'Praise be to Jesus... Praise be to Magic Woody Allen Zombie Superman Komodo Dragon Telepathic Vampire Quantum Hovercraft ‘Me’ Jesus!' Tim Minchin in Woody Allen Jesus
This forms the basis for many of neo-acidrockers Monster Magnet's lyrics, and the band's entire image for that matter. What's more, they took the band's name from a song by the Mothers of Invention called "The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet". Emphasis on "son" here.
Even more so for the obscure metal band Manilla Road, who have written concept albums about King Arthur returning in the far future to fight demons on Mars or H. P. Lovecraft's Great Old Ones battling the Aesir for the control of a newly risen Atlantis.
In the music video for "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" by British glam rockers The Darkness, the band's spaceship is attacked by a giant space octopus, which they destroy with The Power of Rock. Yes. A literal rock.
Similiarly, the video for "Burn It Off" by the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion has the band landing an ocean liner on a mysterious island, and being attacked by a variety of monsters from the films of Ray Harryhausen, which they fight off with the power of blues-influenced rock 'n' roll. It also involves shark-airplanes flown by skeletons.
Continuing on that theme, the video for Jason Forrest's "War Photographer" features GiantTransforming Mecha, piloted by vikings, battling each other with the power of rock. And the power of an acid-spewing marching band.
Music genres tend to be created this way. Blues + country = rock. Rock + classical = prog rock. The most obvious is Psychobilly, which is rockabilly about zombies and skeletons played by people in corpse paint.
One such psychobilly band has the improbably awesome/hard-to-remember name "The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster". One of their songs, "Puppy Dog Snails", is about a juvenile delinquent being pursued by ogres and beating them up. Or something.
Symphonic power metal, which can be described as heavy metal but more epic and with an orchestral backing.
Shamisen (Japanese tradition music) + metal = God of Shamisen (the musical equivelant of a ninja pirate)
The third album of Psychostick is named "Space Vampires VS Zombie Dinosaurs in 3D".
Muse's video for "Knights Of Cydonia" features a Badass Longcoat in the Old West, kung-fu, laser guns, robots, the Ku Klux Klan, a holographic rock band, Communist imagery, and a heroine in a chainmail bikini on a unicorn. It ends with the hero using a laser disc to kill the corrupt sheriff, then riding into the sunset on a motorcycle.
The Cat Empire - already awesome enough, as they are an Australian Latin-jazz ska funk band - have a song called "Voodoo Cowboy". What's more, the song lives up to the name. The eponymous cowboy's mother was a snake, and his father was a scarecrow, "Born in the desert with his hat on his head". The desert "was his bitch". Oh, and he had a horse and died finding a woman to love at the bottom of a lake at the edge of the world.
The Plastic Constellations' "Let's War." HOLY CRAP, THAT SERPENT'S BREATHING FIRE!
"The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny" by Lemon Demon, which deals with an enormous battle between practically every action movie star and superhero from the past twenty years. And Mr. Rogers is the winner.
The Russian Rock song "Gorbachev" by ANJ is a perfect example of this trope. The music video features not only an army of zombieStalins with vampiric tendencies, but also an enormous battleship, the band's drummer in a gas mask, and a Conan the Barbarian-esque Mikhail Gorbachev armed with an axe, a gun, and laser eyes rushing into battle to save hot girls.
Now there's the opposite of robot pirates: Zombie Ninjas.
On the subject of album art, take a look at Judas Priest's Painkiller◊. It's a chrome-plated cyborg angel riding a dragon motorcycle with buzzsaws for wheels.
Faster than a bullet Terrifying scream Enraged and full of anger He's half man and half machine Rides the metal monster Breathing smoke and fire Closing in with vengeance, soaring high
Along with Painkiller example above, take a look at other Judas Priest characters:
The Hellion, giant robot bird with missiles which screams for vengeance.
Less popular ones are Metallian, Master of all metal (a giant psychedelic devil-horned tiger tank with missiles, from Defenders of the Faith) and Jugulator from Tim "Ripper" Owens era, an antichrist to Painkiller's messiah. Almost all of their covers have been pretty intense:
Stained Class - A steel mannequin having its head pierced by a multicolored laser beam.
Killing Machine - A plaster likeness of Rob Halford, wearing his trademark shades and biker cap.
British Steel - A razor blade being wielded like a shiv.
could go on....
Many Metal band mascots venture into this territory:
Running Wild's mascot is Adrian, undead werewolf pirate who is also son of Satan.
US Power Metal band Phantom had a cyborg werewolf with wings.
Most famous is Iron Maiden's Eddie, who is a time-travelling undead evil albino metalhead with too many occupations throughout history to list.
Apocalyptica, the Sibelius-Academy-trained cello-metal ensemble, who began as a Metallica tribute band. Seriously, though.
The video for Van Halen's cover of "Pretty Woman" features a transvestite being molested by midgets working for Napoleon and being rescued by Tarzan, a samurai and a cowboy at the behest of a hunchback.
Battalion 88's black metal techno album Tie of Times has Nazi viking space marines. They are 100% serious.
Gor-Gor of GWAR is a zombie T-Rex who ends up fighting a cyborg in live shows.
Man-Witch project has a lot of fun with this. Song titles include Flaming Pillow Of Fear, Wrastlevania65000, Thunderhogg, Necro-Atomic-Abominomicon and Superultramegaterrifyafearinator. And two latter tongue twisters are title dropped in the refrain, no less.
Though done more for laughs than for awesome: The Beatles + Metallica = Beatallica, authors of songs such as "Fuel on the Hill", "The Thing That Should Not Let It Be", "And Justice for All My Loving" and "Blackened the USSR".
Lordi's song Get Heavy begins with the lyrics "Spasmodic '84 Electric Dinosaur Desperado Vampire" and then continues later with "warp into monster disco hell" as well.
The video for "Country Song" by Seether has clowns, soldiers, astronauts, luchadores and many others in a western setting. Understandable since it's the personification/realistic depiction of a small boy's play-time (these characters are all toys and dolls).
The stories in Gackt's music contain many of these, such as Cyborg Nazis and Vampire Knights. His concerts can also be said to be this, since they're designed to be combination's of rock concerts, movies, and musicals.
Anything by Ninja Sex Party. The name speaks for itself. Also see: Dinosaur Laser Fight (Lyrics NSFW)
