While China was off banning the use of puns, Russia has banned all artwork and translations of albums by death metal band Cannibal Corpse, reports the Guardian. On November 28, a Russian district courts declared that the Buffalo, New York band may “damage the mental health of children,” and made it illegal to distribute the artwork or Russian-translated lyrics nationwide due to “descriptions of violence, the physical and mental abuse of people and animals, murder and suicide.”
Note that the ban doesn’t include the actual music, however. The Guardian hypothesizes why this may be the case:
Cannibal Corpse’s music has been banned before: Germany and Australia both had injunctions on their music, at least until 2006. Back in 1995, Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole claimed the New York state band “undermined the character of the [American] nation”. But despite songs with titles such as Stripped, Raped, and Strangled, any ban on Cannibal Corpse’s recordings seems a little futile: as with most death metal bands, their lyrics are often indecipherable.
(If you tune into the clip above, you’ll understand what the Guardian is talking about.)
Still, it seems like any ban is sure to make Cannibal Corpse more popular, not less. As Dazed points out:
There is more or less nothing better for a death metal band’s rep than to be banned by an entire country on the grounds that the mere existence of the group and its material can cause permanent damage to the mental health of children.
(Photo: Metal Chris)
