Justin Farrar and I continue our conversation about rock music and the occult by watching the incredibly disturbing Paradise Lost documentary series, which details the case of three young men wrongfully accused of the grisly murders of three children in the town of West Memphis, Arkansas in 1993. With prosecutors (literally) presenting Metallica lyrics as evidence of murderous intent, the case was part of a dark undercurrent in the 1990s, as music and counterculture became targets of intense paranoia, hatred, and violence from all varieties of American reactionaries. We share our memories and insights from this scary, prophetic era in rock history, when America’s endless cycle of Satanic panics aimed its sights at the MTV generation.

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