Amidst all the momentous or major events throughout the 50’s to the late 80’s that created a special moment in history, stands one not well known among our generation. Heavy metal suicide. Heavy metal suicide contains multiple stories of young adult or late teen people who committed suicide supposedly after listening to triggering songs from loud metal artists. The families of these disturbed individuals supposed that the music their children chose to listen to, caused the problems, despite the facts that many of them had previous depression, drug, or alcohol problems. These accusations caused a fairly brief disturbance in the music industry, with many families going against the thunderous music, which could have possibly caused a crash within …show more content…
These people/groups who rose up to fame include widely known icons such as Ozzy Osbourne and Judas Priest, as well as others like AC/DC, Motley Crue, and Metallica. Despite their great success, many people out there, including a massive portion of Christian families, were disgusted and intimidated by the music. These individuals believed that the sounds worshipped the devil, and strongly disagreed with it. While many still cherished the music, this evolved a problem for this moment in the music industry, and when certain bands start getting sued for suicides that were supposedly caused by their music, it doesn’t make it any more positive. Because of these accusations, many people either formed a new dislike for this music, or their previous one grew …show more content…
Nineteen year old John McCollum sat in his room on October 26, 1984. He had past and current depression and alcohol problems, though his family was oblivious to these facts. On this night he sat for hours, listening to records of Ozzy Osbourne’s music, and repeatedly to the record with Suicide Solution. Afterwards he put a gun up to his head, shot it, and died on impact. His body was found the next morning on his bed, still wearing his headphones. After the incident, John’s father worriedly explained, “[He’s] a perfectly normal kid there, who really doesn’t show any signs of any depression at all, and happy and all of a sudden, six hours, he’s dead. No one [could] explain it, the only thing we know is he was listening to this music.” His parents didn’t have a clue to why he made this action, until his sister suggestion that it was the music. His mother even said, “There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about him and I just kept saying, ‘Why? What was the reason? You know, he was fine. And then my daughter, I was talking to her and I said ‘Why, why did he kill himself?’ And she said, ‘It was the music he listened to, Mom.” His mother believed what she said and took it to court against Ozzy Osbourne. At the trial, they supposed that one of the lines of the song said why try, get the gun and shoot. After pointing this