Conflict of interest
After a solid day of listening to the new Type O Negative album, I have to say that I am enjoying the music a lot. I like both of their sounds, the faster stuff (Carnivore-esque) and the more “cuddly,” slower stuff, so I’m generally happy with whatever they put out.
I am not happy, however, with the subject matter of the song “These Three Things.” Apparently, Peter Steele returned to his Catholic roots and rediscovered Christianity (so I have heard), and several songs on the new album reference his beliefs. “These Three Things” in particular is about being vehemently against abortion, calling it “infanticide” and “the worst sin you’ve ever performed.”
If you watch a lot of Seinfeld, you will totally get it when I say that I feel exactly like Elaine right now. (Season 6, “The Couch.) Elaine dates this hunky moving man but is forced to break up with him because he doesn’t support a woman’s right to choose, and she can’t be with someone who feels that way.
I don’t want to begrudge anyone their beliefs – don’t get me wrong. It’s totally within his rights to believe whatever he wants to, and to write songs about those beliefs. It’s just that they’ve always been this very irreverent, sarcastic band that liked to poke fun at all forms of religion – that’s part of why I liked them – and all of a sudden they’ve got these religion-y, anti-choice songs and it’s out of the ordinary and I’m put off by it.
The awful thing is that I really, really like that song. It’s awesome musically. I just… Now I feel like endorsing them means endorsing the message in that song and I don’t like that.
Can I ignore it and be like people who listen to rap, but don’t focus on the fact that it talks about smacking bitches up and stuff like that? Or really racist black metal? I don’t agree with the message but the music is good. It’s never really been possible for me to ignore lyrics of songs entirely – half the time that’s what I find interesting about the song, but… this is my favorite band and I want to feel good about liking them, and now they’ve gone and made that all difficult.
MUSIC CRISIS OMG.
11 Comments
Whow, that really sucks. I didn’t know about Pete Steele going all catholic, but when I read this interview with him in the german Legacy metal magazine, he sure sounded a little weird (they talked about 9/11 and stuff). I am absolutely anti-christian, and I can’t stand it either when people try to convert other people or when they want to tell everyone how awesome their religion is… I guess therefore it’s good I don’t like their new album
There is this austrian band Dornenreich – who are afaik not religious, but I hung out at their forum for a while, and it turns out that they have a lot of christian fans (probably because of the name – realm of thorns/rich of thorns) who constantly try to convert people on the forum, and there are always heated discussions about christian metal in there. What a load of crap…
I feel your pain. One of my favorite songs is Third Day’s “Just To Be With You.” Third Day is a Christian band, obviously, but I hadn’t ever heard of them and just heard the song in passing, but thought it was really beautiful.
Later, when I obtained the track for myself, I was HORRIFIED to discover that it was about God. Great! My favorite song, ruined! I try to listen to it even now, desperately pretending that it could kind of sort of be a normal love song, but trust me, it couldn’t, and the whole thing is ruined. I can’t ignore lyrics either.
Granted, your story is even worse, because I don’t think Third Day ever pretended to be anything other than a Christian band.
The same thing happened to me with Ben Harper (not quite death metal), but he came out with a song that was really really preachy, and I had to end my relationship with his music.
PS..I like your comment format.
Oh no! I’m sorry, that’s lame.
Thanks, guys – glad to know I’m not alone in this.
Essentially, my problem with it is more the political statement they’re making rather than the album having Christian undertones. I wouldn’t describe myself as “anti-Christian” – I’m just an atheist who doesn’t like religion being forced on me. I don’t enjoy the Christian undertones, but oddly, it doesn’t turn me off as much as the political-ness of it does.
I just find it insulting that my favorite band doesn’t trust me to make informed decisions regarding my own reproductive future.
I wonder if there are any songs about abortion that you could listen to immediately after These Three Things to balance things out.
Oh yeah.
Was it Puddy who was against abortions? I loved, LOVED the episode where him and Elaine saw a priest for advice and the priest was like, “Oh you’re having premarital sex? In that case, you’re both going to hell.” and Elaine is all “YES!”
YAY SEINFELD!
No, it’s not Puddy, but I can’t remember the guy’s name. It was after Poppy peed on Jerry’s couch (if I remember correctly) and Jerry was moving the gross couch out to get a new one. The guy Elaine dated was one of the men who moved the couch. I think there was some discussion of Jerry forgetting to offer the moving men something to drink and Elaine found it rude.
this one time i thought i heard a song that dealt with music and i said to myself “wow self, this song makes me think about music”. then i realized it was only a dream and i was still my same old self and the world around me hadn’t changed one bit. regardless, i still feel like i hear music sometimes.
often when you think you hear music it is only an audible mirage. however, you should never give up hope that the music you hear is somehow real in its own special way.
SOUND 
/END QUOTE….
today i saw a man standing in the middle of the street. he said “i’m happly.. but i don’t know if i want to see the day i grow old.. in my death bed, i’d rather be wearing a neck brace”. *cue inaudible reverb*. in other words, don’t play yourself short, and don’t let the music stand you up. fuck music.
Yes, Seinfeld allusion!
Honestly, if you like a song, you like it. You cannot renege on your own fondness of a song; you have already expressed like toward it. If you feel the songwriter is misguided–well, that’s your moral predicament, but you STILL enjoy his music.
unfortunately if thats not a stupid joke (and it doesn’t sound like one) I’ll have to end my 14 yrs old relationship with TON. Religion doesn’t sit well with me and the lyrics to TTT are horribly precudical. Just can’t listen to anything they released now becouse I’ll always remember Peter’s claims about stayin objective til the day he dies, him releasing Christian Woman and so on.