Be afraid…be VERY afraid. Actually, don’t. Kim Bendix Petersen may look scary, but he’s just a normal musician who likes to paint his face and act weird. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Hell, I know plenty of people who do the very same thing, though they don’t add hilarious screams in their music.
More famously known as King Diamond, Petersen has perfected the art of the concept album, as well as stage theatrics. Having been in/put together such bands as Brainstorm, Black Rose, and Merciful Fate, his eccentric singing style has won over loyal fans from all over the world. I’m not one of these fans, but I do appreciate good music with funny vocals. Plus, I’ve never been one to turn away from a good story. For example, here’s a plot summery I got from Wikipedia about his album The Graveyard.
“In this story, King’s character is an employee for a crooked, perverted and immoral mayor, Mayor McKenzie. One night, King’s character happens to walk in on his boss molesting his daughter, Lucy. King doesn’t keep quiet about this, but the mayor testifies that King is insane and has him locked up in Black Hill Sanitarium. After years of being there, King sees his chance to escape and takes it. Now mentally destroyed, King runs off to the local graveyard to hide from the police. Plotting his revenge against Mayor McKenzie, and killing people who pass through the graveyard at night, King is obsessed with a rumor that if you die in a graveyard and lose your head, your soul does not escape, and it lives forever in your head. With that thought in the back of his mind, he kidnaps Lucy McKenzie, the mayor’s daughter and calls the mayor out to the graveyard for the two of them to play a game. Eventually, Mayor McKenzie does arrive after King sends a letter to him pretending to be Lucy. Before he arrives, King buries a sleeping Lucy in one of seven empty graves, the tombstones of which read “LUCY FOREVER”.
King eventually reveals himself to the Mayor and knocks him out and blindfolds him. When he regains consciousness, King gives him a shovel and tells him to dig up his daughter. There are seven mounds, and he’ll have three guesses or else he’ll kill both of them. The Mayor gets the third guess right, but King knocks him out cold once more and ties him up to a tombstone.
While the Mayor slowly regains consciousness, King digs up Lucy and takes her out of the coffin while he starts to torture the Mayor. To King’s surprise, Lucy ends up pulling down on a cord that sends a sheet of broken glass from a broken chapel window down on King, decapitating him. The legend he was obsessed with turns out to be true, as his living head beckons Lucy not to leave him as she walks away with her Daddy. To his relief, Lucy takes King’s head and puts it in her backpack, promising to say “Not a word to Daddy”. So King can protect her from Daddy forever.”
Today’s selection is Trick or Treat, track 11 from that very album. I chose the video with lyrics because you’ll need them, trust me.
King Diamond: Trick or Treat
Today, I’m taking a page out of frontroe‘s style and giving you all a little extra credit. One can’t just listen to King Diamond, one has to experience his madness first hand. The following videos focus on his Puppet Master album, mainly the story being told by Diamond himself. If you can make it through the entire story, I’ll buy you a Dr. Pepper.
Congratulations! Here’s your well earned prize!
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