A Critical Analysis of Death Metal Songs

While I wouldn’t say that I have the broadest musical taste, I believe that I do have a taste for music outside of my “main” genre – hip hop. For most of middle school, and a bit of high school, I listened to rock and pop bands such as Breaking Benjamin, Skillet, The Black Eyed Peas, and Three Days Grace. Therefore, I would not consider myself ignorant or close-minded towards other genres of music. I appreciate good music when I hear it, regardless of the genre. That being said, I seriously do not understand why fans of death metal enjoy the music – specifically the band “Cannibal Corpse.” I listened to their most popular songs “Make Them Suffer” and “Hammer Smashed Face” hoping to find something likeable about it and I could not. I had preconceived notions regarding the song titles but my mom taught me to never judge a book by its cover, so I listened. The first thing that set me off when giving these songs a try was the overwhelming instrumentals (heavy electric guitar and drum use) that made it hard to hear/understand the lyrics. Good instrumentals are important characteristics of a successful song, but don’t necessarily mean the song is bad without them. Next, I read along the lyrics while listening to the songs and I did not like the lyricism at all. The text spoke of death, agony, and other malicious acts being performed or felt by people. When I listen to music, I tend to stick to upbeat artists that sing on inspirational material, with the occasional stereotypical rap song thrown in when looking for a song to have fun to. I suppose that may have been my own bias when listening to death metal. I try to have a beginner’s mind when trying something new but the song titles, instrumentals, and lyrics gave off the vibe of satanic and demonic-type music that made me feel uneasy when listening to death metal. The first song that I listened to by Cannibal Corpse was “Make Them Suffer.” I searched popular songs by this music group and found this, hoping that