Heavy Metal Protest Songs

Beginner's Guide to Heavy Metal, Chapter 11: Woody Guthrie would have been proud...? (with a nod to Ellen from Endwell)

Many people formed their impressions of Heavy Metal during the “hair band” era. The order of the day was spandex, wailing vocals, self-indulgent guitar solos, bad behavior and, of course, big hair. Thing is, that was a pretty short window in musical history, and in retrospect, not metal’s finest hour. It also missed a lot of what made metal work in the first place.

Metal originated in England in the late 1960’s, as a fusion of many different threads. Protest music was surging in both the U.S. and England, triggered by the Vietnam war, racism and working-class poverty. (Ellen from Endwell has been doing an amazing series on protest music—here are two installments:

Favorite protest songs of other Substack writers passionate about music

Getting personal with protest songs

In the U.S., 60’s protest music is popularly associated with a certain sound—someone crooning to strummed acoustic guitars. Rock music was taking a harder turn. Mainstream bands as disparate as the Beatles, Three Dog Night, the Who and the Kinks started experimenting with harsher, louder sounds, while still venturing into social commentary.

The Kinks are an interesting case because, while they could certainly play, they favored a stripped down, raw sound. “You Really Got Me” really captures the sound that would become punk. It is not a protest song per se, but its sound is rebellious:

The blues-rock movement was emerging at the same time. Like protest music, blues-rock was founded on the music of the disenfranchised, but it leaned into composition and instrumental virtuosity. It was led by some of the greatest musicians in rock history.

This generation of (mostly British) musicians, among them John Mayall, Peter Green, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and the Rolling Stones, revered the old American bluesmen. They kept the blues alive yet evolving, at a time when blues music was being forgotten in its land of origin. They would go on to found groups like the Bluesbreakers, Fleetwood Mac, the Yardbirds and the Jeff Beck Group (featuring a young Rod Stewart).

The drug culture of the 60’s was part of the mix, helping birth psychedelic and acid rock bands. They combined guitar effects with heavy rhythm sections and increasing volume to create dark, hallucinatory soundscapes. One major distinction between the early hard-rock bands on the one hand, and the blues-rockers and psychedelic bands, on the other hand, was that the latter put much more emphasis on instrumental virtuosity.

The intersection of blues-rock and acid-rock gave us bands like Blue Cheer, Cream, and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, which took experimentation and heaviness to new levels. Hendrix, in particular, pulled out all the stops when it came to guitar gymnastics and political messaging. His distorted “Star Spangled Banner” remains an iconic moment in rock history:

It all culminated with these disparate threads merging to give rise to the earliest metal bands. The term “metal” was not yet a thing, and there are still debates over when it was first used to describe this school of rock. But we know who the flagship bands were: Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, and Led Zeppelin.

I took a look at the founding fathers of metal in this piece

How I Learned to Love Heavy Metal

Purple and Zeppelin experimented with a lot of different styles of music and were never fully committed to what became metal. Sabbath, on the other hand, went all in, and so our list of metal bands that did protest songs starts with them.

The following list obviously just scratches the surface. There are hundreds of metal protest songs. In eight songs, listed chronologically, I’ve tried to span countries (U.S., U.K., Germany, Netherlands, Ukraine, Indonesia), styles (from death to symphonic to groove metal and beyond), and topics (war, women’s rights, homelessness, religious hypocrisy and more).

I would love to know which songs you think hit the mark, and what other songs you would have included. (Note: Both Spotify and Youtube links are included for most of these, so you can go with what works for you.)

Black Sabbath “War Pigs” (1970)

This was the opening song from Sabbath’s second album, “Paranoid”. They would not achieve full commercial breakthrough for another couple of albums, but “Paranoid” would eventually become recognized as a pivotal album in the evolution of hard rock and heavy metal.

There have been disagreements even among the band members over whether this was a general anti-war song, or targeted specifically at the Vietnam war, which was reaching the height of its brutality and destructiveness. Nevertheless, it has been cited in many “best of” lists”: Best Black Sabbath songs; best anti-war songs; best metal songs.

Queensryche “Operation Mindcrime” (1988, remastered 2003)

Queensryche are an American metal band founded in 1982 (around the same time as Metallica). They became a major player in progressive metal. They did concept albums (following groups like Pink Floyd and King Crimson), while also leaning into technical playing, and the shreddy guitar solos that were all the rage in hard rock of the time.

The band eventually broke up in less than amicable fashion, with vocalist Geoff Tate and the other band-members suing each other for rights to their music. The courts awarded the two factions different pieces of the band’s intellectual property. Both continue touring and recording.

This is the title song from the band’s third, and breakout, album. The album follows the story of a drug addict remembering his past, and invokes themes of social decay, injustice, economic hopelessness, corruption, and demagoguery. The title refers to a form of mind control that the villain used to induce the protagonist to commit murder on his behalf.

*****

Rage Against the Machine “Killing in the Name” (1992)

It should go without saying that this band is going to make any list of rock bands doing protest music. It’s their stock in trade. What sets them apart is their smashing together of genres—they combine hard rock, metal, punk and rap, with electronic effects and looping, to make a thoroughly modern soundscape.

They are frequently cited as favorites by professional musicians, and their fan-base is unusually diverse, including followers of rock, metal and hip-hop. One of the groups that cites them as a key influence is Voice of Baceprot, featured later in this list.

Epica “Cry for the Moon” (2002)

Epica are a Dutch symphonic metal band who have taken the concept further than perhaps anyone else: They regularly perform with a full orchestra and choir. Their vocalist, Simone Simons, is a classically trained soprano, and their compositions are designed to highlight her voice.

“Cry for the Moon” is quite obviously influenced by Handel’s “Messiah”, with more than a little irony: Where the “Messiah” is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest pieces of Christian liturgical music, this song pointedly calls out religious hypocrisy. The song was specifically motivated by the growing scandal around child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

Simons was 19 when this was recorded. It was her first commercial recording. She does not yet have the operatic throw-weight she will eventually develop (classical singers generally reach their prime in their 30’s) but you can still hear where things are headed.

*****

Rammstein “Amerika” (2004)

Rammstein celebrated their 30^th anniversary in 2024. They have had the same lineup for all 30 years, which may be unprecedented for a six-piece band (ZZ Top went much longer without a change but were only a trio.) The six members all came from East Germany, which is a factor in their deliberately transgressive, provocative approach to songwriting and performing. They are good friends with the uber-weird East-German chanteuse Nina Hagen.

Rammstein broke a lot of rules along the way. They refused to give in to the universal imperative, in pop or rock, to write in English. They stage huge, over-the-top shows, and often use triggering imagery. They have been accused of being neo-nazis, communists, terrorist sympathizers, and more. One of their biggest hits was accompanied by a music video featuring hard-core pornography.

This song is a sardonic protest against American cultural and militaristic imperialism. It was in part a response to the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Best line:

“We’re all living in Amerika: Coca Cola, sometimes war.”

*****

Voice of Baceprot “Not Public Property” (2022)

What if making music were something that could get you exiled, or even killed? Imagine a group of teenaged girls in a conservative Muslim village in Indonesia, starting a heavy-metal band in the face of societal resistance, including death threats. That is Voice of Baceprot. They are:

Firdda Marsya Kurnia (vocals and guitar)

Widi Rahmawati (bass, backing vocals)

Euis Siti Aisyah (drums)

They consider themselves faithful Muslims, and wear hijab on stage, but they still get a lot of heat from people who are opposed to girls behaving this way (“baceprot” means “noisy” or “loud”). They honed their craft posting covers of big-name western metal bands (Rage Against the Machine, System of a Down, Metallica) before starting to release their own music.

“School Revolution”, their breakout song, is about having the right to ones’ own thoughts. “God Allow me (Please) to Play Music” is about people who use religion to persecute artists. This one is about bodily autonomy. It’s a mashup of old-style rock, metal and even some rapping. If you are into instrumental nuances, check out the bass line—it’s insanely good

Chat Pile “Why” (2022)

Chat Pile were formed in 2019, by three guys from Oklahoma. Oklahoma was once a major center of lead and zinc mining, which left behind an environmental disaster area that is still being cleaned up. Chat is a term for the toxic waste byproducts of lead and zinc mines, especially open-pit mines. Parts of Oklahoma and neighboring states are dotted with massive mounds of chat, or chat piles.

As befits a band named after toxic mining waste, Chat Pile’s music is bleak and industrial, and emotionally hard hitting. Their songs cover a range of topics, with a heavy dose of despair over the growing sense that the world is falling apart.

This remains my favorite song by them, and may be my favorite on this list. It is simple, oddly innocent and utterly brutal. It asks a pretty basic and seemingly obvious question, one which we as a society have apparently given up on answering.

I was introduced to this band by our fellow writer Alexander Razin. Thank you Alexander!

*****

Jinjer “Home Back” (2024)

Jinjer were formed in 2008, and within a year, all the founding members were gone. Since then, they have been unusually stable, with the lead guitarist and vocalist being constant since 2009, and the bassist since 2010. They come from Donbas, the region of Ukraine claimed, and currently occupied by, Russia. They have lived with war and the threat of war most of their lives, so it is natural that a lot of their music channels darkness and anxiety.

I’ve featured Jinjer before in several columns. Their three instrumentalists (bass, guitar, drums) are astonishingly adept musicians who blend a dense mix of styles from jazz to death metal, into something both groovy and jarring. Their lead vocalist, Tatiana Schmayluk, has a gorgeous, silky singing voice and a metal growl that sounds truly possessed.

Tatiana has said that the band is her entire life, and that the music is her way of dealing with depression. When the Russians invaded, the band cancelled a world tour to help out on the home front. They were then asked by the government to go back out on tour as ambassadors to the rest of the world.

This song is, of course, framed by, and refers to, the ongoing war being waged by Russia against their country.