Pop Life

Five Great Uses Of Music As A Weapon

Ed. Note: Jef With One F does not distinguish fiction from reality from video games. We let it slide because he accepts checks from the "Bank of Mordor"... we just hope it's not rubbing off on us.

Music is a weapon. That's what angry political bands will tell you. They'll bend your ear-piercing for hours on how the right song can fight the good fight better than fundraising, letters to senators or representatives, or, you know, anything that actually sounds like work.

Here's the thing though, in some case music can be an effective weapon. It can intimidate, coerce, and outright destroy if used in the proper manner. Since we're constitutionally guaranteed the right to bear arms, we've decided to help the American people by showing them how they can make music their weapon of choice through a brief tour of how it's been done in the past.

Metallica and Barney Fight the War on Terror

There's been a lot of talk lately on just how torturous the U.S. should get on our captured enemies when we want to be illuminated on their buddies' activities. This debate has been exacerbated by different camps claiming that enhanced interrogation techniques either led directly to Osama Bin Laden's new role as shark bait, or yielded no useful information.

Rocks Off takes no stand on the issue; however, we do know for a fact that waterboarding was not the only thing we used. In 2003 army officials stationed in Baghdad revealed that one of the techniques used was to blast culturally offensive music at prisoners at full volume. What offends a terrorist? Metallica's "Enter Sandman" and the music from the children's television show Barney and Friends.

Surprisingly, Metallica did the most damage, proving that terrorists may really just have a problem recognizing evil when they come in contact with it.

This is My Rifle, This is My Fully Automatic CD Launcher

This one's for shooting, and this one's for shooting too. (Sorry, nothing rhymes with "launcher.") Remember when the New Order Nation led by Mistress Helga kidnapped Aerosmith and only a fully automatic CD launcher saved 'Merica as we know it? No? How about when Pinhead almost wiped out a city using a cenobite armed with a CD launcher? Geez, you guys really need to keep up on current events.

Now that music is moving into a completely digital format, there must be something you can do with all your old discs. Well, if you've got some time on your hands and a whole lot of Legos, then you too can build a music-powered weapon of doom. That's what YouTube user Rybocor did. Granted, he's not exactly blowing up helicopters with it, but let a couple of shady arms manufacturers drops some money on the guy and we bet it will just be a matter of time before a CD-themed supervillain is robbing banks with his disc cannon.

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Jef Rouner (not cis, he/him) is a contributing writer who covers politics, pop culture, social justice, video games, and online behavior. He is often a professional annoyance to the ignorant and hurtful.
Contact: Jef Rouner