Heavy Metal PSA’s

By: Charbarred | in: Music |

80’s slasher films taught us that easy girls and pot smokers are very likely to meet an early demise at the hands of some masked psychopath. Their musical counterparts, the “Hair Bands” didn’t really follow those guidelines. But every once in a while a band would emerge with a life changing message aimed at saving our (and mainly their) rotten souls. Here are a few important lessons I learned from 80’s metal bands:

Don’t turn to a life of crime
Courtesy of: Skid Row
Song: 18 and Life
How Ricky ended up shooting his best friend will always puzzle me. After all “he had a heart of gold”, but I guess that Tequila and guns don’t mix kids.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Xd8ykpZkwA

Don’t neglect your children
Courtesy of: Faster Pussycat
Song: House of Pain
Long before Ugly Kid Joe’s cover of Cats in the Cradle, Faster Pussycat showed us what happens when you continually ignore your child. So, parents, if you don’t hang out with your kid, he’ll end up with bleached hair wearing makeup and singing in a heavy metal band. Be warned, “a boy needs a daddy like a dance to a mime”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1ntsBXdK88

War sucks!
Courtesy of: Metallica
Song: One
Based on (gasp) the book ‘Johnny Got His Gun’, Metallica tells us about the consequences of war. I used to hang out with these metal-heads who were very serious about this book. Not as serious as “The Catcher in the Rye” or slamming into people in a dingy club in the middle of the night…but still pretty serious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwW9L_qzqp8

God is great
Courtesy of: Stryper
Song: I Believe in you
Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the band that gave us “The Hell with the Devil” actually meant it. Yup, they were a Christian metal band, and they had us all fooled.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01JeTDm89Tc

Domestic violence and guns don’t mix
Courtesy of: Aerosmith
Song: Janie’s Got a Gun
What did her daddy do? I’m not sure, but when they arrested Janie, daddy was already pushing daisies. Whether the lesson is “don’t give your kids access to guns if you’re an asshole” or “don’t shoot your dad, you’d get arrested”, the band that also taught us about the dangers of mistaking dudes for ladies, really made their point.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cd3buH7UTz8

Be kind to aliens
Courtesy of: Megadeth
Song: Hangar 18
Is there a bigger lesson here? Was the mistreatment of those cute E.T.’s meant to serve as an analogy to the way we treat those who are different than us? Only Dave Mustaine can really answer this question, but he was so screwed up on drugs at the time, that I’m not really sure whether he can own up to one of his finest moments.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLqdFnbHAlw

OK, so at 14 I didn’t have access to strip clubs, drugs or alcohol. In fact, the only things I could really take with me were those important messages, and I turned out just fine. Sure, there was this whole “good parenting” thing as well, but I’d still like to give my long haired friends some credit. After all, how many of you can say that this commercial truly kept them off drugs?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTOsCYZQass

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Posted on May 8, 2007

Comments

14 Responses to “Heavy Metal PSA’s”

Giovanna on May 8th, 2007 5:09 am

Hey, that was a great metal symposium, Char…flashes of a forgotten part of my life suddenly come before my eyes as I listen to “One”…*sigh*
Ammmmmmazing picks!!!

Giovanna on May 8th, 2007 5:24 am

And speaking about anti-drug commercials, take a look at this…it aired in the 80s in Italy and it still threatens my dreams (and the dreams of a whole generation, I guess) at night. The slogan says something like: “Who gives you drug turns you off”…creepy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ai5tGSKFyOE

Charbarred on May 8th, 2007 6:05 am

Man, that’s a scary video…wasn’t it enough that we had to deal with Michael Jackson’s Thriller video when we were kids?

Emon on May 8th, 2007 6:43 am

Well, daddy was boning Janie while mommy sort of looked the other way - newsflash! - so Janie bought Daddy a one-way ticket.

Scorpions did a video I remember watching way back, ‘Under the Same Sun’…anyone? The message: Since we all live under the same sun, why can’t we live as one. Cute message, only when you have a full stomach and a mansion to call ‘my humble abode.’ I love the Scorpions!
The original video, as I remember, had an anti-war theme, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. This version is all I found and the idiot who re-edited it somehow thought Steven Seagal blowing things up would go nicely with “Is there a heaven in the sky?” The song itself is pretty…er catchy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg29yJ9hyWs

kendall on May 8th, 2007 3:42 pm

Rikki was a young boy with a heart of STONE

HMTKSteve on May 8th, 2007 7:08 pm

What ever happened to Skid Row?

Charbarred on May 9th, 2007 12:48 am

I commented something on Digg once regarding Skid Row, and 20 people ganged up on me saying that their singer still does stuff and is very influential.

Kendall on May 9th, 2007 8:41 am

Sabastian Bach went on to be Jesus Christ in Jesus Chist Superstar on Broadway I believe.

TednGilbertAZ on May 9th, 2007 12:14 pm

Yeah, Emon… don’t forget Scorps’ “Wind Of Change” - very relevant about the fall of the Berlin Wall and Communism in their homeland. Not all hair band music was irrelevant.

ipodwheels @ Auto Parts Place on May 9th, 2007 4:20 pm

I can not say that I am strictly an eighties kid. Most of my eighties memories were as a kid and I spent my adolescence during the nineties. I don’t remember much about the eighties except that I do not care enough to remember band names or singers. From a lot of MTV rewind and some music that were able to seep through the nineties from the eighties here’s what I remember.

Bon Jovi and Guns and Roses were the norm for what cool is. Long hair was big back then. When I think about it, I think mullets were too. So I don’t think that is something I would really be proud of in that era. If you look at pictures now from the eighties, you will be amazed at how thin the line is between looking gay and going all metal.

Looks like everyone wants to be a demon then. Bands like KISS, Poison, Twisted Sister and Dio are just creepy.

Ozy, Iron Maiden, Metalica…. aaaaargh. Thinking about it makes my head hurt.

german_metalhead75 on May 10th, 2007 2:02 pm

lol@list. kinda sums up my thoughts about some of those songs great idea.

@tedn gilbert: scorpions were _not_ from east germany. and their song wind of change became the fall-of-the-wall anthem after the fact.

Rustycat on May 11th, 2007 6:36 am

I love the drugs commercial, brings back memories form my childhood. They used to run it on MTV all day long..nice one.

LED Torch %0A on December 3rd, 2010 12:52 am

have you seen those Thriller Video with the prison inmates, geez those are very nice ,,~

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