One of the reasons I like metal is because it sticks two fingers up at political correctness. And in today's society, that's something that's sorely needed. While my views on political correctness and the increasingly bloated state that it has engendered are a whole other node, I can say that one thing that metal of all stripes does tend to espouse is best summed up by a certain Overkill song entitled "Fuck You" which was released as a single in 1986 and has on its cover a giant middle finger. Generally, if it's any form of interference by people who think they know better, try to prescribe what you can and can't say, and so forth, there's probably a metal song dedicated to trashing it.
I should also say, though, that I've limited myself slightly in this writeup. Firstly, I've not mentioned any NSBM. This is because that would make it too easy. And besides, to research it I'd have to listen to vast numbers of creepy folks banging on tediously about "RAHOWA" and "ZOG", interspersed with the occasional slab of Odinism which is supposed to prove something, I don't know what, and then having albums padded out to 88 (natch) tracks with silence. Secondly, I've avoided most grindcore. With Waco Jesus and Carcass and Anal Cunt and The Meatshits I could fill this list entirely (especially the latter two), but that would, once again, make it too easy. Everything else is fair game.
Links to these songs are provided where possible so that you can click on them, listen to the song, get offended, and then complain about them even though I've warned you in advance as to their content. :)
When it came out: 2003
Who it will offend: People who have a conniption fit at rude words.
This song is about sex with a succubus. Now while succubi allegedly bang like a shit house door in a gale, they tend to kill off anyone they sleep with. It's not all that graphic, to be fair, but some people do tend to get a bit bent out of shape at sex and the concept thereof in general, yano, those folks who are too prudish to look down while urinating in case they see what's swinging about between their legs.
Sample Lyric: "Harlot of dark desire / Naked vampire slut / Initiatrix of damnation / Insatiable cunt!"
Link: You know you want to.
9. Carnivore, "Jesus Hitler"
When it came out: 1988
Who it will offend: Catholics in particular and Christians in general.
Carnivore and Type O Negative could probably fill this list up all by theirselves. But anyhow... I can't imagine many Catholics enjoying having their attention drawn to their Church's quiet support of the Bad Guys in World War II. And I can't imagine many Christians in general enjoying having the person who founded their religion compared to a psychotic syphilis-ridden mass murdering dictator. The biggest irony is, though, that Peter Steele is now a Catholic.
Sample Lyric: "Hear me my fellow Nazolics / Come join the Neotheofacists / Keep der race pure practice eugenics / And swear to the holy swazafix."
Link: Endure.
8. Manowar, "Pleasure Slave"
When it came out: 1988
Who it will offend: Feminists, specifically, the butthurt-happy MacKinnonite variety of feminists who claim that for women to engage in BDSM is akin to "collaboration."
Also one of the ten geekiest metal songs ever, this is the sort of song that you could take home to Mother, well, assuming you wanted her to move away without leaving a forwarding address. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's noticed the similarity between the lyrical content of this song and the ritual surrounding the care and grooming of chained naked slave girls in John Norman's Chronicles of Gor. Certainly wouldn't surprise me, both the Gorean novels and Manowar are all about victory and battles and then vigorously "rescuing" the damsel in distress. Who then is so won over by your incredible manhood that this happens. Yeah. Pass the Boris Vallejo paintings, chaps.
Sample Lyric: "*whistles* Woman! Come Here! Remove your garments! Now, kneel before me... PLEASE ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Link: Take me, Master.
When it came out: 1991
Who it will offend: Left wingers of the humourless variety.
A song about "welfare queens" (American for serial dole bludgers, a term which also can have - though not always - racial undertones). I think by this point Peter Steele, having just come out of Carnivore, had some suitably tasteless and offensive stuff left over to commit to tape, or maybe he just really, REALLY, likes annoying lefties (for which I can forgive him). Needless to say, the fact that he used the term "Untermensch" to refer to the constantly on benefits caused some butthurt and made certain wankier music critics consider the band to be possible Nazis. Which is patently ridiculous, Type O Neg also did "My Girlfriend's Girlfriend" which cast a very approving eye on bisexual threesomes - something that real life Nazis would not do.
Sample Lyric: "There's a dopewhore waiting at home / Dealing your shit on the chemophone / Poor Tawana gets born with a birth defect / But it only increases your welfare check!"
Link: Annoyingly, I can't seem to find one.
6. The CNK, "Get a Gun, Shoot at Random"
When it came out: 2002
Who it will offend: Concerned parent types and similar wowsers.
There's a part of me that wants to film a video to this song from the first person in a school, like the protagonist's rampaging the corridors with an array of heavy weaponry mowing down students, teachers, and all sorts in his wake, while singer Hreidmarr belts out exhortations to mindless violence. Quite frankly I'm waiting for the CNK to have one of those moments where they're scheduled to play in a town and, coincidentally, the day before, someone goes on a rampage throughout their lycée in that town. The fact that they're also martial industrial - at least in part - helps this French quartet up the non-PC stakes also. It's a staple at their live performances as well.
Sample Lyric: "So don't fear me honey / I just want to shoot ya down / Wanna taste now baby / How fucked up I am? / Wanna suck my gun / Right here in your face?"
Link: Dinner is ready.
5. Exodus, "Children of a Worthless God"
When it came out: 2007
Who it will offend: Muslims, Islamists, and their (rather strange) allies in the media like Robert Fisk and George Galloway.
Trashing religion is fairly par for the course in metal, however, a lot of the religion that gets trashed is Christianity. This song, on the other hand, trashes Islam. Which is a lot more politically incorrect than trashing Christianity, because whereas most Christians seem to just ignore it with regard to trashing or even legitimate criticism of their faith and simply avoid it, if you criticise Islam, even on justifiable grounds (and there is much justifiable criticism of Islam, like any organised religion), or are perceived to trash it, all these frothers come out the woodwork and start crying racism - oh, and in particularly egregious cases you get bounties put on your head or your publisher's house firebombed. Unfortunately "Children of a Worthless God" is a pretty meh song by Exodus's standards, it has more than a few 'core elements. Rob Dukes is a bit of a crap vocalist compared to Paul Baloff or Steve Souza as well.
Sample Lyric: "Propagation of violence / your one god a disease upon man / Execution, crucifixion / the answer for those not in your plan / The penalty for contempt against your god / is death and nothing else / Ignorant infidels / are subhuman and will all burn in hell!"
Link: ALLAHU AKHBAR!
4. S.O.D., "Speak English Or Die"
When it came out: 1985
Who it will offend: Humourless left wingers and overzealous antifa types.
Extreme Noise Terror did a response song to this called "S.O.D. Off" in which they accused S.O.D. of being racist and fascist and ended by screaming, "Milano - you're dead!" They completely failed to realise, though, that "Speak English or Die" and the character of Sergeant D that Billy Milano and chums made was a caricature of this sort of frothing right-wing swivel-eyed loon - by Milano's own admission he wrote most of their stuff "just to piss people off." Indeed, its effectiveness as a caricature is that it's perfectly possible to think that they're serious about sending 'em back over the Rio Grande. Just as Madonna sparked off a whole row with her song "Papa Don't Preach" which was about NOT having an abortion, the subject matter was sensitive enough that people still got butthurt. And Extreme Noise Terror were hardcore punk at that time and it's well known that hardcorers have no sense of humour whatsoever. S.O.D. certainly did and just baited them. Mercilessly.
Sample Lyric: "Nice fuckin' accents / Why can't you speak like me? / What's that dot on your head? / Do you use it to see?"
Link: Click here, you worthless (insert racial slur).
When it came out: 1987
Who it will offend: Feminists of all stripes, women, men who have any respect whatsoever for women.
Definitely the most sexist and misogynistic song in metal... maybe even the most sexist and misogynistic song ever. The song is fast, violent, and has lyrics about rape. To wit, anal torture rape at gunpoint. I think you get the idea. Before you all start shouting "BAN!" at me, though, I'd like you to show me one case in which any songs with violent lyrics have led people to actually go and emulate them (though I'm now awaiting someone to start tiresomely going on about "raunch culture" and similar bollox).
Sample Lyric: "Shove my fist inside your cunt, shove my dick right up your butt / Screams of pain fulfil my lust, beat your face in get my kicks / Fuck your brains out, squeeze your tits / Blood on your thighs, virginity dies!"
Link: Get it here.
2. Arghoslent, "Flogging the Cargo"
When it came out: 2006
Who it will offend: Better to ask, who won't it offend.
I know I said I wouldn't mention any Nazi bands in here because that would be too easy. However, Arghoslent, despite being horrible racists (though there is some speculation as to whether this is just a gimmick), are not Nazis to the best of my knowledge. They play slightly folked-up death metal about the Atlantic slave trade and suchlike, and couch it in rather unpleasantly positive terms (they're from Virginia, so go figure). The most annoying thing about "Flogging the Cargo," or indeed the rest of the album it's on, aptly entitled "Incorrigible Bigotry," is that it's actually a rather good (musically, that is). And they have another song about miscegenation and how it's going to be the downfall of civilisation, which is also rather good musically. Unfortunately because it's so terribly racist, it makes you feel dirty for thinking such. Ugh. At the same time, though, as I said, one can't help but feel that all this racism is a gimmick to try and sell it to people... after all, controversy sells.
Sample Lyric: "With laziness indelible and inherent / The pitch brutes lived / At the end of the whip."
Link: ClicKKK here.
You'd think that a song which openly asserts racial supremacy would be difficult to top in its power to rile people, wouldn't you? Well... you'd be wrong.
When it came out: 1992.
Who it will offend: Absolutely everyone.
This is a nice little ditty from the people who also brought you "Hammer Smashed Face," "Force Fed Broken Glass," "Mummified in Barbed Wire," "Fucked with a Knife," and "Entrails Ripped from a Virgin's Cunt." I suppose it's a good thing that Chris Barnes death grunts his way through this. There's something just so delightfully undefinable about the concept of raping dead children that gives it unprecedented power to offend folks. In fact, this song - and the rest of the album it was on, along with two other Cannibal Corpse albums, were all banned in Germany and the band was not permitted to perform them there either. That's how thoroughly politically incorrect this song is. Needless to say, it sold like a bastard as a result - which was as intended.
Sample Lyric: "I hear the voice of every child / That lies next to me decayed / A fresh corpse, to fill with my infection / Tortured before death, no orifice left unfilled / Violated after death / Virgin hole infest / Anal pore spewing cess / The sacred juice I ingest / Your dead child I defile / Necropedophile..."
Link: Schedule 1 here we come!
One day I will have my own band and I will write a song that's as politically incorrect as any of these. However, the content of which will have to wait until I've got a band together. Needless to say, it will offend you and that is intentional, because you (personally) deserve it.
To the anonymous softlinker - please at least have the gallantry to address any criticisms to my face. Sniping like that is so not metal it's plastic.