Please. That's a great song, and even Skinny Puppy (a relatively tame, "dance-industrial" band) has a lot noiser, less structured music that would be more "disturbing" to some. These prisoners were lucky if they got to listen to Puppy's Assimilate.
There's far, far, far more extreme music than that, such as the whole "noise" genre, which includes bands like Massona,[1] Merzbow,[2] and Borbetomagus.[3] And, yes, fans pay good money to buy their albums and go hear them live. I've gone for days listening to all of these virtually non-stop.
I'm not really in to them anymore, but I'd still much rather hear some noise music than put in a stress position, be tasered, be stuck in an extremely cold or extremely hot room, be waterboarded, raped, deprived of sleep or medical attention for weeks on end, be subject to mock executions, have my family threatened, be kicked to death (or kicked in general.. no thanks!).
Yes, music and various other means of sensory overload or sensory deprivation can induce altered states of consciousness, and when combined with a menacing environment where you're surrounded by people who mean you harm (and often do you harm), they can be unsettling. But music would be one of the last things I'd be worried about in a torture prison.
At least they didn't force the prisoners to listen to Johnny Cash.[4]
It's not about music being extreme. Actually, you can see that other bands in the list aren't something that is generally considered being extreme. I'd argue that listening to Merzbow as a torture method is far easier than Queen exactly because of lack of structure — I generally listen to Merzbow and such when I'm extremely tired and it just helps to relax and stop thinking.
Anyway, I wouldn't be so sure that loud music for 12 hours is actually more humanistic (hah, humanistic torture — I've got to remember that!) than arbitrary item from your list. After all, Chinese water torture [1] also sounds surprisingly harmless, right?
There's far, far, far more extreme music than that, such as the whole "noise" genre, which includes bands like Massona,[1] Merzbow,[2] and Borbetomagus.[3] And, yes, fans pay good money to buy their albums and go hear them live. I've gone for days listening to all of these virtually non-stop.
I'm not really in to them anymore, but I'd still much rather hear some noise music than put in a stress position, be tasered, be stuck in an extremely cold or extremely hot room, be waterboarded, raped, deprived of sleep or medical attention for weeks on end, be subject to mock executions, have my family threatened, be kicked to death (or kicked in general.. no thanks!).
Yes, music and various other means of sensory overload or sensory deprivation can induce altered states of consciousness, and when combined with a menacing environment where you're surrounded by people who mean you harm (and often do you harm), they can be unsettling. But music would be one of the last things I'd be worried about in a torture prison.
At least they didn't force the prisoners to listen to Johnny Cash.[4]
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9JjDP3rK5I
[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AguPH0XBxdw
[3] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GulFn6cqFvc
[4] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It7107ELQvY