"Death Metal" Band Heavily Discriminated Against after Recent Music Awards
At last week's BOB (Best of the Best) Music Awards, many awards were won and presented, followed by a chorus of cheers and applause by the excited audience of privileged and famous Americans. Many big-time artists came out on top, and the winners more often than not had songs in the Billboard Top 40 at some point in the previous year. Lady Gaga won best live act, Kanye West won best song, and Jay-Z won album of the year. All was smooth.
Except for the results in one category; Best Metal Performance. Traditionally, the award has been presented to the mainstream of the metal category – bands like Avenged Sevenfold, Ozzy Osbourne, Metallica and Tool. Although the winners have definitely been the most popular of metal bands, many “true” fans of metal argue that they are not anywhere near the best of the choices out there.
This year, the tables were turned. Relatively young band Between the Buried and Me campaigned for musicians to “vote their hearts out” in hopes of opening the doorway for their progressive style of music, incorporating genres from across the board. Apparently, the number of votes for the metal category in previous years had totaled about 2,000 votes, compared to Pop and Hip Hop, which receive about 15,000 annualy. This year, between the buried and me racked in 5,000 votes alone. They were given the award, accepted it and walked off stage according to plan.
Everything changed in the post-show interviews.
The owner of the BOB organization made this quick, stern comment about the band’s winning: “I am offended and distraught that a Death Metal band was allowed in the voting of my awards show. I know that others will feel the same way and back me in getting the award revoked due to offensive content.”
Between the Buried and Me’s fanbase immediately revolted after the clip was posted on the band’s Facebook page. They argued that the lyrics had nothing to do with what is defined as “Death Metal” and that the owner had based his argument off of hearing the music, not listening to it critically or interpreting the lyrics. They also countered that winners of previous awards had made direct references to violence and were not confronted after the fact.
Here is a section of lyrics in which we will compare those of Between the Buried and Me to former award winner Eminem.
BTBAM:
I'm in the middle of black water.
No sign of human life in any direction... the most peaceful event of my life seems to have typically turned into a struggle.
I'm in the middle of black water... no sign of human life.
Panic takes over my body.
I have indeed floated due to a non-reversible decision to flee.
Just for a day I told myself... my survival skills were lost years ago
Slide into the water
Become one with the sea.
Life seems so much smaller.
Swim to the moon.
Eminem:
Sult, you think I won’t choke no whore,
Til’ the vocal cords in her throat don’t work no more?
Texas Chainsaw, left his brains all danglin’ from his neck,
While his head barely hangs on
Blood, guts, guns, cuts, knives, lives, wives, nuns, sluts.
Between the Buried and Me was, after all, stripped of their award and labeled as a “sporadic Death Metal band lacking structure and ease of listening”. The band has since announced that they are working on a new album entitled The Death Metal Diary, a concept album about the struggles of a fictional death metal band striving for success in a hip hop- and pop-dominated radio world.
Eminem’s latest single features the lyric:
Well I can be as gentle and as smooth as a gentleman
Give me my venom, an inhaler, and two Xenadrine,
And I'll invite Sarah Palin out to dinner, then
Nail her. Baby, say hello to my little friend.
THE END
(That said, Eminem is one of my favorite musical artists, as is between the buried and me, and was just used in this post as an example. He has songs with very insightful and honest lyrics as well, but is generally perceived as simply vulgar and repulsive.)
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