Do Not Do This Cool Thing / Music

• The song "Dead Man's Curve" by Jan & Dean (also covered by The Carpenters on their Album Now & Then) tells the story of the protagonist engaging in an impromptu street race against someone in a Jaguar, culminating in a crash at "Dead Man's Curve" which is only vaguely described in the song. In a spoken part near the end of the song, the protagonist tells his doctors the last thing he remembers, then notes, "I know I'll never forget that horrible sight." However, the lack of any consequential details about the crash itself or its aftermath, as well as the generally upbeat melody, make both the protagonist's evaluation of the crash and the repeated advice in the chorus ("Dead Man's Curve, You'd best keep away!") ring hollow. If anything, the song seems more likely to make teenagers want to engage in such a drag race.
  • It doesn't help that in the version by The Carpenters, an instrumental link at the end cuts straight into a sappy rendition of the album's next song, "Johnny Angel."
• Anti-war songs are just as susceptible to this as anti-war films. The message of the song may be about the awful aspects of war, but it may have either too subtle of a title or a catchy, positive or cool-sounding beat, as well as Lyrical Dissonance to keep it from getting its message across. This goes double if it's a popular song that many of the listeners only know the chorus of without knowing any other of the lyrics, often leading to cases of Isn't It Ironic?.
  • Edwin Starr's "War". The lyrics denounce the act of war quite anviliciously, but it sounds like a good song to kick ass to. It was used for fight scenes in Rush Hour, Small Soldiers, and Agent Cody Banks 2, and Hellsing Abridged lampshades this by using it to underscore a nazi vampire invasion of London.
    • The cover by Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, which was also featured in Small Soldiers, takes this up to eleven.
    • Then again, the exact lyrics are "What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!" - and kicking ass is, well, bad. So the song falls short by not clarifying that warfare doesn't make one a badass.
  • Metallica's "For Whom the Bell Tolls". Despite being about the futility of war, it's a totally kick ass song that gets your adrenaline pumping.
  • Rise Against's "Hero of War" is definitely intended as an anti-war song. It tells the story of a teenager who joins the military because he'll get to see the world, carry a gun, and he'll even get paid. The war psychologically destroys him, going through brutal basic training, being involved in the beating and humiliation of a POW, and finally killing a surrendering civilian woman by accident during a firefight. However, along the way he makes friends, learned a lot, came to love his country, become a decorated veteran, and at home everyone respects him (it's likely the lyrics are supposed to take a more sarcastic tone in the end).
  • While not exactly a "catchy" song per say, Bob Dylan's "With God On Our Side" tends to get people thinking that it's a patriotic statement, despite being more about how having God on your side is little more than an excuse to go to war and force your ideals upon others because both sides will always claim this.
• The music video for "Amazing" by Aerosmith is framed as a guy having a VR fantasy of Alicia Silverstone.^note This was eventually revealed to actually be Silverstone having the VR fantasy. But that's neither here nor there. During this, warnings are shown when he throws his helmet off while riding a motorcycle, and a standard Surgeon General Warning when lighting up to smoke. Just about the only thing missing is a warning about protection during the VR sex.
• Heavy Metal suffers greatly from this. Despite its reputation of proclaiming the greatness of things like violence and Satan, many metal bands of note either treat these themes negatively, ironically or with a sort of horrified fascination; while a lot may seem like they glorify violence or death, it's often necessary to tune into the particular subcultural lens of heavy metal to understand them properly. Unfortunately, some of the fans (especially for bands that hit the mainstream) and more than a few of the bands don't seem to get this.
  • Black Sabbath. Many of their early lyrics dealt with the horrors of things like violence, war, Satan and so on. This has inspired legions of metal bands to write lyrics about how awesome these same things are.
  • Marilyn Manson. The fact that his concept albums aren't obvious to non-fans have created so many problems. Half of his songs on the album Mechanical Animals are from the point of view of the character of Omega (pronounced O-ME-ga), who is a space alien fallen to Earth and forced to be a rock star who sings empty anthems of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll and has retreated into copious drug use to cope and has cut himself off from emotion. The other half are by Alpha, who is just beginning to feel emotion and is curious because of it. So, of course, most people listen to Omega's message, ironically doing the same as the mindless sheep In-Universe. It's not much better with Antichrist Superstar, in which the title character ends the universe. It's not supposed to be supported, people. Mr. Manson himself was so pissed off by this that the song This Is The New Shit is about the fans that do this, with the chorus containing the lyrics "Do we get it? NO! Do we want it? YEAH!" just to make the point more obvious, and this this is the song that starts with "Babble babble, bitch bitch, rebel rebel rebel, party party party, sex sex sex and don't forget the violence". It doesn't help that people have their own preconceived notions of Satanism (which are wildly inaccurate) and he's an ordained Reverend in the Church of Satan. So yes, properly, he is Reverend Marilyn Manson.
  • Megadeth's album "Peace Sells...But Who's Buying?" led to a rumor that the band members were Satanists or endorsed Satanism due to nearly half of the album being explicitly about Satanism. But all three songs detail horrific things happening to those who dabble in it. The songs stem from a bad experience that Dave Mustaine had with "black magic", where he put a hex on someone and was convinced it worked, plaguing him with guilt. After that incident, he tried to make songs warning against the dark arts, but they ended up so badass-sounding that the message was ignored.
  • Slayer "Angel of Death" is often called a pro-Holocaust song, but guitarist Kerry King notes that the lyrics are as brutal as they are to reflect the real horror of the Holocaust, not to glorify it. The band wasn't trying to glorify the Holocaust — but they weren't trying to dispel it, either. They just enjoy causing controversy.
• Bruce Springsteen's "Born In the USA" is about the issues faced by returning veterans of The Vietnam War. Because of the refrain, the subtle title, and it being one of the catchiest songs musically the Boss has ever done, it's constantly mistaken for an American patriotic song. It is frequently played at 4th of July events. US President Ronald Reagan — a president who had threatened Mutually Assured Destruction on the Russians — wanted to use it as his 1984 campaign theme.
  • "Born to Run", similarly, was named New Jersey's "Unofficial Youth Rock Anthem" by the New Jersey State Legislature in 1979. A song about leaving New Jersey because of how terrible it is. No, seriously:
  Baby this town rips the bones from your back
  It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap
  We gotta get out while we're young
• Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son" is about the class bias of The Vietnam War — lower and middle class kids being sent to fight and die while rich kids get to stay home. This doesn't stop it from being extremely catchy, and many listeners don't really get more than the first couplet of the lyrics. It also gets mistaken for a patriotic song, thanks largely to the opening lines of "Some folks were born, made to wave the flag, ooh, the red, white, and blue".
• Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend" is a sarcastic song that, if taken unironically, would send the message, "If you're a girl who follows the Rule of Cool and likes a taken boy, it's okay to throw yourself at the guy and steal him away because you know he likes you back, and his girlfriend is 'like, so whatever.'" The video points out it's okay to humiliate said girlfriend because she's a nerdy girl with glasses. Lavigne has said it's criticizing shallow boy-crazy girls who act like that. But the song doesn't make this clear, and try telling it to the song's Misaimed Fandom.
• The Dropkick Murphys cover of the old Irish anti war song "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ya", when viewed on a particular AMV, makes one want to go to war.
  • The same tune was reused for "When Johnny Comes Marching Home", a song from the American Civil War that glorifies soldiers returning home from war.
• Gangsta Rap.
  • The videos for gangsta rap in particular are guilty of this. What was said above re: gangsters in film & television goes double for many gangsta-rap music videos. Even when the lyrics are explicitly about the dangers and harshness of street life, expect the videos to be full of images of diamond studded cars, gold jewelry everywhere, beautiful women, and champagne overflowing.
    • This was on account of the standards of MTV and other "music" channels at the time. They refused to allow any video with gunplay or shooting imagery regardless of context. This was particularly notable in the 1990s during the genre's rise to prominence (since they were airing more videos then).
    • This trope is deliberately invoked in Juvenile's song "Ha". The lyrics are a Take That! against the glamour of rap excess (the chorus says, "You're a paper chaser, you got your block on fire, remaining a G until the moment you expire"), and in the video itself, the scenes are of poor and near-homeless residents living in housing projects in New Orleans... except during the chorus, when Juvenile and his crew visibly sing in front of expensive cars, stacks of money and visible jewelry.
    • The Roots' "Never Do What They Do" is another classic music video that tries to shade light on how Mainstream Rap videos are glamorized. They do this three fold by first showing a typical "big baller" video with the big mansion, complete with huge swimming pool, bikini clad women, and high priced cars. Next they show the urban street scene, complete corner gang bangers and drug dealers. Lastly, they show the club scene with attractive women and a Jazz band on stage. Afterwards, they spend the whole video deconstructing all three settings, mostly by using box text to show how these videos are faked.
    • Atmosphere has written a few songs attempting to address this issue too, including "Apple" which has a repeated refrain of "Just cause you're an MC doesn't mean you get to be an asshole" and "National Disgrace" which begins with the following dedication:
  Peace to Rick James, Anna Nicole Smith, Bill Clinton, and Mötley Crüe, and anyone else who has ever utilised their 15 minutes of fame to realise their true dreams of being an absolute jerk-off, just to keep the masses entertained. This goes out to learning from the mistakes of others.
  • Much of Eminem's early material parodies the idea that gangsta rap can influence kids to do crimes, with Slim Shady using his child-friendly aesthetic to purposefully turn children into foul-mouthed psychos. The result of this was to transfer the moral panic over to him, which became a major part of Shady's persona (even decades after anyone was scared of him).
• Scavanger. Used for Black Comedy effect in Assassins of Ankh Morpork. "Here in Ankh Morpork they're saint", indeed.
• Visual Kei as a genre has this problem: the point of the genre is artistic freedom and using shock value to express your artistic message. Except a large percentage of the fans, looking at the beautifully stylized bandmen, seem to be convinced that to be truly Visual Kei, one must be as pretty as they are - thoroughly breaking at least one of the major Aesops in a belief that art is only for the beautiful and sexy. The second problem, especially with Eroguro Kei, is the Misaimed Fandom factor - people that don't get that some of this stuff is meant to shock and disgust, not glorify. Which can be a very big Unfortunate Implications minefield with, say, the GazettE's Taion, which is meant to be a condemnation of rape and a lashout at the Japanese society for allowing such a rape to happen. When people start singing along, though... Squick.
• At the beginning of the track "Tipsy", J-Kwon makes a short statement: "Yo, teen drinking is really bad!"^note  (I got a fake ID, tho'!)
• Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys.
• Beastie Boys' "Fight for Your Right to Party" was intended as a parody of party anthems and to mock lazy and unmotivated people with a "party all the time" attitude. It ended up become a party anthem as well because... well, no one can deny that the narrator is having fun, and his attitude is a lot more fun than actually doing homework, chores, and going to school on time. That the video looks like so much fun too is another big factor.
• "Beans In My Ears" lampshades this. The song starts with (ostensible) kids singing how their mommy said not to put beans in their ears ... followed by them wondering why they'd want to put beans in their ears ... followed by them putting the beans in their ears ... followed by them telling their mother they've done so, to which she responds "That's nice, boys, just don't put those beans in your ears." It ends with them concluding that all grownups have beans in their ears. Ironically, the hit version by The Serendipity Singers was banned in some markets because of concerns that it would actually encourage children to put foreign objects in their ears.
• In 2002, VH1 aired a special called Inside Hate Rock, an investigation into white supremacist rock bands. While it was intended to show how these bands are funding hate groups, it instead made them look like part of a cool, underground music scene. Scheduled repeats of the show were cancelled, and it has never aired on VH1 again.
• "Cocaine" by Eric Clapton is anti-drug but it sounds more like an advertisement for nose candy.
• According to British comedian Harry Enfield, this was one of his gripes when he created the character and chart-topping song of Loadsamoney - the character was meant as a parody of Thatcher-era upper-middle-class materialists who cared about nothing in the world and in the government besides what made them in particular the most money. Consequently, Loadsamoney is an incredibly obnoxious nouveau riche asshole who hates the poor and loves Conspicuous Consumption and waving around stacks of cash; his catchphrase being "Shut your mouth and look at my wad!" But the character was such a ham that a lot of people just took him at face value as an Awesome Ego. Turns out shallow and shortsighted people aren't too good at noticing subtlety...
• Sabaton, who sing Power Metal about military history, are aware of this problem and do their best to strike a balance. Their customary opening number is "Ghost Division", which is about Erwin Rommel's 7th Panzer Division during the invasion of France, and about two-thirds of the songs praise war heroes. On the flipside, they have several songs that are staunchly anti-war and anti-Nazi, including an eight-minute ballad about Hitler's rise to power called "Rise of Evil" on their second album. "Carolus Rex" is a particular example: it sounds awesome, but the lyrics describe the eponymous 18th-century Swedish king as a megalomaniac.
  • One problem Sabaton faces is that their Swedish lyrics tend to be much more blunt about the awfulness of war, while the English lyrics (which are intended for a global audience) tend to be rather defanged to the point that the message is actually inverted. From the album Carolus Rex we get the song Killing Ground. Compare the bridge in the official English with a more literal translation from Swedish:
  Official English:
  See the Caroleans standing tall
  All for one and one for all
  Enemies fall at their feet
  Begging for their mercy
  See the Caroleans standing tall
  Conquer lands and slaughter all
  Enemies fall at their feet
  Victory and great defeat

  Literal translation from Swedish:
  See the Russian give up, begging for mercy
  The Swede breaks the code of war
  Caroleans take their revenge
  Slaughtering their prisoners
  See the Russian give up, begging for mercy
  Mass murder, not heroic deeds
  Caroleans take their revenge
  Honor is lost

• Kiely Williams has claimed that her song "Spectacular" was intended as a warning about binge drinking and unprotected sex with strangers. However, the song's protagonist keeps raving about how amazing the sex was, and the only attempt to mention the negative consequences is "I hope he used a rubber/Or I'mma be in trouble".
• Rodeo by Garth Brooks is a notable example of this trope. The verses are about how being a rodeo cowboy will ruin your relationship with your wife, and your health, and your life in general... and then the chorus is a rocking anthem to how awesome it is to be out there participating in the rodeo!

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