Why do priests (especially Catholic) think Rock music and Heavy Metal is "evil", but they never mention Pop as being "evil"? Pop generally has worse l

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For us oldsters, it is funny to listen to Black Sabbath and hear how it feels vintage and a little quaint (but still excellent)
 
AdriBlak20 said:
A lot of people who don’t listen to Heavy Metal or Rock think it sounds scary at first
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I don’t listen to heavy metal or rock but I don’t think it sounds scary. I think it sounds dull and repetitive.
 
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I recall going biking with a monk friend on their recreation day. We drove to a park to start our ride on a rails-to-trails path. While I was getting the bikes off the roof of my car we heard heavy metal blasting from a nearby parked car.

We both looked at each other and said almost simultaneously “it sure isn’t Gregorian chant…”

I’m truly no fan of heavy metal though I have some nostalgia for Pink Floyd… some of their stuff was innovative.
 
jesusmademe said:
Many religious people even forbid accordion as it made people interested in sinful dancing and behaviour they said.
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I just got a very funny mental picture of Lawrence Welk being an instrument of Satan.
 
I don’t know of any Catholics who call rock or heavy metal evil.

I love aggressive punk music and a practicing Catholic.
 
I could see this being said from maybe the 50s-70s when all of the innovation in rock music made many adults paranoid, some Catholic clergy included. In recent times, this does seem more of a fundamentalist Protestant type mindset. In 90s Texas, as a teen, I do remember religious people destroying rap and rock CDs, burning books, etc., but I never once recall a Catholic doing this. Currently, I have not heard of any Catholic priests attacking musical genres. Maybe this exists in some super conservative circles? I dunno.
 
AdriBlak20 said:
Why do priests (especially Catholic) think rock music is “evil”, but they never mention Pop as being “evil”?
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They probably aren’t up on all the different genres and just lump everything into “rock”.
 
I’m sorry, but this is just outright ridiculous. Instruments do not cause sin. Music does not cause sin. Lyrics do.

Please, tell us what this accordion music is so that we can all avoid it.
 
That was probably a common view among priests back when songs like “Catholic Girls” and “Only the Good Die Young” were mainstream. Today, many laity and clergy I’ve met like classic rock with clean lyrics, and I’ve heard no one say it’s demonic.

I never hear Catholics talk about modern pop specifically, and I’d attribute that to its unpopularity among adult Catholics (particularly the Baby Boomers who grew up with classic rock, but not modern pop). However, if you ever hear anyone complain about “modern” or “secular” music today, it’s typically in reference to today’s pop music.
AdriBlak20 said:
Also, if you look at most lyrics to popular Pop music, most of it is just about love and sex. Whereas with rock, a lot of it is about meaningful things in life.
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Eh, both classic pop/rock and modern pop/rock revolve pretty equally around drugs and sex, with the more modern stuff promoting violence and objectification of women as well. Granted, there are many rock and pop songs with good or neutral messages too; it’s not as black-and-white as you describe.
 
I don’t like the Ariana Grande song “god is a woman” but I do listen to a ton of rock. My dad was the president of the holy name society when I was a kid and we used to listen to Aerosmith and Bon Jovi together

We mainly had problems with rap albums growing up because they had the “parental advisory explicit lyrics” sticker and we had issues with Marilyn Manson
 
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Well, Father, I must disagree with you on that, unless you saw the version with Cliff Burton.
I love a boatload of metal bands but never had any use for the post-Cliff Metallica.

I will however be watching some old Dio concerts via Youtube and Dailymotion today for my weekend’s entertainment. Miss that guy.
edward_george1 said:
Also Polka. Which comes from Poland. Which is arguably the most Catholic country still left in Europe.
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I remember backintheday some fun Eurodisco cuts about Pope John Paul II. One was called “Wojtyla Disco Dance” and there was another one that went “He’s the groove, he’s the man, he’s the Pope in the Vati-can!”
CathoRick said:
That was probably a common view among priests back when songs like “Catholic Girls” and “Only the Good Die Young” were mainstream.
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As someone who was in Catholic grade school and high school when those songs came out, no it was not a “common view among priests”. First of all, “Catholic Girls” (I presume you mean the Zappa song) was never mainstream. Very little of what Zappa wrote and recorded was ever mainstream because in those days radio was very important and his songs could not be played on the radio; the vast majority of them were considered in bad taste or just weird. The only “mainstream” song he ever put out to my recollection (as someone who religiously listened to Casey Kasem’s Top 40 countdown every Sunday for years while my mother was yelling at me to hurry up for church and I wanted to hear what was #1 before we left) was “Dancin’ Fool” which was innocuous fluff. Second of all, while “Only the Good Die Young” was mainstream, priests and sisters would object to the particular song without condemning the whole oeuvre.

As Scarlett said, in those days you’d have priests going to rock concerts, Catholic high school kids playing all kinds of rock songs as “communion meditations” or as part of their curriculum for band/ other musical classes, or even bringing them in to play in class and writing themes on them for English class or Religion class. Obviously no one was bringing in “Catholic Girls” but there are a million other rock songs out there that are not glaringly objectionable. There was even a column in the Catholic “Universe Bulletin” newspaper, which is how we got our Catholic news back then, where every week a priest would analyze a different rock or pop song. Sometimes he would criticize the song or say its lyrics were immoral but a lot of times he would have positive things to say about the song.
 
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Sometimes theories; sometimes thoughts, are incomplete, poorly advised or simply wrong. It is Christ, via His Church, Who teaches good and against evil. Priests, Bishops, Cardinals, the Holy Father and yes, the laity, speak for Christ when they adhere to Church teaching.

It is up to us to form our consciences correctly and discern good from evil in all things, not just music.
 
Brings memories of when Priest played us Metalcore during Religious Education in Middle School. Fun times, and he actually showed us Christian band- so it wasn’t completely unrelated.
 
Irishmom2 said:
I’m sorry, but this is just outright ridiculous. Instruments do not cause sin. Music does not cause sin. Lyrics do.

Please, tell us what this accordion music is so that we can all avoid it.
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He’s probably just mentioning something that he heard about the past.
 
How about jazz? Some folks think that’s demonic.
 
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I like jazz. Not as much as I do metal.

-Father ACEGC
 
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