If we scrutinised, judged and pulled up James, Scott and Urlich by today’s standards, they would be destroyed like Anselmo was. Seems a tad inconsistent. Anselmo's past racism vrushed off because he is "respected as a musician," yet because his antics were cause on tape, replicated, and posted by the thousands, its addressed. it begs the question, why must it take a video camera for his racism to be addressed. Dissapointing. And why Was ian, Hetfield and Urlich not addressed back in the 80s. Perhaps metals racism should be scrutinised more. And other genres too.

I think I can conclude from this is that music is a form of representation. Like society, forms of representation, like liesure forms such as music, have encoded into them inferential and overt racisms. Leisure forms are connected to the social and historical background, and involve their own discourses and signifiers. It definitely pays to be aware of you’re music’s positive, like Heavy Metals quest for a better world against injustices, but it also pays to not turn a blind eye to its own hypocrisy. We can think of music as a kind of product engaged in common-sense racism. Like all musical forms, Heavy-Metal has its own racism, ironically present, ignored, sometimes brushed off, then acknowledge and demolished while at the same time, blindly ignoring and invalidating its own past racism. I imagine this kind of narrative is similar for many other genres.