Whoever was in Helsinki last Friday had a chance to attend a special edition mass, a heavy metal mass, to be precise. The Nordic countries of Finland, Sweden and Norway have over the years fostered very diverse heavy metal scenes. Norway brought up a satanist who was burning down old wooden churches, Finnish heavy band Lordi won the whiny Eurovision contest and I shouldn’t forget to mention a Finnish urban legend about a grandma ordering The Children Christmas Songs CD through a catalogue sales, but received The Children of Bodom CD instead.

Grandma probably complained for receiving a CD she didn’t ask for. However, I can imagine that in the near future such mistakes might even be appreciated as they open a new avenue for older music lovers. Besides, the North is breeding a new generation of grandmas. From what follows it seems that The Children of Bodom might not be that far from The Children of Christmas anymore.

A few heavy metal blokes from Finland came up with an idea of holding a heavy metal mass–in a church, evangelic lutheran Church or Finnish state Church. According to the information on their Metallimessu website they thought it was about time to take over the J.S.Bach’s monopoly in Church music. They were not the first ones to think so.

Already in the 1960’s there have been talks in the Finnish Church whether the guitar should be allowed to be used during the service. And it was. But since the 1980’s pop and rock music have become a standard installment during some of the services. Not much later even gospel style music was approved by the Finnish Church as an aid in delivering the mass.

In times when many popular music movements often resemble religious movements, I think that Christian heavy metal masses were only a step away from those offered by The Church of Elvis. Which is not at all surprising as religious services today are a non-divisible hodgepodge of business, personal guidance, childcare, education and religion. And as Finnish Church lost the record amount of followers in 2006, the embrace of the long standing no-no music in Christian circles became inevitable.

On the other hand, heavy metal music is now more popular than ever. Long hair, black shirts and chains have conjuncted with our everyday. Everyone can name at least a few heavy metal bands as they take main stages of popular concerts around Europe. Why not harness the popularity of heavy metal for a church service? The organizers of the Metallimessu addressed that question exactly. After all, music itself is neutral, it is the words that carry the meaning, they maintain. Could have they chosen a better place to win over their and Church fans than the Helsinki’s Tuomiokirkko cathedral? Hardly.

Suits me. I just can’t wait to hear Laibach perform God is God and their other gems in a cathedral. You name it and I’ll go. Although they probably would have to alter their lyrics a little bit, at least for now.

Mladen

This entry was posted on Monday, February 12th, 2007 at 1:58 pm and is filed under Culture, Finland, Music, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.