- Home
- A-Z Publications
- Metal Music Studies
- Previous Issues
- Volume 6, Issue 1, 2020
Metal Music Studies - Volume 6, Issue 1, 2020
Volume 6, Issue 1, 2020
-
-
Considering genre in metal music
More LessAbstractThis article considers how genre is treated in metal fan communities and metal scholarship. In identifying shortcomings in the existing literature with regard to genre definitions, it argues that musical characteristics should be the primary defining characteristics of metal subgenres. To this end, this article posits both a taxonomy for classifying metal genres and a model for analysing their characteristics. This model consists of five characteristics – pitch, timbre, form, rhythm and aesthetics – which, when combined, can elucidate the specific musical and extra-musical elements that comprise metal’s various subgenres. This provides a framework through which metal musicology and other scholarship can develop a common background and work towards concrete definitions of metal subgenres.
-
-
-
Glocalization, bricolage and black metal: Towards a music-centric youth culture simultaneously exemplifying the global and the glocal
By Kevin HoffinAbstractThis article aims to show how youth subculture is mapped onto both ‘global’ and ‘glocal’ terms. The progression of the article is as follows: from a basic overview of youth subculture, black metal and current research, it then begins to slowly unpack; using familiar examples of globalization, in business and of culture. The article introduces how globalization and bricolage have intertwined to create ‘glocalization’, and how this new way to view global communities has pushed our current ideas of youth subculture towards evolution. The article hopes to encourage re-analysis in how we think of youth subculture; away from monolithic tribes towards more subtly nuanced groupings.
-
-
-
Lemmy Kilmister and milk from Finland: On remembering, online spaces and corporate branding
Authors: Toni-Matti Karjalainen and Janne TienariAbstractIn this article, we show how new (social) media dynamics condition the way remembering and mourning play out online. We analyse commenting with regard to the Finnish dairy-product company Valio’s advertisement-turned-tribute to rock idol Lemmy Kilmister, who had passed away some days earlier. Our study shows that ambiguous and fluid power relations in online spaces can sustain facile and simplified corporate messages. We offer an example of how the context of representation shifts in online exchanges and highlight how local repertoires of meaning making are overpowered by universal myths. This offers a new perspective to metal music studies. More generally, our study elucidates contextual shifts as one of the ways in which contemporary capitalism operates as consumers such as metal music fans are engaged in co-production of corporate brand meanings.
-
-
-
From The Wicker Man (1973) to Atlantean Kodex: Extreme music, alternative identities and the invention of paganism
More LessAbstractThe German epic heavy/doom metal band Atlantean Kodex has written two concept albums based on the folklore and paganism of old Europe and the West: The Golden Bough and The White Goddess. The two albums owe their titles to two books that have influenced the rise of modern paganism, though they remain deeply problematical. In this article, I explore possibly the most important influence on Atlantean Kodex, which is also one of the most important influences on modern paganism: the 1973 horror film The Wicker Man. I discuss the ways in which the film uses the speculative folklore of Frazer and Graves to construct a set of invented traditions about paganism and its alternative, counter-Christian nature, which have made paganism appealing to extreme metal musicians and fans. In this discussion, I use examples from other metal bands and fans who have name-checked the themes and the traditions of the film. In discussing the folklore of the Wicker Man, I also explore the folk music used in the soundtrack, which has also contributed to the invention of modern paganism and extreme folk music. I conclude by suggesting that, although many pagans have adopted this extreme music and myth into their world-views, the myth of the Wicker Man is also used as a playful rejection of Christianity and its authority by those of a secular or humanist persuasion.
-
-
-
From Bach to Helloween: ‘Teutonic’ stereotypes in the history of popular music and heavy metal
More LessAbstractThroughout the centuries, German popular music has caused various foreign reactions from admiration to outright rejection. Sometimes, international audiences perceived it as too ‘Teutonic’; other times, this was exactly the reason for its appeal. This article traces ‘Teutonic’ features in 400 years of German popular music history, seeking to identify the emergence and development of ‘Teutonic’ stereotypes as well as their perception inland and abroad. The metal discourse was analysed based on a corpus of nearly 200,000 pages from magazines such as the British Kerrang! and the German Metal Hammer, Rock Hard and Deaf Forever. Stereotypes such as perfectionism, precision and rigidity seem to stem from historical roots, yet their projection onto ‘Teutonic metal’ is over-simplified and often out of context. History suggests that German metal bands were most successful when they exaggerated Germanness. Occasionally, bands became successful because their German features made them sound unique, even though they did not promote their heritage proactively. More often, though, bands that were unintentionally perceived as typically German were less appealing to a foreign audience. In the magazines, discussion of Teutonic attributes almost vanished in the twenty-first century. Global production practices needing to conform to international expectations of ever faster, tighter and heavier records likely made metal artists around the world adopt qualities that previously defined ‘Teutonic music’. It will therefore be interesting to see if or how German stereotypes in metal music will live on.
-
-
-
Slayer and psychoanalysis
More LessAbstractUsing Freud and Lacan, this article proposes a psychoanalytic approach to the thrash metal band Slayer. It particularly focuses on the band’s engagement with violence and perversion. The article starts by analysing Slayer in Freudian terms, as a symptom of the discontent existing in western civilization and it advances further to using Lacan, taking into account concepts like expression, conceptualization, repression and signifying chains, among others, in order to reach the conclusion that Slayer’s revolt against present-day society is not so much a revolt as an unconscious expression of its symbolic order.
-
-
-
Book Reviews
Authors: Dawn Hazle, Jan-Peter Herbst and Pavla SamoylovaAbstractWhen the Uncertainty Principle Goes to 11: Or How to Explain Quantum Physics with Heavy Metal, Philip Moriarty (2018)
Dallas, TX: BenBella Books Ltd., 352 pp.,
ISBN 978-1-94464-852-7, p/bk, $17.95
Gender Inequality in Metal Music Production, Pauwke Berkers and Julian Schaap (2018)
Bingley: Emerald Publishing, 176 pp.,
ISBN 978-1-78714-675-4, p/bk, £40.00
Gender Inequality in Metal Music Production, Pauwke Berkers and Julian Shaap (2018)
Bingley: Emerald Publishing Limited, 149 pp.,
ISBN 978-1-78714-675-4, p/bk, £40.00
-