Friday 5: Songs For Independence Day Weekend!
Happy Friday, MetalSucks reader! Welcome to MetalSucks Friday 5, our awesome series that appears every Friday (duh) on MetalSucks (duhh) and involves the quantity of five (duhhh).
Here’s how it works: A list of best/worst/weirdest/whatever five somethings is posted by one of your beloved MetalSucks contributors or by one of our buds (like you!). Then you, our cherished reader, checks it out, has a chuckle, then chimes in with a list of the same. No sweat, just whatever springs to mind, k? (Just like that movie about those losers working at a Chicago record store!) After all, it’s Friday — the day dedicated by the gods to mindless, fun time-wasting.
Here we go!
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THE FIVE
What five America jams should we all crank on America’s big weekend?
THE LISTER
Anso DF, MetalSucks senior editor
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“Perilous Nation” by Testament
from Practice What You Preach
1989 | Atlantic
Metal takes America to task a bit. It makes sense, for metal is mostly the domain of skeptics; why would an appraisal of our nation escape metal’s brutal honesty? After all, metal fans face facts, we stare into death and pain to learn their ways. Our expressions are of the costs, the weaknesses. And it’s weird: Commercial metal now shares country music’s tendency for dubious odes to America’s moments of glory, while deep underground metal rejects everything. But in the middle are metal artists and their sincere frustrations, chastisements, and fears.
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“Ghetto Nation” by Warrior Soul
from Salutations From The Ghetto Nation
1992 | DGC
Warrior Soul is on Bad Religion’s end of the spectrum, but the former only occasionally matches the humanism of the latter. Instead, Warrior Soul celebrates the parts of America that elude the grasp of controlling powers. Even when regressive and tumorous, an enemy of their enemy is their friend. Those with nothing cannot be leveraged. Crime is anti-social, but its one of few threats that reach the insulated. Throw us in jail, you’ve improved nothing. We’ll be back.
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“Goodbye America” by W.A.S.P
from Still Not Black Enough
1995 | Castle
It’s been 20 years since W.A.S.P.’s Blackie Lawless pronounced the death of the U.S.A. He seems like he’s still doing okay.
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“Speak” by Queensryche
from Operation:Mindcrime
1988 | EMI
You may love that it’s hard to tell whether Queensryche’s opus rock opera is revolutionary or reactionary. Is it a call to squash fascism and defend liberty via ungoverned means? Is it a tale of dictator musical chairs? Are good people inherently apolitical? Does desire for authority signal unsuitability to wield any? Who wins this jam, Wilton or Tate?
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“…And Justice For All” by Metallica
from …And Justice For All
1988 | Elektra
For all its hopelessness, the title track of Metallica’s angriest album first acknowledges America’s awesome ideals. Total patriotism.
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Your turn! Have a great wknd!
