Mercyful Fate's Don't Break the Oath

Description

Upon its release, Don’t Break the Oath charted fifth on the official British heavy metal album list and was supported by a two month long sold-out American tour in early 1985. The band’s controversial stage appearance with burning crosses, a microphone stand formed as a cross made of two human leg bones, as well as other blasphemous rituals attracted the attention of the then newly formed PRMC (Parental Resource Music Center) committee, ironically reassuring the band its position on the charts. But though the album was hugely popular in the anglophone metal scene, it was conceived in peripheral Denmark. This book discusses the relationship between center and periphery. It juxtaposes the Anglophone reticent of heavy metal with the rather marginalized location of Copenhagen, and examines Mercyful Fate’s relation to the Nordic region more generally. It also takes a close look at the methods involved in the production of King Diamond’s vocals, and emphasizes the role of the vocalist as just as an important part of the over-all soundscape as the instrumental contributions. Cover Halftitle page 33 1/3 Global Title page Copyright page Epigraph Contents Figures Acknowledgements Tracklisting A Note to the Reader 1 Introduction: A Broken Yet Completed Circle I. A Brief Career Summary II. Concepts and Reception III. Reasons for Choosing Don’t Break the Oath IV. About the Chapters of the Book 2 Sounds, Atmospheres and 43 Minutes of not Breaking the Oath I. Some Notes on the Album II. ‘The Coven Sings’: Influences and Backgrounds III. ‘Seven People here are Joining Hands’: About the Recording of the Album 3 The Satanic Endeavours: Intentional Transgressions and Antinomian Discourses I. Pacts Unpacted II. A Note on King Diamond’s Conviction III. ‘When the Black Book Appeared’: The Relation to the Black Metal Scene IV. The Satanic Verses of Mercyful Fate 4 Diabolus in Musica and Other Musical Modes of Symbolic Satanism I. Five Musical Modes of Symbolic Satanism II. Nightmare III. The Oath IV. Come to the Sabbath 5 Unmasking the Masks of Masculinities: (Dis)appearances of the Paint Mask I. Aspects of Masculinities in Heavy Metal II. King Diamond’s Paint Mask III. Unmasking the Masks of Masculinities 6 Queer-Satanism Galore: Otherings of the Oath I. A Note on Queer II. Hegemonic Masculinities vs. Queering III. The Endeavours of Queen Diamond IV. The Concept of Queer-Satanism 7 Conclusion: Rewriting the Heavy Metal Canon of Hegemonic Masculinity Notes References Index