Rock bands/artists that have been accused of being Satanic?

Alright, so I've been working on this thing for a while, and one of the characters is The Devil. Yeah, I know, he's in everything nowadays (especially if you ask Jack Chick), but he's in this too. Anyway, I thought it would be fun to pepper the Devil's dialogue with lyric drops from rock songs, in all their myriad sub-genres (it is allegedly his music, after all). But then I thought it would be even more fun to only pepper his dialogue with lyric drops from specific rock songs/bands/artists that had been individually accused of being Satanic (as apposed to just assumed to fall under the heading of the genre as a whole being Satanic).

Unfortunately, music trivia isn't really my thing so apart from one or two particularly notable examples, I don't really know which songs/bands/artists those are. So I thought I'd get the intermanets to help me brainstorm (that's you guys). Multiple heads are better than one, after all. Unless they're on the same body, in which case that can only lead to (potentially but not necessarily gruesome) misery.

Bands that deliberately invoke Satanic imagery (whether to provoke the "Devil's Music" nutjobs or just 'cause it''s fun) are also acceptable, even if nobody ever actually accused them.

edited 29th Feb '16 11:37:58 PM by BrokenEye

the entire genre of rock music

theend

The entirety of Black Metal.

Check out the lyrics of Venom, Mayhem, Darkthrone, Mercyful Fate, Inquisition, Akercocke among others should give you plenty of fodder.

Not even Christian rock is immune to this. The band Daniel Amos's 1981 album ¡Alarma! was denounced as Satanic because of its cover art: a photo of the band with their eyes airbrushed out.

I'm sure the denunciation had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the album's lyrics were scathingly critical of the church's shortcomings.

• throws dart at album collection* whatever is hit has been declared Satanic

@MetaFour@ Hah, awesome.

Also, props for being the only one to actually read all the way through the first paragraph of the OP

edited 1st Mar '16 2:58:53 PM by BrokenEye

Oh hai, Led Zeppelin.

Iron Maiden where accused because of the song Number of the Beast.

Though the band wasn't singing about participating in satanic rituals. The main character in the song is walking though the woods and he stumbles upon a ritual. They even have a line about reporting them to the police. "This can't go on I must inform the law..."

I mean if you really wanna hit on a big one, The Beatles, to the point where there were literally people burning Beatles albums and memorabilia in protest.

I don't think that was because they were accused of being satanic. It was because John Lennon said that they were bigger than Jesus.

Ah, but that was only the most notable example. Plenty you can dig up with people trying to link them to Satanism, including the fact that they have Aleister Crowley on the Sgt. Pepper cover. Fun stuff.

edited 1st Mar '16 9:13:02 PM by Odd1

well they were bigger than Jesus, factual statement...

To be fair, he wasn't saying that as a boast. He was lamenting it, in the context of "It's like people think we're bigger than Jesus or something". Of course, that was taken out of context and things got out of hand.

I mean, to be fair, like, if they stood on each other's shoulders, they would be very obviously bigger than Jesus, unless Jesus was taller than a house or something.

@Halberdier171st@ Hmm... the Iron Maiden example almost seems like some sort of retelling of Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

edited 3rd Mar '16 3:53:28 PM by BrokenEye

There were lots of bands whose names were supposedly satanic acronyms. To name a few:

Kiss (Knights/Kids in Satan's Service)

AC/DC (Anti-Christ/Devil's Child)

Rush (R Uins in Satan's Hands)

There was also a laughable accusation that Santana was actually a code name for "Satan", despite the fact that not only was it named because the main songwriter was Carlos Santana, but that Santana is a somewhat common last name, there may even have been Religious leaders or preachers or priests with that name.

edited 4th Mar '16 5:31:41 AM by J79

I’ll just leave this right here:

These are great. Keep 'em coming.

What the heck are "R Uins", though?

Also the fact anyone with a passing knowledge of latin languages can tell Santanna is a portmanteau of Santa Anna, i.e Saint Anne, a holy Christian figure, so it's, in fact, the very opposite of a Satanic name. It's a bit like people saying the "Santa" in Santa Claus is a reference to "Satan" rather than the more self-evident "Saint Klaus", a.k.a Sinteerklass, a.k.a a.k.a Saint Nicholas.

A more recent (and low-key, given the band's relative obscurity) example is Lordi for their monstrous appearances and horror movie inspired lyrics, but it's evident they're not, given their most recognized songs are "The Devil is a Loser" and "Hard Rock Hallelujah".

Every rock band ever, pretty much. Except for the ones that aren't famous enough for the accusers to know about them.

The only actual Satanists (As in, people who legitimately worship him) are the members of Black Metal bands. And even then, they tend to be the exception rather than the rule. In fact, Satanism is basically a cult based on trolling. Most of them are atheists who want to get a rise out of people.

I believe I addressed that in the first paragraph.

Also, Satanists are more of a loosely affiliated club dedicated to masquerading as a Hollywood Cult for the purposes of trolling (malicious LARPing with intent to LOL?). Also, there are genuine Satanists (different "branch", I believe), but they're no fun at all (except in retrospect), so they don't make much in the way of music. Also also, they're more gadflies than trolls.

edited 28th Apr '16 11:19:08 PM by BrokenEye

Black metal has already been mentioned, but I would single out Gorgoroth and Behemoth in particular. I would also look into more generally misanthropic metal groups like Deathspell Omega, which while not terribly Satanic would certainly appeal to an entity in utter contempt of our pathetic species. Outside of that arena, I would look into Current 93's early work. It's a little too out there to be entirely quotable, but the weird heretical religious symbolism is practically their trademark at this point, with their '80s work being particularly demented and disturbing. In a foreign land, in a foreign town, reaping time had come! Falling back in fields of rape, falling back in fields of rape, my love!

On a less extreme note, nods to pre-'70s rock seem appropriate given the moral panic such bands inspired, particularly the ones that were known for bad behaviour and general hell-raising (heh)—Jerry Lee Lewis and The Rolling Stones especially. If we take that a step further, music by people either arrested for or accused of crimes (particularly awful ones) might work: Charles Manson, Emperor, Gary Glitter, Burzum, Lostprophets, Dissection... but that might be a bit darker than you're aiming for.

I'm surprised Alice Cooper hasn't specifically been called out here. Especially because of the dichotomy of him putting on that act while in performance despite him actually being a devout Christian when offstage.

Don't forget Arthur Brown.

Which Gorgoroth?