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Is metal sexist?

« We somehow managed to use a band’s songs and videos—and more importantly, a band’s social posture—to get an image of what kind of women they preferred (or appeared to prefer). This goes back to the idea of thinking about pop culture even when it isn’t there; with only scraps of information, metal followers were able to construct the sexual appetites of their favorite musicians. Here’s a list of what type of girls the premier metal groups liked (or at least seemed to like) …

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It’s a… Mad World

ROLAND ORZABAL: “Mad World” was a shock. It was supposed to be the B-side of “Pale Shelter.” But when I played it to Dave Bates, he said, “That’s a single.” Thank God. I never particularly liked “Mad World” very much. But that’s why I mucked about with it so much in the studio—programmed it up, spent a long time getting it into the state that it ended up in on The Hurting. I couldn’t sing it. I still can’t sing it—it just doesn’t work. I did a quick double track and hated it. I said to Curt, “You sing it.” And it was much, much better. He’s got a soft resonance to his voice. “Mad World” is, I think, the best vocal he’s ever done. It was recorded brilliantly, and it’s just incredibly haunting. In the early days, I’d just write the songs, and if I couldn’t think of some lyrics, I’d ask Curt to do them. When we started off, it was very much Curt as frontman and me as studio boffin. It was like that until “Shout.” Because it was such a big hit, when we got to America, people saw us more as cofrontmen. Certainly, in the early days in England, Curt was the pop star, and I was in the background.

CURT SMITH: The recording of “Mad World” took a while, but writing it took an afternoon. We were sitting on the second floor of the Bath flat that Roland used to live in, looking down on people dressed in suits going to work, coming back from work, thinking, What a mundane life these people must live. Although since then, I’ve longed for that.

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LAIBACH: Nous préférons penser que parler

(photo: melchior ft)

«Laibach ne fait que des interviews par écrit», c’est ce que leur manager de MUTE records me répond quand je lui demande si une rencontre avec le groupe est envisageable à l’occasion du concert à La Machine, Paris, date unique en France, le 8 avril 2012. Le groupe slovène est chasse gardée. Peut-être la clé de sa longévité, eux tournent et sont toujours chez MUTE, contrairement à la Mano Negra qui faisait leur procès lors d’un mémorable coup de gueule chez Dechavanne dans les 80’s. LIRE LA SUITE