Redeem the Time

I found this article to be fascinating on many levels. I’ll just let it speak for itself:

It’s not easy to determine where and how Cookie Monster singing actually began. Early death-metal bands such as Death and Morbid Angel that emerged from Florida in the mid-’80s helped create the musical template that characterized the blasting sound as well as that of its Satan- and occult-obsessed sibling, black metal: fast, relentless drumming often featuring two bass drums; grinding, rapid-fire chording on guitars; squealing guitar solos; muted electric bass; unexpected sudden tempo changes; and a sense of theatricality that’s inevitably threatening–”a horror film put to music” is how Monte Conner, a vice president at Roadrunner Records, sees it.

But while the vocals in early death metal are low, raspy and aggressive, not unlike the vocals by, say, Lemmy Kilmister of Motörhead, that extreme degree of Cookieness is missing.

To be a true Cookie Monster vocal, said Mr. Conner, who signed some of the subgenre’s biggest bands, including Sepultura and Fear Factory, “it’s got to be really, really guttural. It should sound like they’re gargling glass.”

UPDATE I
Speaking of satanic music, my old post on Depeche Mode and John the Revelator has some comments worth reading.

UPDATE II
I wanted to quote the “gargling glass” bit above because it is very similar to a point the shulamite made in an old post quoting Dante on “the song of the sullen” in hell:

“This canticle they gargle in their throats,

as if they sang, unable to speak whole words”

Landscape with St. John at Patmos
Nicolas Poussin, 1640
That is the name of one of those spirituals, or folk songs, or whatever you wish to call them, that comes to us blown by the earthy winds of American history, borne by the Holy Spirit itself. A clip of the version I am most familiar with, along with a list of some other, older recorded versions, can be found here.

St John on Patmos
Hieronymus Bosch, 1504-05
Depeche Mode recently covered this song, changing the lyrics from something like this or this to something akin to blasphemy (listen to track two here). The difference in lyrics and sound could not be more stark. Dissertations could be written on this simple example.

The Holy Grotto of Revelation at Patmos
It confirms my suspicion that Depeche Mode is the music of Satan. We tend to think that the music of the devil will be all bang and no whimper—something like Black Sabbath’s War Pigs blaring in a rowdy, randy, road side, roadhouse bar: “…and Satan laughing spreads his wings.” I don’t think so. Seems a little too obvious to me. And besides (if we discount Ozzy’s later changes) the lyrics to the original War Pigs are really just another anti-war, peacenik, 70’s rant.

Anyhow, to Depeche Mode: can I buy a melody, blasphemers? I’ve never been able to listen to a complete song of yours. Listening to you is like sucking on grey ashes.*
_______________________________________________________________________
*My apologies to those who are likely out there who find something good about this band and have very different, strongly held opinions due to its influence in their formative years. We must simply agree to disagree about Satan’s influence on the music you think you enjoy.

I’m joking.

Sort of.