Rock Bands and Tolkien (Nightwish and more)

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by skip spence

Morth, Okay Mordor perhaps is a good place for sleazy sex, uppers and downers, screamers and shouters, and that's rock'n'roll for you, but I doubt Tolkien cared for that sort of stuff, nor does his work in any way celebrate or even condone the rebellion, irreverence and reckless abandon rock seem to be about, which is why I think the two don't mix. But I guess if you're a bid Tolkien fan and work in music, references might pop up and that's fair enough. For me though, Tolkien references in rock isn't a plus.

I think it depends which book of Tolkien one takes as the quintessential Tolkien.

The Elves of The Silm are very different from the elves of LotR. There's plenty of rebellion, stiff-necked stubborn recklessness, even wild abandon amongst that lot. Ditto CoH. Galadriel might have been rehabilitated for LotR, but she was a rebellious bad girl way back when.

Certainly rock has been a mainstream expression for most youth; it isn't a mere leisure activity but a powerful and moving expression of many things which are important to its audience. In its centrality as meaningful voice it probably is closer to how the elves regard music than most sedate concert-going music experiences. And that centrality of aesthetic experience is what I think many of us appreciate in Tolkien: that art and music and literature can be profoundly important expressions of our human condition. The form and style can differ, but the significance of art, that's what binds Tolkien and the music of his fans.