I never got the chance to meet Ronnie James Dio, but I was still very struck by his passing earlier this week. To some extent, my heart has reached out to the family of anyone who succumbed to cancer after my mom passed from a brain tumor in 1997. Personally, I cannot claim to be the biggest Dio fan - I think I might have a few singles in my collection but that is about it. What struck me most these past few days was, in retrospect, his sense of self. In interview after interview he seemed so in tune (no pun) with the realities of his life and career. How he was aware of his importance in the world of Metal, but never really got too caught up in it. He had this mighty voice and incredible stage presence and seemed pretty down to Earth, generally.
Now, who knows. Maybe that was all a facade, but as I thought about his passing, I started to think about how so many musicians of more aggressive musical styles get dumped into these categorizations that portray them as bad people. Evil. It just seems like too easy of a target to me.
Sure, there are plenty of examples of "Metal Gods" doing very bad things; but that seems more to be a potential trapping of the industry than a result of musical genre. Want proof? Go check out some of John Denver's moments off stage. Nothing against John either, but, seriously, blaming music for anything seems like taking the easy way out and not really meeting the issue head-on.
There are far too many examples to name, proving just how ridiculous the the entire thing is. I have been lucky enough to have spent a small bit of time with Alice Cooper - the Godfather of shock rock - and I can tell you he's about as well grounded as anyone. He, much as I suspect Dio was, is just a really good guy.
And for those who would claim that aggressive music creates more opportunities for Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n' Roll abuses than other occupations, simply has not been paying attention to the news. Nothing against The Church specifically, but, uh, there's a real concern. Sorry, but a musical genre just is not going to be worse than that.
Yes, there are bad people, who deserve the negative reputation they get; but they wouldbe bad people if they were accountants too. Don't make music the scape goat. I have yet to see a musical playback devise of any kind that did not include an "off" button of some kind. If you don't like it, turn it off. if you don't wan your kids to hear it, turn it off. But that's it. That's all you get.
Look, I'm hardly the biggest Metal fan. I pretty much don't get into too much of the real hardcore stuff - I need more melody. That does not mean it's bad. Actually, I can really appreciate the energy - it's just not my thing. But if it makes you feel good to listen, who am I to tell you not too because of some stupid story that the guys in the band once made a pact with the devil, rooted in a promise to only eat butter and never margarine (stupid butter1) Come on! People who buy into that crap also likely fall for every marketing trick in the book and buy tons of stuff they don't need but see in ads on TV. They likely also thought John Lennon was blasphemous when he pointed out the obvious that the Beatles had become more popular with the youth of the day than Jesus (he did not say that was a good thing, by the way, he was more commenting on the industry's control of culture). At the very least they have a serious cholesterol problem from all the margarine they are consuming to avoid their own devil-butter pact.
So God bless Ronnie James Dio. Rest in peace. You brought a lot of joy to a lot of people. The rest of us should be so lucky to be able to make such a claim.
...you know all this talk of classic Metal reminds me that Iron Maiden is coming to town soon. I wonder if I can score some tickets...
No comments:
Post a Comment