# Was a music hobby once more dangerous? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 15, 2013, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-a-music-hobby-once-more-dangerous/655733 "2013-04-15T00:28:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Grestarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grestarian/32/3227_2.png) [@Grestarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grestarian)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-a-music-hobby-once-more-dangerous/655733/41 "2013-04-19T22:05:09Z")
> [@LC\_Strawhouse](#): > > Anyone else relate to this as either a parent or young person (in pre-Internet times)?? > > 1, Young people jealously guarded their scenes and would threaten or beat up other kids for trying to join their crowd without approval. (i.e., don’t even think of listening to Iron Maiden in 1983 if you’re not a bona fide juvenile delinquent - you’ll get your ass kicked. And don’t openly listen to ethnic music if you’re white - you’ll get your ass kicked. Etc, etc.) Others have already referenced the British Mods-versus-Rockers behaviors of the 1960’s. > [@LC\_Strawhouse](#): > > 2, Parents would watch their kids’ musical preferences like hawks, would read all the album lyrics & liner notes and seemed to live in terror of kids getting brainwashed through music. Listen to the wrong music and you could get grounded or worse, and the records (expensive ones at that) would get destroyed. The Tipper Gore / PMRC events happened because this was an extreme concern for parents at that time. Adults would always accuse rock bands of being “talentless junk” or whatever. During the 1970’s, comics had gone mainstream while music went through psychedelia, folk & country, and disco. The big threat to good Christian values was the Dungeons and Dragons craze, with its roots in ancient mythologies, folklore, and fantasy literature and (as is proper with any epic tale) the bad guys often won, at least in the short-term. And, instead of denigrating it, Hollywood embraced it with TV shows and movies – Nigel Terry won an Oscar for his role as a pagan wizard in Excalibur, and the hottest flick to close the decade was a good old save-the-princess tale where the evil champion got away. Enter the 1980’s and The Gipper who needed to make good on his _Contract with America_ in which he had made a Faustian bargain to give the Moral Majority and other Fundamentalist Forces a stronger hand in society – provided they could get him a cameo appearance as a President. Two waves were heading toward each other at this time: 1) Rock musicians and bands who had dabbled in occult/medieval/fantasy themes were hitting their stride and (fortunately) eclipsing the Disco fad, and 2) Christian fundamentalism was a rising fad that was gaining its own voice in media and politics. The rising Right couldn’t blame all of Hollywood for the Corruption of Today’s Youth because, after all, they had just handed the White House to a former actor. Besides, the movie industry was profiting from its adoption of the fantasy genre so it wasn’t going to just drop the works-in-progress and abandon all those ticket-buying fans. And blaming comic books was sooo passe. But blaming teenagers’ popular music (again) might work… > [@Slade](#): > > It’s also worth noting that the Tipper Gore era in America produced some quite ludicrous paranoia among the religious right, claiming fans of bands like Judas Priest and Black Sabbath were engaging in Satan-worship or even necromantic murders. Actually, the religious right (with its ludicrous paranoia) had been gaining ground since the early 70’s – as had the popularity of bands like Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, and those guys whom the Hyper-Christians were incorrectly (and perhaps intentionally) interpreting as an acronym for Kings In Satan’s Service. Tipper Gore was partly a product of the hysteria and partly a figurehead in the backlash. She didn’t start it, and it’s tough to discern whether she was exploiting the wave, truly believed, or was being exploited by the wave. In the 1980’s dozens of bands made fun of the hysteria by including visual effects (in the burgeoning Music Video fad fostered by the new MTV) and lyrical passages that evoked demonic, satanic, pagan, and occult themes.\* There were even a few movies made to dramatize the connection between that “new” Heavy Metal music and sinister forces. The religious right, lacking a sense of humor about themselves as usual, took the stuff seriously and pointed to those bands and videos as signs that the world\*\* (or at least the USA) was falling under the Devil’s control. Eventually, since Al Gore was in early considerations as a challenger to The Gipper’s incumbency, his wife Tipper was basically told to ‘cool it on this musical hysteria or we’ll never be taken seriously’ and the Parental Advisory Board stuff (mostly) fizzled away.\*\*\* –G! “Mr. Lennon, do you consider yourself a Mod or a Rocker?” “Neither. I’m a Mocker!” \*While panned by fans, the Kilroy was Here concept album (and stage show) by Styx did a nice job of encapsulating a dystopian What-if-the-Moral-Majority-winds-up-controlling-our-entertainment-choices? world. That seemed more horrific and plausible than the evil entities we all know are…well…fantasy. \*\* Remember the claims that Gorbachev either bore the Mark of Cain or was the devil incarnate because he had a birthmark on his scalp? \*\*\*Actually it just increased its attention on the newest media craze: computer video games. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2013, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-a-music-hobby-once-more-dangerous/655733/42 "2013-04-20T00:52:23Z")
> [@Sudden\_Kestrel](#): > > In which alternate universe did you grow up? Granted, there is much of my youth I can’t clearly recall, but I’ve read very few accounts of music-related rumbles—at least not in the US Midwest in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. [Here’s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=b2ClSABkDp8#t=317s) the best-known one. ---
**Author:** ![Sudden\_Kestrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecd19e/32.png) [@Sudden\_Kestrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sudden_Kestrel)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2013, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-a-music-hobby-once-more-dangerous/655733/43 "2013-04-20T02:27:09Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > [Here’s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=b2ClSABkDp8#t=317s) the best-known one. A little help for someone with no ability to watch internet videos? ---
**Author:** ![moriah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b2d939/32.png) [@moriah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moriah)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2013, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-a-music-hobby-once-more-dangerous/655733/44 "2013-04-20T03:18:53Z")
I’m still reeling from the new kind of music the kids are into called Romanticism from the likes of Ludwig-B. It’s all emotionalism and has none of the intellectually pleasing logical and mathematical structures of classical. > [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > [Here’s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=b2ClSABkDp8#t=317s) the best-known one. > [@Sudden\_Kestrel](#): > > A little help for someone with no ability to watch internet videos? It’s the dance-rumble from West Side Story. Now, _don’t_ get me started on post-modern jazz! ---
**Author:** ![Sudden\_Kestrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecd19e/32.png) [@Sudden\_Kestrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sudden_Kestrel)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2013, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-a-music-hobby-once-more-dangerous/655733/45 "2013-04-20T06:05:56Z")
> [@moriah](#): > > It’s the dance-rumble from West Side Story. Now, _don’t_ get me started on post-modern jazz! Ah, I see. Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2013, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-a-music-hobby-once-more-dangerous/655733/46 "2013-04-20T06:17:44Z")
I still remember a particularly nasty brawl between punkers and shit kickers in Costa Mesa, CA in the early '80s. The cowl on my Vespa ended up with a cowboy boot-shaped dent in it (matched the dent in my buddy’s head). The headbangers kept to Hollywood and were largely peaceful. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2013, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-a-music-hobby-once-more-dangerous/655733/47 "2013-04-20T07:59:40Z")
> [@Grestarian](#): > > Actually, the religious right (with its ludicrous paranoia) had been gaining ground since the early 70’s – as had the popularity of bands like Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, and those guys whom the Hyper-Christians were incorrectly (and perhaps intentionally) interpreting as an acronym for Kings In Satan’s Service. Well, I heard it as Knights In Satan’s Service. Which in my eight year old mind was a selling point :D. Really, nobody ever accounts for the unintended consequences. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2013, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-a-music-hobby-once-more-dangerous/655733/48 "2013-04-20T14:43:40Z")
> [@moriah](#): > > IIt’s the dance-rumble from West Side Story. Now, _don’t_ get me started on post-modern jazz! Actually, it’s a scene from the overture, where the Sharks and the Jets get into a choreographed fight. I couldn’t find the actual rumble online. ---
**Author:** ![LC\_Strawhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e19adc/32.png) [@LC\_Strawhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LC_Strawhouse)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2013, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-a-music-hobby-once-more-dangerous/655733/49 "2013-04-20T16:27:52Z")
Interesting comments. It appears that this type of thing may be more connected to British than American musical culture (another article on this [here](http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/apr/11/emo-hate-crime-arrests-manchester)). The dominant culture in my school were second generation UK immigrants. The music lovers really didn’t care what anyone else was, as long as they didn’t try to join THEIR crowd without approval. (kind of what I’ve heard about territorial surfers in L.A., I guess) > [@fiddlesticks](#): > > The closest thing I ever saw to the OP’s question in my school years was around 8th grade and not long after Metallica played a show (during the _…And Justice For All_ years) at the Brown County Arena in Green Bay (Wisconsin) a kid who was the sort of guy who was the target of abuse from just about all the social stratas in the junior high for just being weird and late to puberty came to school in the tour t-shirt. Wearing a metal band t-shirt was not something he usually did so he got a lot of guff for it and insisted he went to the show in Green Bay, even though it was clear he did not when pressed on the matter. When it was clear he was lying and he refused to back off the lie, it did not end well for him. Very much a “stick with your own kind” sort of situation played out amongst the metal-loving subset (the “grits”, in local slang). Notwithstanding what I said above, this exactly fits my school, except that nobody who wasn’t a tough scary kid would be stupid enough to sport Metallica gear. 🙂 There was a span of a few years when Metallica utterly dominated these kids’ imaginations, and trying to “join” without approval would have been like desecrating their religion. (Not to mention, you’d get a load of verbal abuse from parents as well) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-a-music-hobby-once-more-dangerous/655733.md?page=2)