Stop blaming musicians and take a look at the real problems

An inquest into the death of Truman Edley, who took his own life aged just 15 in November 2011, heard much heart-breaking detail.

The teenager hanged himself in the hallway of his family home at Wickersley, Rotherham where he was discovered by his mother Nicola. Mrs Edley gave both brave and frank evidence to the hearing in which she described a kind-hearted and sensitive young man who, like many teenagers, had issues with self-esteem and had a tendency to bottle up emotions.

The inquest also heard how, prior to taking his own life, Truman had listened to a sub-genre of music known as “death metal”.

Characterised by aggression, the music often deals in dark subject matter. In the past it, along with much heavy metal and rock music, has acted as a magnet for criticism, often being railed against for its supposed degenerative effect on the impressionable minds of youth.

Mrs Edley noted the unquestionably downbeat and funereal nature of this music but added that her son had a 
broad taste in music and his listening was far from confined to the genre.

It would have been very easy 
to ascribe the tragic demise of such a promising young man to his choice of music. However, coroner Fred Curtis erred on 
the side of discretion and good sense.

Declining to name the specific band Truman had been listening to, Mr Curtis stopped short of blaming the music for the tragedy and instead delivered the much more considered judgement that Truman’s death was due to a variety of circumstances, the full nature of which will never be known.

Death metal often deals with subject matters one would not hear in conventional pop music, focusing on macabre themes 
such as murder, suicide and violence. In this regard, it has much in common with opera, another form of music characterised by aggression and downbeat themes (the plots of Swan Lake or Don Giovanni feature suicide, the occult and violence extensively).

It is also a very technical music, featuring a great deal of time changes, altering dynamics and harmonic shifts. If it were to be compared to any other kind of music, it would be free jazz, another genre that enjoys a far better standing (indeed many death metal musicians have a jazz background, owing to high levels of technical skill involved in playing it).

Since the dawn of recorded history, death and violence have formed cornerstones of popular culture. Two of the earliest acts of writing, the Iliad and the Bhagavad Gita, detail battles and warfare extensively. A great number of Shakespeare’s plays feature murder, suicide and witchcraft. Virtually every schoolchild will have read the Harry Potter books – the plots of which are centred on magic, sorcery and death.

However metal music, since its birth in the late 60s and early 70s has always been the subject of pejorative comments and accusations without foundation, with certain sections of society hell-bent on trying to create moral panic around it.

As people search for explanations, violent films and extreme music are often the first ports of call when it comes to ascribing blame for some act of atrocity or tragedy.

Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, The Sex Pistols, Eminem, Marilyn Manson – the list of pop and rock acts decried for the corrupting influence they have on youth is a lengthy one.

The police, the coroner and in particular Truman’s mother could so easily have fallen into this trap but instead took a route much more grounded in reality.

Instead of a myopic blaming of musicians and artists a better focus would be on improving support services and structures for our children who face as tough a time growing up as any generation before them.

Ignoring the presence in Truman’s curtailed life of death metal would be a mistake but to lay the blame at its door would have been an even bigger one.

Music is capable of much but it cannot kill people, or persuade them to kill others.

If we can move away from this pointless blame game then perhaps the unspeakable 
tragedies as have befallen the Edley family can be avoided. It is human nature to be drawn and peer into the darkness but music and arts allow us to do this vicariously. Were it not for music such as death metal it is arguable there would be a lot more examples of the Edley tragedy.