Does anyone know why grindcore bands tend to espouse leftist ideology? I realize there are exceptions to the rule like Blooduster, but the general trend seems to be that most grindcore bands are lefties e.g. Napalam Death, Magrudergrind, Nasum, Mumakil etc. I'm assuming it's from grindcore's evolvement from punk music? I don't really have a problem with this, and I listen to most of these bands. I just find it ironic that these bands choose such an extreme form of music that is an acquired taste to most to convey their message. I mean, I live near Washington DC, and I've never heard any leftie protestor groups blasting SCUM as a backing to their chants.

How is this ironic? I think grindcore is the perfect art-medium for these ideas; sticking it to the man by totally going against the convention how "rock music" should sound like (at least when it all started).

NP: Insect Warfare

Good point, never thought of it like that. To me, I would think these kinds of political musicians would want the widest audience possible and would therefore end up using a more mainstream form of music to gain more ears like Rage Against the Machine, System of A Down.

Real grindcore is an offshoot of punk rock, which is largely "leftist" in terms of origin and general ethos. Music that extreme and aggressive should never be centrist anyhow. Defeats the purpose. You wouldn't write a black metal album that was like "worship God if you believe in him, I suppose, I respect your right to do so", LOL.

Most grindcore musicians aren't political at all. Punk has always been about hating stuff that sucks not really about leftist ideologies. Leave that to the smelly hippies. Stuff like war and death and famine and anti-government go with grindcore because grindcore and crust/anarcho punk are pretty closely tied. I mean I can't imagine a flower metal band singing about how the government can sod off or a grindcore band singing about fantasy worlds.

It just goes with the sound of the music.

Grind, crust, power violence and hardcore are all offshoots of punk music. When you're rooted in punk it's hard not to be political, since they go hand in hand. There are many grind and hardcore bands that are so punk that they cease to be really metal at all. Bands like Nails, Krupskaya, Nausea, Krigshot, and Asshole Parade are all good examples.

I'm only guessing here, but I suspect that the majority of political bands don't sit down and say "Okay, we have this ideology. What's the best platform for it?". It's more likely that they sit down and say "Okay, we've started playing this style of music that we like. What the hell are we going to sing about? Hey, let's just go with our political beliefs." And then you have the whole punk thing coming into play and the associated leftist ideologies etc. I doubt that they're interested in becoming big name bands so much as they are in making music that they actually like (er... mostly).

Yeah. Most ideologically outspoken bands (whether far right, far left, Christian, anti-Christian, whatever) start out by choosing a musical style, and then usually incorporate the ideological stuff later. Bands don't usually say, "Hey, let's play a style that appeals to the broadest possible range of people so our beliefs will be heard," or all these bands would play generic pop-rock.

Extreme political beliefs don't always lead a person to having extreme taste in music; it's usually the opposite. Case in point: In the neo-Nazi political scene, the majority of people are actually not NSBM fans (at least according to Lords of Chaos). Being a far rightist doesn't typically lead to people liking or playing Nazi black metal. Usually, it seems like the musicians who do play NSBM got into black metal first, and then found Nazism to be an ideological system that dovetailed well with the music. It's the same with with leftist beliefs, really.

You know the latter might actually be kinda cool...

They'd have to be a helluva lyricist and vocalist to be able to get across the kind of imagery involved in fantasy lyrics in the course of a 80 second grindcore song. It just isn't a smart direction to head. That doesn't mean you can't do something like a concept album, but you're gonna have to go minimalist (see also; Destroyer, Pig) to make it work.

thats bulshit i bet must punk rock is pure partying ,horror movies and fighting shit
the fact some bands like DK and The Clash use political contect doesnt mean the genre is political
i think its more a myth
the lyrical content is not related to the genre,many soft rock artist have some amazing lyrics
touching deep social issues

Not really. I mean Void, Poison Idea, Discharge, Anti-Cimex, Black Flag, Minor Theat, Anti-Schism, Amebix, Heresy, Extreme Noise Terror, Sore Throat, and countless other punk bands talk about social issues and things of that nature.

Do your homework please.

Learn the slightest fucking thing about what you're talking about before you start calling what somebody's saying bullshit?

go easy on ianthrash- most of the punk rock he was exposed to was probably stuff like Good Charlotte, Blink 182, Screeching Weasel, NoFX, and the Misfits- hey I like some of that stuff too but lets fact it, that aint exactly political music. Much of the early non-pop oriented punk was though, ESPECIALLY the more Discharge-influenced stuff and some of the early anarcho-punk stuff. And it was the latter two sub-genres that spawned grindcore, more or less- hence that ideology was attached to it.

I've been into punk music long before metal, and I can say without a doubt that punk music is largely political. Maybe you've only been exposed to the mainstream watered down version of punk, but leftist political themes is a very prominent aspect of punk music. Grindcore came out of crust punk, which is an especially political subgenre of punk. This is where the political aspect came from.

Well Gridlink reference a lot of anime in their lyrics (as do Discordance Axis now that I think about it). It isn't anywhere near the scope that some power metal bands aim for when adapting full fantasy novels, but that's a limitation of the genre's musical conventions.

Crom is the most similar to power metal and powerviolence/grindcore. Don't know what the lyrics are though.

i can number a lot of metal bands with social content too....come on its not just a punk rock thing
i´m not saying punk rock hasnt its amount of political critic
but its not only related to that genre
Hermetica,Sepultura,Megadeth,Toxik...there are lots of heavily political metal bands too

Sure, there are lots of metal bands (and bands in most genres) that are political. I don't think anyone is trying to argue against that. There is, however, a disproportionally high amount of politics in punk when compared to other genres. I think thats probably why grindcore is one of the most politically inspired metal sub genres, with it coming out of crustpunk and all.

Yeah, no one's ever said that political issues are exclusive to punk related genres. And to deny the influence of the early d-beat/crust/anarcho scene on extreme metal is just plain stupid and a failed attempt to historical revisionism. And just as an example from the bands IanThrash mention; Max Cavalera has time and time again explained that both Discharge and Anticimex are two of his greatest inspirations.

All thrash metal bands... I'll leave the maths to whoever's completed Metal Evolution 101.

I think that the leftist political leanings since the birth of grindcore can be traced to the period that it existed both in the US (Reagan era) and UK (Thatcher era). Naturally, as it was the offshoot of hardcore punk, the first grindcore bands adopted the same political leanings of their immediate ancestor. While in the 90s more grindcore bands became less political as they are fusing with death metal (the genre with less political and social content) and even the atmosphere of the era became less turbulent as it was in the 70s and 80s. Even here, local grind, thrash and punk bands grew during the regime of Marcos and Aquino due to increasing turmoil and violence that are political in nature.

It's all relative. In some parts of the world such implications of freedom of religion, that is "believe or don't believe, whatever fits you", would mean death. An Iranian black metal band could easily advocate centrism as we see it, or why not a Chinese band.

seems like a semantic argument to me - psyote used the word centrism as an opposite to "sticking it to the man"; in your example however, centrism is "sticking it to the man"

No, that is semantics. An Iranian band preaching freedom does have extreme ideology considering the mainstream values of their surroundings.

well duh, that was the whole point of my post


obviously
what i was trying to say is that i don't see any disagreement over any of this here, just the issue of using a location specific example of (non-)extreme ideology - the point that i think godsonsafari was making is that extreme music such as grindcore tend to (or even should) use extreme ideologies in their lyrical themes. whether or not those themes are extreme in another part of the world is beside the point

Yeah, yeah, I get it now. I misinterpreted your post rather idiotically.

It's not just grindcore, music and entertainment in general tend to lean to the left. Younger voters tend to be democrats, and who makes up the majority of the music buying and movie going population?

Are the Democrats considered leftist?

these days, yes

In a purely philosophical sense completely disconnected from reality, yes. It is. Injecting long TL:DR discussions about the sociologic history of punk rock and why an Iranian grindcore band espousing centrist views about voting rights for women wouldn't exist is purely mental masturbation, and I'm not really interested in such a circle jerk. YMMV.

Yeah it's pretty weird. The reason I posted this topic is because, when listening to grindcore it's such ass kicking music. Like, not taking into account the political lyrics, it would be the soundtrack for total aggression and destruction. I remember reading a blabbermouth review of Mumakil's last album and the reviewer described the music as the soundtrack to dropping bombs, but when you read the lyrics you realize they'd be totally against that...lol.

Not really. Compared to how extremely to the right Republicans are, then yes. They're mostly center if not center right.

Well to be fair, most left leaning grind bands are probably pretty extreme in their views (at least when you consider mainstream politics). It's all from the punk scene. It makes perfect sense, too. They are pissed at the state of society and stuff like that, hence the intense sound.

As a short answer, I'd say leftism is not a genuine ideology, just an immature and extremist form of liberalism. And who listens to grindcore? Teenagers.

You're hardly one to talk, it's quite clear you've got a mental age of ten. And obviously no teens make up the majority of the fanbase of any other form of extreme music, either. Right?

So what makes an ideology a genuine one, in your opinion?

And I'm a really old teenager then. Yay.

The seriousness of its references.
For example, orthodox Marxists despised leftists. Lenin wrote "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder.
I personally consider leftism (including feminism, antiracism, anarchism and co) as a juvenile form of liberalism, which emphasizes human rights and egalitarianism more than free market - but those ideas could not develop without free market and democracy.
Leftists often belong to the upper classes, their ideas are more or less inspired by an adolescent crisis.

Not willing to disrespect anyone here, I'm just explaining my point of view.