Heavy Metal music is often criticized for promoting violence,<ref>[http://jaquetteworld.chez-alice.fr/images/cd_audio/metallica_kill_em_all-front.jpg Kill 'em All]</ref><ref> [http://www.directessays.com/viewpaper/64763.html Heavy Metal Violence]</ref><ref> [http://www.theexaminer.org/volume5/number5/music.htm Filthy Music: It is time for the public to speak out.]</ref> sexual promiscuity,<ref>[http://www.theexaminer.org/volume5/number5/music.htm Filthy Music: It is time for the public to speak out.]</ref><ref>[http://www.av1611.org/rock.html Rock Music: The Devil's Advocate]</ref> and [[Satan]]ism<ref>[http://www.av1611.org/rock.html Rock Music: The Devil's Advocate]</ref><ref>[http://www.metalunderground.com/news/details.cfm?newsid=27796 Metal News - 35% of Metal songs have Satanic content]</ref> among impressionable youths. Satanism is particularly rampant within the Heavy Metal culture. Heavy metal is usually marketed with Satanic overtones and [[demon]]s are often portrayed on Heavy Metal album covers.<ref>[http://www.whatrecords.co.uk/live/pics/32249.jpg Iron Maiden Album cover 1]</ref><ref>[http://ironmaiden.webvis.net/images/Albums/Iron-Maiden/Iron-Maiden.jpg Iron Maiden Album cover 2]</ref><ref>[http://www.lyricdude.com/pics/iron-maiden/16.jpg Iron Maiden Album cover 3]</ref> Some Heavy Metal artists even heavily alter their physical appearance so that they resemble Satan himself.<ref>[http://www.teens411.com/newspics/mudvayne.jpg Mudvayne]</ref> A vast majority of Heavy Metal reject the teachings of [[Jesus Christ]].<ref>[http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Church-arsonist-blames-heavymetal-hero/2005/05/04/1115092561935.html Church arsonist blames heavy-metal hero]</ref>
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A musicologist wrote:
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:The development of heavy metal music in the '60s and its continuing popularity through the '70s, '80s, and '90s coincides, for one thing, with the period of the greatest popularity horror films and books have ever known. Both mark a transitional moment in our history: the end of Pax Americana; new economic crises; de-industrialization, the decline of unions and the rise of low-pay service jobs; revelations of corrupt leadership; powerful social movements challenging dominant policies on race, gender, ecology, and consumer rights; new challenges to the stability of social institutions such as the family; and redefinitions of political themes such as freedom. Much of the culture of the past twenty years has functioned to restore the sense of security undermined by these disruptions. Heavy metal, like horror films, has provided ways of producing meaning in an irrational society. <ref>[http://www.superseventies.com/stairway.html Dr. Robert Walser, Professor of Musicology, Dartmouth College] - author of ''Running With the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music''</ref>