Evil Is Cool / Music

---

• This is a key part of the appeal of Gangsta Rappers such as Eazy-E, The Notorious B.I.G., Kool G Rap, Ice-T and N.W.A.
• No mere mortal can resist.. the evil of.. The Thriller!
• Jace Everett's Bad Things. There's a reason it was used as the theme song for True Blood.
• In the same vein as John Milton, "Please allow me to introduce myself/I'm a man of wealth and taste..."
• The majority of all black and Death Metal rejoices in evil, be it Satanism, genocidal misanthropy, National Socialism, the violent kind of Odin-worship, or any other flavour of evil.
  • Often subverted in the lyrical content, however. A lot of black metal is individualistic in the Nietzsche Wannabe tradition, while death metal tends towards either nihilism or more traditional "punk ethics". In these cases, the Evil Is Cool aesthetics are intended to be provocative and anti-social, rather than to be taken at face value. It's much less a rejoicing in actual evil as it is simply an embracing of this trope at an aesthetic level. Lyricists are aware that people, and they themselves, find villains, darkness, and horror to be interesting. As bands like Cannibal Corpse have said, very few extreme metal bands take their own lyrics seriously, and those who do are usually rather unstable. As Black Sabbath also stated, they're intended to be viewed much in the same light as horror films. A lot of bands simply use their music as a Villain-Based Franchise.
• Without a doubt, the coolest song in The Decemberists' Rock Opera The Hazards of Love is The Rake's Song, which happens to be a man casually telling the story of how he nonchalantly murdered all his children.
• Powerman 5000's "Super Villain" song. Also their song "Do Your Thing."
• Dr. Steel. Many fans like him not for the music, but for the incredibly cool Steampunk Villain getup.
• There's this line from Billy Joel's "Only the Good Die Young":
  They say there's a heaven for those who will wait
  Some say it's better but I say it ain't
  I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints
  The sinners are much more fun
  • As Joel himself points out, however, this is a subversion, as neither this nor the rest of what the singer says seems to be very convincing to Virginia.
• Theory of a Deadman has the song "Villain":
  Everybody wants to be like me
  The villain is the one that you came to see
• "In the Flesh", "Run Like Hell", and "Waiting for the Worms" from The Wall by Pink Floyd are all about the main character hallucinating about being a Neo-Nazi. They are also some of the best songs on the album.
  • The film version takes it further, with "In the Flesh" being an orchestral reprise at a Neo-Nazi rally, "Run Like Hell" showing the Neo-Nazis attacking various minorities, and "Waiting for the Worms" featuring an animated sequence with goose-stepping hammers.

---