Political Metal

This week I had the honour and privilege of listening to the new album from Bakteria, eloquently entitled Defecate! Suffocate! Mutilate! Masturbate! And sure enough, songs such as Hospital Fuck Fest and Shit On My Pubes have to rank alongside early Bob Dylan in terms of social relevance and sheer resonance with a generation experiencing it's first major economic downturn.

Metal and politics have a huge amount in common, although there's probably more cunts in politics. I say "probably" because metal's got Axl Rose and Aaron Lewis from Stain'd. But there are clearly parallels to be made. Exhibit 1: Tony Blair came into power in 1997 as an absolute revelation, a complete about-turn for UK politics. Young, ambitious, and full of guts. A decade on, most people think he's a bit of an over-rated tool. Slipknot's debut in 1999 was a blend of then-current nu-metal and downright savage brutality. They were pissed off folk from the arse end of nowhere and spoke to a new generation of metallers. A decade on, they've still got their fans but as far as the metal elitists are concerned...wait for it...all hope is gone.

But the comparisons are everywhere.

Tony Benn - grizzled, old, been there from day one, always stuck to his guns, absolute legend. Iron Maiden, anyone?

David Cameron - young, says all the right things to try to appeal to floating voters young and old but in essence, there's a significant lack of innovation and has nothing of any real depth about him whatsoever - Bring Me The Horizon, come on down.

The entire Liberal Democrat party - always been in the background, the policies are theoretically sound but let's face it; they're never going to run the country - Saxon, please step forward.

Which leaves us with the Political Download Festival; Labour on main stage, Conservatives on the second, Lib Dems in the tent and the Greens, Natural Law and other bizarre people who would shit twice and die if they were ever given any form of responsibility on the unsigned stage.

I think our global overlords would benefit from some time in the pit. Chuck the G20 leaders into a circle whilst DevilDriver are playing Clouds Over California, or face them off in a wall of death during Lamb of God's Redneck and I swear on my silky smooth scrotum they'd all be best mates at the bar afterwards. I reckon Obama, clearly the most gregarious of the collective, would be the first man to chug a Jaeger and surf his way to the front. Clearly Burlusconi would be the one inserting things into strippers whilst sniffing cocaine of the buttcheeks of a mother & daughter groupie combo.

So here's my suggestion; rise up kids, take back control. Let's put Bruce Dickinson in as Prime Minister, Rob Halford as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Brian Johnson as Home Secretary.

We have the power. Vote "yes" to metal.