Music is an emotive and personal experience, which always gets my imagination going. At different times in my life, certain styles and lyrical content appealed to me.

Originally, it was themes of rebellion. And although “Breakin’ The Rules” from AC/DC doesn’t get as much attention as their other songs, it more or less sums up rebellion, instead of the usual “take these fists and break down the walls” approach.

The street jungle and the tough childhoods, examinations done no good

The street jungle had an unwritten law. The oldest kids normally threatened you but protected you, the kids in the middle tried to get you do the wrong things and the schools tried their best to mould you into a factory worker.

No rebellion, not today, I get my kicks in my own way, right OK

Today, cameras are everywhere. A surveillance police state in democratic lands. Hell, you can’t even jump on a train for free anymore, how we did back in the day. There are cameras and gates everywhere. And once upon a time, kids used to ride for free on buses, well, nobody has gotten a free ride for the last thirty years.

Take off your ties and your regulation shoes, You’re nothing but a bunch of regulation fools, yeah

Do you want to follow, or do you want to do things your way?

We all want more access and more power to do what we want with our monies in retirement pension plans and savings accounts. However we are being told by the government, if you do this, you will be charged this tax, and if you do this, you will pay this tax.

All of these rules and regulations that we need to follow today stop us from achieving our potential, and when the Governments see fit, they will change these rules tomorrow because the Government deemed it so or to benefit the ones in control.

I’m gonna do things my own way, every day, every day, everyday, In every way, I ain’t gonna pay no attention to your rules

As great as it sounds, we all try to live within the rules, so no harm comes to others. Instead of going to school to go to college, go to school to expand your mind, travel and study in different parts of the world. How’s that for a different approach?

Every day, I work so hard

Every day, I’m dealt the cards

Every day, I’m told exactly what to do

From “I Believe In Rock ‘N’ Roll” by Twisted Sister. You know how the story goes, work hard, get a good education and everything will work out.

Well it doesn’t work out like that. Because working hard to get ahead is for fools. All you are doing is building other people’s dreams.

And rebellion made people have dreams of becoming a rock star or a pop star. It was portrayed as fun, flying to different places, partying all day and night doing what you love, which is writing and playing music. Of course, some had other dreams like astronaut aspirations and what not.

But these days, the impact of music is lost to society and culture. Kids either want to be social media stars or professional gamers or professional sports athletes or techies or bankers.

It’s because people swarm to what makes money and when people see a 22 month old make $22 million on YouTube just by playing with toys, well, everyone wants to earn easy money like that. 

But the rock and metal genre makes money. The back catalogues of rock and metal artists who made a name for themselves in the era before Napster, still make millions in revenue, even from streaming. Even artists who built a career from the two thousands and onwards, make decent coin in streaming. Of course, all of this is underpinned by the artist having control over their rights, which in most cases they don’t.

When did metal heads and rock heads become such rule players?

In the 70’s, the label heads couldn’t even get the artists into the recording studio. And today, artists play the game within the regulations set upon them by others instead of breaking the rules.