Monks Who Play Punk (2007) | Hacker News Reader

Monks Who Play Punk (2007)

nytimes.com

56 pointsTomte18 comments

Regarding music in religion, kirtan [1] even for non-Hindus can be really enjoyable and powerful experience (most non-religious people I've met regard it more as a meditation than prayer).

[1] kirtan is a call-and-response style song or chant, set to music, wherein multiple singers recite or describe a legend, or express loving devotion to a deity, or discuss spiritual ideas. It may include dancing or direct expression of bhavas (emotive states) by the singer. Many kirtan performances are structured to engage the audience where they either repeat the chant, or reply to the call of the singer.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirtan

Here's one such beautiful Kirtan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpRL0FNAcL8

Great, thank you! I forgot about Om Swami, glad to have been reminded about them.

At first I thought this was gonna be about the "Paparokades" (priest-rockers).

Around the same time, in Greece there was a band of monks that played some semi decent rock with motivational and conspiracy theory-ish lyrics [1]. It was at the time when the "Metal music makes you a satanist" fad had arrived in Greece, and the whole ordeal was for some part of the population scandalous, and for the other part, hilarious.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stuFRRkRhg4

Another interesting one that came up recently was a Catholic priest in Kenya who raps.

However, he ended up being suspended from leading mass: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-44601638

The article doesn't go into a whole lot of detail, but I'm under the impression that the problem was that his rapping was separate to his liturgical work.

Similarly interesting is a fairly recent Polish black metal band that incorporates Catholic hymns/chants in their music. Although in this case I think it's likely done in irony, or with sacriligeous intent.

https://youtu.be/B7av_o99Pwg?t=238

Oh wow. I actually came to post something about Batushka. I'm really surprised to see it here already. Great stuff.

Orthodox, not Catholic. But yeah, Batushka is awesome.

Then there’s Reverorum ib Malacht, the Black metal band who studied Catholicism so intently in order to make even more evil, sacreligious music, that they actually ended up converting.

http://www.invisibleoranges.com/reverorum-ib-malacht-intervi...

There are lots of christian metal bands actually

I don't believe Batushka are Christian. There are some really great Christian black metal bands, though. Antestor's The Forsaken and Crimson Moonlight's Veil of Remembrance are both fantastic albums.

Of course, the best black metal is heathen, but when 99.9% of it is, that's to be expected.

I like this nu metal/growling version of the Song of Songs in Church Slavonic by a Russian band:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t106yVE6dYg

Not sacrilegious, quite the opposite.

Expressing freedom is getting more easy tho. Imagine rapping or punk'in priest in medieval times lol. Let's hope seen we will see some DJs and Electronic music.

Some of the reggae music is also very “religious” to the point where lyrics are quotes from bible or straight up Psalms with little bit of rewording. Specifically “Uk roots” Soundsystem scene could be attributed to be very close to Rastafari worshipping due to lyrics of the songs, chanting of mc and how music is played which sets the tone of the dance. Of course a lot of people are just in to it for the vibes but it’s still really hard to not make a comparison.

Reading the headline, I expected this to be about Death to the World, a zine put out by former punks (and a founding member of Sleep) in an Orthodox monastic order.

http://deathtotheworld.com/about/

I thought this would be about the Hare-Krishna movement in 90s hardcore punk.

Might be interesting for someone here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krishnacore

One of my friends is an Eastern Orthodox rapper: https://royalruckus.bandcamp.com/

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