wtf is wrong with you people and your stupid moralizing?

FYI, since you seem to care so much about these beloved euro-/anglocentrist traditions, are you aware that we've had a tradition of non-consensual use of dead bodies for all kinds of reason for basically centuries if not millennia, beyond all official christian hypocrisy.

also, consensual agreement by dead people? illogical much?

seriously, how unlikely is a scenario in which someone *contractually* agrees to have a picture of them used artistically after their death? is that a way you guys would accept this morally?

wouldn't it be even more "despicable" if people then waited for somebody to die in order to be able to use the pic? these are serious and not rhetorical questions.

dawn of the black hearts is a total bootleg and not band-sanctioned at all. the picture was taken by euronymous and not by the police, and spread around by him to contacts everywhere, one of which decided to put it on the bootleg LP he released. in fact e.g. necrobutcher, as well as dead's relatives, are still pissed at the record and the cover. just to set the facts straight.

Yes, this was the exact same thing that happened with me (and I'm generally super into bands using samples). I just couldn't continue listening.

An obituary is A) rooted in tradition, hence understood and implicitly agreed upon by the dead person B) written and/or paid for by family or people close to the dead person, sometimes on the basis of the wishes of said person. Comparing this to pasting a photo of a dead body on your death metal demo is laughably wrong.

People love to try to dismiss literally any comparison between any two things as "strawman" this or "whataboutism" that, or whatever logical term is the flavor du jour, because they can't think of any legitimate grounds to dismiss it. It's not "whataboutism" at all, but repeatedly saying "Are you seriously daring to say that this ISN'T true" without explaining why your position is any more correct is actually its own logical fallacy. Now give me an actual argument instead of getting outraged over and over: where is the significant difference in privacy for a dead person between an obituary and a mortuary photograph? Which one tells you more personal information about somebody?

P.S. "62.5 percent of consumers felt it was very important to communicate their funeral plans and wishes to family members prior to their own death, yet only 21.4 percent had done so." So 78.6% of funerals in the United States are immoral by your standards, because the dead person can't consent to how much of their privacy is being forfeited.

The reactions in this thread are the most entertaining thing I've read on this forum in a while. Thanks everyone.

Quite an interesting topic this one.

Personally I'm not a fan of "people" in art covers, live or otherwise. It's one of the reasons why I think Cradle's album covers are all horrible.

I think that there's plenty of people who have some sort of interest or even fascination with the subject of death and all it entails, and some people who'd rather avoid thinking about it all together. As someone already wrote, we all have different moral compasses, and they're bound to clash when it comes to sensitive topics like this. Some people are vegetarian because they are against the idea of killing another living being for their own sustain; other people are mass murderers.

I also believe that, as with most things, us humans are naturally much more desensitised to things that happen to others, somewhere far away, long time ago.
Picture this: Due to a wicked twist of fate, your mother or your wife died in a gruesome way, say in a car crash. And somehow, for whatever reason, someone managed to snap a photo of her. Now imagine said photo ended up being used by some band (I don't really think what kind of music said band plays really matters that much) and you came across it. Image the photo being gruesome and yet detailed enough so that you (and your family) can positively identify her beyond any shadow of doubt (similar to the Dawn of the Black Hears situation). Now I'd like to ask all the tough guys out there who don't seem to be able/willing to understand that people might think different (on such a sensitive topic, no less) how would YOU feel? What would YOU do?

Also, people comparing open casket funerals, war footage, historical photos from mass graves, to a bunch of dudes who can't come up with a more creative and artistic way to adorn their albums are the same sort of people who add pineapple to pizzas and I want nothing to do with those people.

You complain about your posts being labelled as "whataboutism", yet all your posts are literally "what about..."

"What about realistic horror movies?" Not real people, what is wrong with you?
"What about any horror movie that takes influence from an actual serial killer trivializing or commodifying death?" Yes, of course.
"What about a drawing of a real dead person acceptable?" Same as with a photo.
"What about The Passion of the Christ?" Are you really asking me "what about this religious tale that supposedly happened more than 2000 years ago that probably isn't even true"?

Honestly, none of this should be difficult for someone with empathy and basic social skills.

"Do you think the depiction of a dead body "devalues" a person or ashames them somehow? Why?" Context is everything here. Not all depictions of a dead body devalues a person. If you donated your corpse to science and photos of it were taken in that context and were used with respect, there's nothing wrong with that. You agreed to this and there's a very strong Deontological Code behind it. Using a photo of someone that was brutally naked and then dismembered without their consent, that's fucked up.

I thought they were samples from like kink / hardcore BDSM videos?

Well, to be honest, what specifically happened was, I was listening to "Exploitative Practices" on Bandcamp; I can't remember what track it was (maybe "Shot"?), but I recognized the audio as being of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Daniel_Shaver. It was at that point that I realized that any or maybe all of the samples used on the album were from real life situations. I didn't really feel like investigating to find out which was were and weren't etc, and so just stopped listening to them. The music is great, I really do like it a lot, but the samples take me out of the listening experience.

You use samples, but they’re not horror samples. What kind of samples are they, and how did you come to use those?


All the samples are taken from deep cuts of amateur documentary film. A lot of our material comes from Mexico, Brazil and some bodycam videography of law enforcers in the states. Walter always made great electronic and synthwave music so I felt it could be something we could use to set us apart from what other people were doing. I find some raw footage or sometimes people will send us something we can use to complement our songs and then Walter scores an original piece of music to it based around the audio.

All of you who are so gleefully posting "corpses can't consent lol" and think that it only matters to surviving family: think about whether you'd seriously be okay with necrophilia. (And if your only objection is the feelings of the surviving family, assume the corpse is an orphan.) Because if you're not okay with necrophilia, then you, too, believe that corpses can consent.

All of you who are so gleefully posting "corpses can't consent lol" and think that it only matters to surviving family: think about whether you'd seriously be okay with necrophilia. (And if your only objection is the feelings of the surviving family, assume the corpse is an orphan.) Because if you're not okay with necrophilia, then you, too, believe that corpses can consent.

Im pretty sure necrophilia involves sex with corpses.

Necrophagia, on the other hand, I am ALL for.

"If you're not okay with the idea of somebody rubbing their genitals on their friend's couch, then you, too, believe that couches can consent."

You can object to necrophilia for reasons that don't involve the lack of a required consent. It's performing a sexual act on an object that has inherent value to other people. It's wrong in the same way that rubbing your genitals on your friend's couch is wrong, although of course much more wrong/disrespectful since a human body has much more value to people than a couch.

I'm not okay with necrophila, but not because I'm worried about the corpse's feelings. I'm worried about the perpetrator of the necrophilia. I doubt that someone who commits necrophilia is well balanced, and you probably wouldn't want them running free in your society. They need to be apprehended, locked up and/or given help. And, while it pales in comparison to the necrophilia itself, other crimes are typically committed in the commission of necrophilia; such as unlawful entry, breaking and entering, destruction of property - all stuff that effects the living. I don't really care about the corpse in this scenario.

Your example involving medical researchers/surgeons doesn't seem to be at conflict with anything that I wrote in my post.

You're shifting the goal posts a little bit. The discussion was about necrophilia, but now you're bringing medical researchers into it. You said to pretend that the corpse was an orphan, but now you're bringing the family into it. No, I don't think that someone should be allowed to waltz into a cemetery, dig up the dirt, crack open the casket, and do as they like with the corpse. But not because I feel bad for the corpse. It's because of the reasons that I stated in my previous post - you're negatively impacting the living by doing all of that. And not just the family, but also whoever has to pay for and repair the damages.

Look, I'm open to the idea that images of real corpses on album covers is distasteful. But I need more context. Who took the picture? Why was the picture taken? How did the picture come into possession of the band? Is the corpse in the picture identifiable? How old is the picture? I'd need these questions and more answered before I could really make a judgement call.

But, to be perfectly honest with you - regardless of the answers to those questions, pictures of real corpses on album covers ranks pretty god damned low on my list of things to be worried about. And that's coming from someone who doesn't like to look at any of that stuff.

"If you're not okay with the idea of somebody rubbing their genitals on their friend's couch, then you, too, believe that couches can consent."

You can object to necrophilia for reasons that don't involve the lack of a required consent. It's performing a sexual act on an object that has inherent value to other people. It's wrong in the same way that rubbing your genitals on your friend's couch is wrong, although of course much more wrong/disrespectful since a human body has much more value to people than a couch.

Just giving a different example. To be clear, I do accept your point RE: necrophilia. You can be opposed to it without bringing in property rights/consent.

It's just there's a surprising number of people who seem to construe this outrage over using dead bodies for album covers as coming from some combination of Christian morality or a misguided sense of disgust.

My point is that there are two additional major factors in the outrage:
1) the property rights of the family (but that's been discussed a bit) and 2) the ownership of one's own body that continues in a limited way after death. This is why corpses of people without family continue to be protected in most countries. This is separate from any sense of disgust or Christian zealotry behind these laws.

But you are asking the right questions. Context matters. My point is that if someone consented, before death, to have an image of their corpse used for an album cover, I don't think as many people would have a problem with it. Yes, many might be disgusted and appalled. But it wouldn't feel as morally wrong as finding a random gore photo in the depths of the Internet.

I'm sympathetic to the property rights of the family. But we're also talking about a photograph, and not the body itself. Seems like an important distinction. And I know absolutely nothing about the vast majority of the photographs in question. Don't know the origin of the photos. Don't know who did or didn't consent. Don't know how the family factored into it, if at all. I don't know if consent from anyone is even required in any given instance. Maybe it's a case by case thing, where it can't all be painted with the same brush. I don't know. Like, where did Carcass acquire all of those photos for their "meat" collages? Medical textbooks? If so, does that change anything? And is it okay for a band to use such photos in a commercial endeavor? Nobody seems to be getting in legal trouble, so I guess it is. Then it becomes a matter of personal belief.

Again, I'm open to the idea that it can be distasteful, but I felt like the way that some people were standing up for "corpse rights" was beginning to enter into the realm of the absurd, as though we're oppressing the corpses.

I've seen some "artwork" so horrific that the images are permanently burned into my memory. It's not edgy or funny, it's potentially trauma-inducing, especially for folks who suffer from PTSD. I understand that gore and depravity are a massive part of the metal aesthetic, but shit like this is exploitative and unforgivable.

Yeah, it's a photograph and not the body itself, but it's similar to the point I brought up earlier. What if someone uses their ex-partner's naked image as an album cover (without their consent) but covers up the face? What if they never find out about it? Like there's no identifying characteristics or anything for anyone to be sure it's them? It still seems pretty unethical to me. Same with using a picture of someone's dead body.

I mean, you're right. There are a lot of unknowns about context. But I would hazard a guess that, in most cases, the photographs are not obtained ethically. And that goes to your second point--the legal system isn't exactly gung ho about prosecuting this kind of stuff, so I'm sure bands get away with a lot without any repercussions.

And to be clear, I'm not arguing that it has to be illegal or everyone has some moral imperative to stop listening to Carcass and whoever else, it just feels disingenuous to claim there's nothing immoral or unethical about this practice whatsoever. And I'm not saying you were making that claim, but it seems like a number of people were.

How is thinking corpses have rights absurd? Do you think desecrating tombs is ok? Is mutilating a corpse ok too? Either a corpse has no value and you can do whatever you want with one or they have a value and should be respected. Taking a photo of a mutilated body and using it for personal gain is disrespectful towards that person's memory and towards his/her family. Just because the family may never find out or know about it that doesn't mean it's cool to do whatever you want with a corpse. It may not be as disrespectful as necrophilia but it's still not ok.

this is a really interesting thread - good job!



you're talking about two different things as if they are the same. your laptop, and the "world's best dad" coffee mug your kid made you have value. they do not have rights.

anyway, i think this is a very nuanced thing that requires taking into account the identifiability of the corpse, surviving loved ones, time passed since the photo was taken, etc.... dawn of the black hearts is a gross example of terribleness (granted it's a bootleg and all that)

saying most of the music behind those kinds of covers suck anyway is an astonishingly lazy way to approach the issue - like are you people completely incapable of abstract thought?

In what world a deceased person is the same as a mug or a laptop?

irrelevant - you missed the point.

i was pointing out where your logic failed in reply to Flem Clone's post - these things you say have no relevance to each other:
"How is thinking corpses have rights absurd?"
"Either a corpse has no value and you can do whatever you want with one or they have a value and should be respected."
...because having rights has nothing to do with having value; they are completely separate attributes