In the discussion, they mention the two drunk individuals in Las Vegas who were listening to Judas Priest’s “Beyond the Realms of Death” and decided to commit suicide by shotgun in a playground. The first blew his head off. The second, due to the gun being bloody, couldn’t quite kill himself properly and ended up dying after years of reconstructive surgery. Strangely, and completely off topic, the song’s riff sounds the same as “Feel Like Makin’ Love” by Bad Company.

Bad Co., if we’re to go with album release dates, beat Priest by three years in terms of “owning” the creation of the riff, but this is also where the podcast begins to lose credibility. This is not to say that incorporating the square root of two into a conversation about music is uncredible, but moreso implies a certain level of inanity. The song the two morons shot each other for was “Better By You, Better Than Me,” not the aforementioned “Beyond …”

I was hoping for better from the Library of Congress. I mean, isn’t that pretty much the Smithsonian equivalent of a library? Shouldn’t the subject matter and the ensuing conversation be nothing short of amazing? Instead, they falter considerably in laying down facts. If you’re going to bring up a couple suicides linked to so called “evil” music, get the song right. Especially because Judas Priest won the case, proving yet again that music and guns don’t kill people, people kill people.

Speaking of evil, I’m willing to bet the one note that Hans Zimmer came up with for the Joker in The Dark Knight is the demonic tritone. The mini feature showing how Zimmer worked for hours in his multi-million dollar studio to come up with the right sound doesn’t go in to the deeper semantics of the concept (I dare you to read the Wikipedia entry for the concept), but I’m willing to bet it is the Diabolus in Musica. One ascending note, which elicits the feeling of “Yes. The Joker is going to do something. We know this because he is insane. And this music, Christ, hah!, someone’s going to die.” Interestingly, the Bat Cycle’s engine has one ascending note that never peaks. Hmm. Is it, perhaps, the tritone?

Everybody seems to agree the note is unsettling, eliciting a sense of dread and foreboding. However, one site takes a different approach, claiming that the musical notes, if put on a pie chart, look just like the astrological chart, so the tritone ends up in Libra? The site also claims that a slow ascending pitch creates optimism, but if played faster creates suspense. By this rationale, the Joker’s note creates optimistic suspense.

I’d say that’s just about right, despite their argument hinging on studies done to a Siberian hamster that had the nerves between his pineal gland and hypothalamus cut.

The phenomenally annoying thing about this podcast, despite introducing fairly interesting concepts such as the combination of music, the devil, physics and suicide pacts, is that the three learned individuals talking never quite go beyond the “topic” level of the conversation. The square root of two is tied to the C and F notes, and boy, that’s uncomfortable. The Devil helped many composers. Two dudes shot themselves listening to “evil” music. But that’s it. No discussion. No depth. Just points.

It’s obvious then, that the square root of two, particularly when applied to music, is entirely irrational. This begs the question: What would Spock do?