The Politics of Heavy Metal

by Alex Barker


As it has been 50 years since the creation of the popular genre Heavy Metal, I decided to look deeper into the music, lyrics and bands who popularised this genre and developed it. Even though the term ‘heavy metal’ began to circulate in the 1960s especially with the SteppenWolf song ‘Born to be Wild’, the band who are widely credited for the creation of the genre is Black Sabbath, with their release of the self-titled album in February of 1970 (UK). Throughout the 50 years it has been around, the genre has given birth to countless sub-genres, however odd and confusing they may be: from ‘thrash metal’ (Metallica) to ‘Shakespeare metal” (The Metal Shakespeare Company). However in this article I will be focusing on the politics of the genre and how many of its musicians have been involved in political activism. 

A few examples of bands who encouraged political activism are the US bands ‘Sacred Reich’ and ‘Testament’ who protested against environmental destruction in the late 1980s with a few stand-out lines from a song called ‘Greenhouse Effect’ which reads ‘the rain forest burns away’ and ‘they don't even care if they… seal the planet's fate, crimes they perpetrate, wasting precious land, it’s time to take a stand’. Futhermore, South Africa’s ‘Retribution Denied’ spoke out against the corruption of Apartheid in the early 1990s. Although the majority of the listeners of heavy metal remained largely white and male, they also offered visibility to people of colour and ethics minorities. More recently in 2009 the British band, Napalm Death, who have had a history of being politically active and ‘anti-capitalist’ (take a look at the album cover of the album ‘Scum’), released a song called ‘On the Brink of Extinction’, which contemplates a mass sixth extinction, something that many scientists believe is probable.  

RATM protesting against the Iraq War

One of my favourite bands, with strongly political lyrics, is Rage Against the Machine (RATM),  a left-wing band who have often voiced strong criticism of the domestic and foreign policies of the US government during the 1990s. The band and its members are widely known to have participated in political protests and other activism throughout the band's existence. Zach De la Rocha, the lead singer of the  band explained that “I'm interested in spreading those ideas through art, because music has the power to cross borders, to break military sieges and to establish real dialogue.” 


Metal bands still to this day continue to engage with serious international political issues. Climate change is a key theme addressed by many modern bands and an example of this is British band Architects and French band Gojira, partnering with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a non-profit, marine wildlife conservation organization. Greta Thunberg's famous UN speech was also remixed as a metal track where all proceeds went to the charity, Greenpeace:

  
With Covid-19 being a major current issue and keeping us locked indoors I had time to think of some quite topical songs to pass time: ‘Down with the Sickness’ (Disturbed), ‘Doctor Doctor’ (UFO), ‘Sickman’ (Alice in Chains), ‘Fever’ (Judas Priest), ‘See you on the Other Side’ (Ozzy Osbourne) and ‘Spreading the Disease’ (Queensrÿche).