But in the past 13 years, the gruesome and gory has been liberated from that stronghold and embraced by the status quo, a generation raised on nu metal, Hot Topic, and limitless access to shocking imagery. Dating back to the late ’60s, metal and its spawn of heavier subgenres have long been the cradle of horrific stimuli-all on some Satanic mission to corrupt the American teen, as the Christian right often argued. For years it was weaponized by hard rock and experimental artists who sought similar extremes in their music. This stylized imagery, heinous and perversely hilarious, was once foreign to the purview of chart-topping pop stars. Once their specimen is intact, they fuck it. They hire a male escort, behead him, and sew the Weeknd’s head onto his greased-up, muscular corpse. Faced with the irresistible allure of the disembodied noggin, the women shuttle it back to their mansion. You’d be wrong to think that’s the worst thing you can do with a detached head in last year’s video for “ Too Late,” the Weeknd’s cranium is discovered rolling down the road by two post-op plastic surgery addicts. Then he is decapitated, his severed head brandished by his executioner on a nightclub dancefloor. ![]() Throughout the series, the Weeknd’s physical state deteriorates to the point of wicked farce. The singer released a string of music videos between 2019 and early 2021, each one progressively more brutal than the last. Sheeran’s Fisher-Price approach to the trend-which typically relies on bloody gore, disfigured flesh, and general putrescence-arrived almost six months after the Weeknd terminated his After Hours era, perhaps the apex of grotesque imagery within the pop sphere. ![]() Timid as it may be, the video represents pop’s nice guy getting in on the grotesque, one of the most severe aesthetic trends of the past decade. ![]() But “Bad Habits” finds him reaching for something more… something edgy, god forbid. In the past, Sheeran’s visuals have leaned on PG-13-humor, fairytale romance, and the triumph of the everyman.
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