The Satanic Panic.

I recently listened through the entire "Satanic Panic" episode of The Thinking Atheist. I enjoyed it because it brought back a lot of memories. Although I was pretty young when the Satanic Panic was actually taking place, I saw a lot of the aftermath. By the time I grew aware of it, most of the popular materials were dated and cheesy. 

The Thinking Atheist recently posted an entire episode based on the era.

Of course, these sorts of fears and interests haven't disappeared. It's not exceptionally difficult to find remnants of the "Panic" on the Internet. YouTube has become a wonderful archive of all the ephemeral kitsch that should have disappeared long ago.

Each preacher would focus on something different: some would discuss Marilyn Manson's sensibilities; some would focus on backwards masking; some would focus on the "primitive" backbeat; some would focus on the unholy lives of rock and roll musicians.  

And there's always the famous Chick Tract where Satan assumes the role of a manager for a rock band and indoctrinates them into Satanism.

Every once in awhile, a preacher gets up there and rants against rock and roll. There are websites that have been up since the early days of the Internet that explain the horrors of rock and roll. Like this one. But rock and roll stays rocking and evolves into other wild and crazy genres. They can't win. I mean, there's always something horrible to suggest about every genre of music. Although heavy metal and rock and roll are easy targets, as a teenager, I bought a record of meditative Orthodox chants and my mother expressed concern that we didn't know what they were saying or who they were praising; I've also heard that chanting puts you into a state that opens you to possession by demons and spirits. In other words, if you want it, Satan's gonna' find his way into everything if you let him go there.

Besides, wouldn't it be fun to sing a bunch of songs in the tune of old hymns, while uttering utter obscenity and blasphemy? I'd love to do that, but I doubt I'll ever burn my precious time on something so self-indulgent. There's enough bloodlust and praise of human sacrifice in old hymns that I don't need to parody them.

In the meantime, let's rock!