Pop artists turning to Satanic imagery to drum up controversy, sales, experts say

NEW YORK Its an age-old saying in Hollywood that sex sells, but with consumers finding themselves oversaturated with sexual imagery, todays top acts are turning to something even more sinful to get our attention: Satan.

Performer Nicki Minajs Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded is getting a lot of buzz this month, due in large part to her infamous Grammy performance earlier this year, where she acted out scenes from an exorcism onstage. While critics, particularly religious groups, blasted the imagery in that performance as ill-timed and awkward, there is no denying that Minaj garnered the attention she was looking for with her antics.

"Like sex, provocative subject matters and whatever is perceived to be forbidden intrigues the human psyche, explains Kelly Brady, a partner in Brandsway Creative, a marketing and public relations company.Nicki Minaj's performance, although criticized, created an intrigue and it kept her fans wanting to know what's next.

The pop star continues to feed into the buzz machine and has even gone so far as to explain that she believes a demon named Roman lives inside her.

His name is Roman. Basically, the religious figure is there because he was called by Roman's mom to rehabilitate him. Thats pretty much it, she said post-Grammys. I had this vision for Roman. I had this vision for him to be sort of exorcised. People around him tell him hes not good enough cause hes not normal, and hes not blendingin with the average Joe. People around him are afraid because theyve never seen anything like him. Not only is he amazing, sure of himself and confident, but hes never going to be exorcised. Even when they throw the holy water on him, he rises above.

And while her statements may be dark, bizarre and have religious groups up in arms, they have translated to massive sales for Minaj. Her album Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded debuted at Number one last week with an impressive 250,000 album sales.

More importantly, it got everyone talking about her in an environment where celebrity news often lasts for a mere few minutes before eyeballs are moving onto the next story.

But invoking Satanic imagery is nothing new in music, and Minaj is following in some successful footsteps.

Heavy metal bands in the seventies and eighties pioneered the trend of Satanic marketing, most noticeably acts like Black Sabbath, Motley Crue and KISS.

What goes around comes around. The metal bands of the 70s and 80s who presented themselves as satanic sold records, and apparently its time to try the idea again. Theres a reason its called shock value, says Shawn McEvoy, the Managing Editor of the Christian website Crosswalk.com. It sells, though logically it shouldnt, because if Satan is real, then hes our enemy who has nothing but our destruction in mind, and if youre an atheist, why buy that which glorifies the losing side of a theology you dont believe in anyway?

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Pop artists turning to Satanic imagery to drum up controversy, sales, experts say