Free Fargo Rock City by Chuck Klosterman

downtrodden rock, so it would stand to reason that the darkest kinds of hard rock would fit that criteria perfectly. But these self-destructive obsessions are intertwined in a way that goes far deeper than pop psychology. Teen suicides in 1984, 1986, and 1988 were all blamed on Ozzy Osbourne, and I assume all threeaccusations are at least partially accurate. I’m also certain that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were rocking out to Rammstein when they decided to fill the Columbine High library with teenage corpses.
    Now, don’t get me wrong: I am not suggesting that the music made these people go violently insane. But it’s equally as stupid to argue that there’s no connection at all. Every year, billions of dollars are spent in the advertising industry. This is done on the premise that information can influence the behavior of consumers, and it obviously does. If kids are affected by Sprite commercials and Ronald McDonald, why wouldn’t they be affected by Rob Halford?
    The difference, of course, is that Halford never specifically told anyone to kill themselves. To me, that’s always the weirdest part of all rock suicides: None of these kids were listening to music that actually instructed them to shoot themselves. Parents and lawyers point to the Ozzy song “Suicide Solution,” which (granted) is a pretty misleading title for a supposed antisuicide song; Metallica’s “Fade to Black” is another example that pushes the envelope. But if you actually listen to the words, you will see that these songs don’t say suicide is a good move. And one would assume that any kid so obsessed with a record that he’s going to fucking kill himself over it would take the time to listen to the lyrics (or at least read the liner notes!).
    This paradox is what I find so perplexing about the way young males perceive verbal messages in heavy metal. I’ll never understand why music that only made me want long hair is the same product that made some kids want to die. Normal people don’t care what Ozzy has to say about anything; however, it seems the handful of people who do care inevitably get confused and kill themselves. And since the mood of the music tends to be more persuasive than the actual lyrics—and since the words to most rock songs are almost impossible to understand—kids are forced to interpret heavy metal in any way they can. This is a substantial problem, because the kind of kids who truly love heavy metal evidently suck at artistic interpretation.
    My favorite professor from college was a guy named Scott Lowe, a very thin man who owns a large collection of cardigan sweaters and briefly dabbled in a 1970s California cult that was led by a false prophet named Franklin Jones. He grew up in Florida with his boyhood friend Jimmy Buffett (which may or may not be true) and is one of the only rational environmentalists I have ever met (the other being a guy named Zinda who admired Glenn Danzig). Scott taught religious studies. This academic program had virtually nothing to do with my major (or even my minor), but his upper-level classes always seemed to involve the wackiest lectures on campus. I can recall at least two discussions that briefly touched on the practice of drinking caribou urine in order to get stoned.
    ANYWAY, Scott spent his teenage days as a guitarist in a Kinks-influenced garage band, so we would occasionally chat about pop music. Since these conversations would sometimes occur in the middle of a lecture on, say, the Spanish Inquisition, it was not completely uncommon to connect the topics of Christianity and rock, thereby segueing into a verbal treatise on the value (or lack thereof) of “Christian rock.” And it was during one of these conversations that I decided my favorite Christian rock band was Rush.
    Most people (or—more accurately— all people except me) do not consider Rush a Christian rock band. However, this fact is virtually