Scaremongering was once an almost guaranteed effective means to ensuring people demonised or at least feared certain objects of people; for example the Salem Witch Trials, the McCarthy era hunt for Reds Under the Bed and currently anyone wearing a turban carrying a rucksack. The one main exception to this rule has been music, in particular heavy metal.
Post-Columbine trench coats acquired a must-have status, as if the number of Crow wannabes hadn't already ensured healthy sales, it is pretty nigh impossible to find out how sales of firearms went up post-Columbine as concerned parents decided that arming their children would ensure their safety, which is somewhat ironic. The questionable conviction of an undeniably messed up little boy in Scotland for the murder of his girlfriend apparently inspired by a DVD he purchased two days after her untimely demise also did nothing to damage sales of the artist in question - if nothing else because owning a DVD that can apparently effect past events seems a fairly groovy trinket in most people's books.
In the 1980s KISS, Twisted Sister, Motley Crue and Alice Cooper were all heralded at length and volume as part of the problem corrupting American youth, although how preventing more Yuppies can be deemed a bad thing is beyond me; unfortunately things have changed since these glorious days where infamy ensure a place in the record books and sold out tours even 20 years on when all concerned are aging fast, if not gracefully, and, in many cases, seemingly cashing in on their former glories for all they are worth. As society has broadened it's mind and swearing on Kid's TV is commonplace and burning churches is passé the barriers must be pushed into the realm where good taste and vegetarians dared not follow.
Songs which feature fanciful and blatantly detached from reality style lyrics are frequently held up by over-opinionated pressure groups to glorify violence, even things are bland and harmless as Slayer, Cannibal Corpse or Deicide - as a general rule children don't eat corpses because the music told them to thus making the pressure group's argument rather void, as impressionable as children and young adults are there are limits of feasibility and in the very last instance of opportunity.
Meanwhile Tina Turner's refusal to leave an abusive partner or to take any form of action was not held up as pop music's tacit approval of domestic violence, more recently a number of female pop singers have been alleged to have attacked their spouses -a turn of events which was met with humour rather than horror. If it is amusing when a woman hits a man then by the same logic a man hitting a woman must also be funny - either that or both are unacceptable and unnecessary. Lyrics featuring piles of corpses and demonic horrors are no more evil than folk poems about historic battles or any Shakespeare play where someone drew a sword.
Despite the period media frenzy every time a child dies and they can link it to the movie, video game or band most often the media-format the perpetrator last used has, at worst, a slight impact in a deed they were already committed to doing due to mental illness or a more social handicap that meant they were never going to be able to cope with the real world - to quote 'Scream' "movies don't create psychos, movies make psychos more creative". A child hit by a train because they ignored the warning lights on a level crossing in their hast to go xmas shopping isn't deemed to have been killed by the sprit of capitalist consumption that has been force fed everyone since birth so how Slayer can be responsible for a doped up daughter's death is beyond rational explanation - unless of course you are the grief stricken parents who are striking out at random targets to alleviate their own guilt, rational or otherwise.
The resultant media circus from tragic, or just plain stupid, events can be highly beneficial for a band, most notably those who will never truly escape the legacy of their former members and instead seem to have hammed up the quota of devil worship and inherent evil in their image for all they are worth. Mayhem have found themselves unable to have any more members dying are instead increasingly proud of their pig's heads that bounce happily around the crowd every time Health and Safety Officials turn their backs; curiously even though many parents bemoan children eating with their mouth's open and other such basic table manners they haven't seemed to link it to Mayhem's graphic example of playing with your food. If the idea of 16 to 25 year old males fighting over a severed pig's head seems obscene it's important to remember that the alternative is for them to be fighting over Justin Timberlake's sweaty towel which is far more disturbing.
