Music

The Simpsons apologize for angering metal fans everywhere

by Mark Teo

January 14, 2014

The Simpsons have a long history of musical guests—everyone from Sigur Rós to the White Stripes has appeared on the venerable cartoon. And while their musical inclusions are usually celebrated, they made one significant blunder in a recent episode, when they called Judas Priest death metal.

In the episode, titled “Steal This Episode,” the Rob Halford-led Brits attempt to persuade Homer from the Swedish embassy, where the patriarch is hiding. Of course, they play “Breaking the Law,” rebooted to be “Respectin’ the Law.” Here’s the clip in question.

Of course, The Simpsons get one thing right: Swedes do indeed love death metal, with the Tre Kronor counting At the Gates, In Flames, and Entombed among their ranks. But they got one thing wrong—Judas Priest certainly ain’t death metal.

And metal fans can be notoriously obsessive. Semantics mean a lot to the genre: Don’t confuse grindcore with goregrind with death metal, and since we’re on the topic, let’s not get started about the differences between time-tested American death metal and melodic Swedish death metal. Fans took to Twitter to express their outrage.

Judas Priest were called “death metal’ on @TheSimpsons, which is like calling ‘The Simpsons’ a documentary: http://t.co/1xC2zU7hYa — MetalInsider.net (@metalinsider) January 6, 2014

@robhalford never thought Judas Priest would be called Death Metal #Simpsons — Tristan Baker (@trisbaker96) January 9, 2014

The Simpsons, however, quickly realized their error. And in last week’s episode, they apologized for their blunder in the only way they knew how: They used Bart’s iconic chalkboard scribble to address the foible. Here’s what ran during the show’s intro last week.