Bizarre musical genres lurking all along

Music can lift the human soul, send the psyche on flights of fancy and plunge the mind into pathos, bathos and disturbing ethos.

It can praise the Lord. It can pass the ammunition. It can lead to romance. It can kill it in its tracks. Recently, it even provided a disturbing backdrop to the brutal bludgeoning deaths of four Farmville residents.

Emma Niederbrock, 16; her mother, Debra Kelley, 53; her 50-year-old father, Mark Niederbrock; and Emma’s friend Melanie Wells, 18, of Inwood, W.Va., were found dead in their home. Aspiring horrorcore rapper Richard “Sammy” McCroskey III, of California, was arrested at the Richmond airport and charged with the slayings.

It’s unlikely that, until Mr. McCroskey’s arrest, many mainstream, “vanilla” people had heard of the genre that depicts, like a grim fairy tale, sundry acts of violence and mutilation.

“They just want me to murder continuously. They want me to take lives on a mass murder spree. They love the smell of a body that’s rotten and decayed. That’s what I think about when I’m stalking my prey,” rhymed Mr. McCroskey in a bit of lyric from his MySpace site.

Others involved in the horrrorcore scene note that just because someone sings about taking a Sawzall to their grandma doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. On the other hand, in 2003, the American Psychological Association released results from a University of Iowa study that showed violent lyrics create violent feelings.

‘Increased’ hostility

The songs “increased feelings of hostility without provocation or threat,” Craig A. Anderson, of Iowa State University, discovered. Even humorously violent songs increased aggressive thoughts, he said.

“Aggressive thoughts can influence perceptions of ongoing social interactions,” Mr. Anderson reported. “Such aggression-biased interpretations can … [provoke] an aggressive escalatory spiral of antisocial exchanges.”

The sudden arrival of horrorcore rap into mainstream consciousness left me wondering what other interesting genres are lurking in underground clubs and back alley pubs. Thanks to Wikipedia and a variety of other Web sites, I found a few of interest.

Tied, somewhat, to horrorcore are psychobilly, death rock, zombiecore and horror surf styles. All have lyrics reflecting death, dismemberment, brain-eating zombies and such. So far no zombie attacks have been confirmed.

Dirty rap is just what it sounds like: It’s all about sex. Doom metal has been around for a long time, pioneered by Black Sabbath and its singer Ozzy Osbourne. The worst thing to come out of doom metal is a cable television show feature Osbourne’s family.

Mathcore, nerdcore

Mathcore is heavy metal with bizarre and unusual time signatures and lyrics depicting isolation and paranoia. Nerdcore is hip-hop with themes based on “Star Wars,” computer issues and topics seldom touched upon by other styles. Pagan rock features lyrics representing neopaganism.

More threatening may be black metal, which has been around for about 20 years. It features anarchistic musical arrangements and shrieking vocals from musicians wearing “corpse paint” and animal blood.

The lyrics are usually anti-Christian — some bands were charged with arson after church fires in Norway — and feature anti-social sentiments and death. Some musicians, mostly in Europe, have been connected to Nazi-style politics.

Of course, just because someone sings about killing people doesn’t mean that person will commit the deed. Just because Tupac Shakur sang about gun violence doesn’t mean that’s why he got shot to death. Just because George Jones sings about drinking binges doesn’t mean that’s why he missed so many scheduled appearances that he got the nickname “No Show.”

If Mr. Anderson is right, however, then music does have an influence. In that case, it may prove wise to pay close attention to what you and your kids hear.