Page - 79 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 05/02

pop such as Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” (Talking Book, 1972), Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” (Thriller, 1982), Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” (/ Remember Yesterday, 1977) or Abba’s mysterious, even melancholic, “The Day Before You Came” (The Sin- gles: The First Ten Years, 1982).48 Therefore, despite oppositional stances, rock’s underlying interest in religion is pervasive: “music of the last fifty or so years constantly draws on language, themes and imagery from the Christian bible”.49 With respect to the Apoca- lypse, the confluence of the sacred and the profane is captivating for the au- dience: “Biblical apocalypticism continued to function as an important source of inspiration for many pioneering thrash metal bands, although arguably mostly as a rhetorical device.”50 Marcus Moberg even describes “theatrically ‘Satanic’ bands such as Venom, Bathory and Mercyful Fate”.51 Nevertheless, the wide-ranging genre of heavy metal music can be assumed to a large extent to be a culture of critical dystopia: “[T]he dystopian elements in metal music are not merely or necessarily a sonic celebration of disaster. Rather, metal music’s fascination with dystopian imagery is often critical in intent.”52 The combination of thrash metal and dystopia configures an educational lan- guage in its “abrasive tone and dystopian language” that “attacks norms, reli- gion, the economic and political status quo, and social injustice”.53 The correla- tion is automatic: “heavy metal’s association with religion … has developed into a defining characteristic of the genre as a whole”.54 However, metal is prone to a message of hope: “what seems like rejection, alienation, or nihilism” may be more productively viewed as “an attempt to create an alternative identity”.55 In metal music, dystopia prevails over nihilism. In fact, nihilism is the opposite pole of critical dystopia, just as metal dismisses utopia. DYSTOPIAN SONGS SELECTION This section considers a selection of 18 songs of interest for this study, which are presented in chronological order. There is a huge amount of other music that deserves attention from the perspective of popular culture and apoca- 48 Marsh 2017, 235. 49 Gilmour 2017, 67. 50 Moberg 2017, 225. 51 Moberg 2017, 226. The names of some thrash metal main bands are expressive: Anthrax, Annihilator, Artillery, Carnivore, Celtic Frost, Death, Deicide, Angel, Destruction, Exodus, Havok, Megadeth, Metal Church, Nuclear Assault, Overkill, Powermad, Savatage, Sepultura, Sodom, and Suicidal Tendencies. 52 Taylor 2006, i. 53 Buckland 2016, 145. 54 Moberg 2017, 223. 55 Walser 1993, xvii. Apocalypse as Critical Dystopia in Modern Popular Music | 79www.jrfm.eu 2019, 5/2, 69–94