{"id":64091,"date":"2017-03-12T23:31:34","date_gmt":"2017-03-13T05:31:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=64091"},"modified":"2017-03-12T15:43:32","modified_gmt":"2017-03-12T22:43:32","slug":"the-rock-band-kiss-and-the-death-instinct-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/03\/12\/the-rock-band-kiss-and-the-death-instinct-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rock Band KISS and the Death Instinct"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr Ruwan M Jayatunge \u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/h2>\n

\u00a0I was never interested in being a rock star. I always wanted to be Boris Karloff.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Gene Simons<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The hard rock band Kiss was famous for their thought provoking music and extraordinary\u00a0flamboyant stage outfits with face paint. The group had a dramatic affect on young people and KISS fans started to grow in tens of thousands since 1973.\u00a0They have sold over 40 million records\u00a0and became one of the popular rock bands in\u00a0North America. Despite the group\u2019s popularity, many religious and civil groups criticized the band for using satanic lyrics and glorification of death and violence.<\/p>\n

Some critics view KISS<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>is an\u00a0<\/em>acronym<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>for the Kinder SS or\u00a0“Knights In Satan’s Service. Their music and lyrics are predominantly based on death, violence and\u00a0sexual promiscuity. Some of their songs express a deep alienation, a sense of being at war with the world.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The group members identify themselves as Daemon,\u00a0Starchild\u00a0, Spaceman and Catman. On the stage, they often do wired actions such as fire breathing, blood spitting and pyrotechnics. Their stage actions and performances are highly unorthodox and obviously attracted to teens all over the world. Their social impact is colossal.\u00a0 One time the KISS was identified as an anti religious, anti liberal group. The founder member of the band KISS\u00a0Gene\u00a0Simmons once publicly\u00a0<\/em>declared himself as “evil incarnate,”<\/p>\n

The psychology of KISS music is much more complex than the superficial rhythm. KISS music and stage performances are attracted to many people. Even though they look scary on the stage and their voices are overriding, their fans adore them. What is the secret behind this fatal attraction? Do they touch some innate parts of the human psyche?<\/p>\n

Probably the KISS touches the death drive of their fans. Through their music KISS, address the\u00a0death drive or the\u00a0Thanatos, which is a\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0drive towards death, self-destruction and the return to the inorganic.\u00a0In Greek mythology, Thanatos is the daemon\u00a0personification of death. On the stage,\u00a0Gene\u00a0Simmons often imitates as demon or the\u00a0<\/em>Thanatos. The song Unholy that was released in 1992 (The Album Revenge) gives positive clues of death and destruction preached by the group.<\/p>\n

I was there through the ages<\/em><\/p>\n

Chained slaves to their cages<\/em><\/p>\n

I have seen you eat your own<\/em><\/p>\n

I’m the cycle of pain<\/em><\/p>\n

Of a thousand year old reign<\/em><\/p>\n

I’m suicide and salvation<\/em><\/p>\n

The omen to nations<\/em><\/p>\n

That you worship on all fours<\/em><\/p>\n

I’m the infection and famine<\/em><\/p>\n

That’s knocking at your door<\/em><\/p>\n

That’s why you’re feeling so Unholy<\/em><\/p>\n

The\u00a0<\/em>death drive defined by the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan does not describe literal death, but death within the symbolic order.\u00a0Lacan sees death as the only potential for the subject who cannot ever experience a \u2018life\u2019 or only a version of striving towards \u2018life\u2019 through language and the symbolic order. The song Unholy recounts the\u00a0death within the symbolic order. The second phase of the song evolves in to drastic symbols of death.<\/p>\n

I was created by man, you know I’m Unholy<\/em><\/p>\n

I am the incubus<\/em><\/p>\n

Ilay the egg in you<\/em><\/p>\n

The worm that burrows<\/em><\/p>\n

Through your brain<\/em><\/p>\n

But you are the beast<\/em><\/p>\n

That calls me by my name<\/em><\/p>\n

You send your children to war<\/em><\/p>\n

To serve bastards and whores<\/em><\/p>\n

So now you know<\/em><\/p>\n

You created me<\/em><\/p>\n

On the day that you were born Unholy<\/em><\/p>\n

I was created by man, yeah I’m the Lord of the flies, you know I’m<\/em><\/p>\n

From the left hand of power comes the father of lies – Unholy!<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0I lay you down to sleep<\/em><\/p>\n

Your soul to keep<\/em><\/p>\n

Better cross your heart before you die<\/em><\/p>\n

And now you know<\/em><\/p>\n

Know that you are mine<\/em><\/p>\n

The Psychoanalyst\u00a0Patricia MacCormack is on the view that\u00a0 \u00a0death is all about desire for abundance contrasting an absence of being, both of which are explicitly unattainable and henceforth unimaginable. It is a theoretical death within a defined linear zone, a death in theory.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0<\/em>connection between hate<\/em>,<\/em>\u00a0violence,\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0<\/em>death<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>seems obvious. Hate is a deep enduring, intense emotion expressing animosity, anger, and hostility towards a person, group, or object. Freud defined hate as an ego state that wishes to destroy the source of its unhappiness. Freud\u2019s 1915 work\u00a0\u00a0 Instincts and their Vicissitudes broadly analyzed the psychic energy involved in hate.<\/p>\n

Following is the song Hate sung by KISS<\/p>\n

Hate is what I am<\/em><\/p>\n

Cuz underneath this heart<\/em><\/p>\n

There beats the heart of man<\/em><\/p>\n

You’ll wear your crown<\/em><\/p>\n

When you’re lyin’ 6 feet underground<\/em><\/p>\n

Don’tcha think it’s odd<\/em><\/p>\n

Man was created in the image of God<\/em><\/p>\n

All you martyrs and saviors<\/em><\/p>\n

Go through the same door<\/em><\/p>\n

Listen all you butchers, saints and sinners<\/em><\/p>\n

We’ve all been here before<\/em><\/p>\n

Lead a lamb to slaughter<\/em><\/p>\n

All you ever did was follow orders<\/em><\/p>\n

All you martyrs and saviors<\/em><\/p>\n

Go through the same door<\/em><\/p>\n

Listen all you butchers, saints and sinners<\/em><\/p>\n

We’ve all been here before<\/em><\/p>\n

In this song, KISS talk about man\u2019s negative emotions and his primal desire to be with the father figure (God?). As Lacan stated only father is a dead father. According to Lacan father is mealy a signifier or a symbol not a living being. It is a fantasy, which \u00a0 is germinated in the psyche.<\/p>\n

The songs of KISS divulge darker instincts of death and aggression, but their songs are attracted to millions of people. The Kiss would \u00a0 be one of the most enduring groups in all of rock ‘n roll history. From 1976-1979 Kiss was voted “Most Popular Group in the World”, over the Beatles and Led Zeppelin.\u00a0 As Bennington Banner from Rock Music magazine stated \u00a0“with its members bizarre, Kabuki-like makeup, studded black leather costumes and arsenal of on-stage firepower \u2014 both musical and literal \u2014 Kiss represents the most extreme form of hard rock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr Ruwan M Jayatunge \u00a0 \u00a0I was never interested in being a rock star. I always wanted to be Boris Karloff.\u00a0Gene Simons The hard rock band Kiss was famous for their thought provoking music and extraordinary\u00a0flamboyant stage outfits with face paint. The group had a dramatic affect on young people and KISS fans started to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dr-ruwan-m-jayatunge-m-d"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64091\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}