Week Ten: The Pros & Cons of Metal Re-Enchantment

The definition Kahn-Harris provides for reflexivity (p. 141) is something we see beyond the metal scene and a characteristic of various institutions, even in straight society. That definition states: “The reflexivity of modern social life consists in the fact that social practices are constantly examined and reformed in the light of incoming information about those very practices, thus constitutively altering their character ... We are abroad in a world which is thoroughly constituted through reflexively applied knowledge, but where at the same time we can never be sure that any given element of that knowledge will not be revised” (1990: 28-9). We see this type of behavior in everything from politics to metal, and I think as music, as one example, begins to change that knowledge, various subgenres begin to develop and spread based on those sets of knowledge. You could also say this happens in religion. Therefore, the actions that come result from reflexivity may not necessarily change the knowledge that has been created, but mutate it and create a new form of offspring like a cell dividing into smaller, similar pieces of itself.

With these extreme forms of metal in particular, there must be some forms of anti-reflexivity in order to create a sense of humor and maintaining an existence from the straight society. If metal musicians and fans took themselves too seriously all the time, they would be nothing more than a blacked out, loud, angry version of straight society. By making fun of themselves through music that create parodies of various genres and television shows like Metalocalypse, metal musicians and fans can maintain a sense of value in what they’re doing by making fun of how ridiculous they can sometimes be, just as they are making fun of how ridiculous straight society can sometimes be. Even though it may just be in the nature of metal and going against the grain to do something against what normal behavior tends to follow (reflexivity in this case), anti-reflexivity plays a pivotal role in the lives of metal musicians and fans in order to see how over the top the genre and people are, and laugh at themselves for a little while.

Week Nine: Politics & Identity

Sam Sunn’s documentary on global metal was both entertaining and educational regarding the different themes and beliefs of musicians from different countries and cultures. I think one of the moth commonly disregarded things about metal is the fact that it spreads worldwide and is present in culture far different from our own. While many of the people in Dunn’s film explained metal as a Western form of music, we can see that it has permeated other countries efficiently and has become the identity of countries including Brazil and Norway.

In the case of Norwegian black metal, Dunn emphasized the anti-Christian backgrounds that composes much of extreme metal, according to Kahn-Harris. As we discussed in class, I think the church as a whole is an easy target for various forms of extreme metal to oppose because it has historically been a very demanding and oppressing institution that tells its people what to believe, and in a culture that valorizes individualism, religion becomes virtually invisible. Other scenes, including Swedish extreme metal and black metal in particular shares with other Scandinavian forms of extreme metal a tendency to draw on notions of Viking heritage (p. 106). This restoration to past generations, particularly that of the vikings, is an interesting route when it comes to producing metal music. While these bands emphasize their commitment to their Viking heritage, it’s somewhat unprecedented to our Western eyes to see metal embrace something about oneself rather than abolish everything that has been created before. Another way of looking at this is that these artists are going back to basics and embracing the things their ancestors believed to be important, including becoming the best person you could be individually. This is something that we see, however, throughout foreign cultures and their own metal music. In order to create their own form of metal that deviated from the model of Western music and what we’re used to hearing in the United States, these globally spread music artists incorporate their own personal experiences, histories, and traditions in order to create their own personal musical experience when it comes to metal.

Week Eight: The Heavy Metal Habitus

Kahn-Harris explains Deena Weinstein’s perspective on women in metal by stating, “Deena Weinstein argues that the absence of women within the scene is fundamental to metal, since the music’s aesthetic is founded on notions of ‘power’ and ‘power . . . is culturally coded as a masculine trait’” (p. 73). While this is a good way of examining the power structure of metal, I think it’s possible, too, that women were simply not considered into the metal equation when metal first developed. One of the quotes from the film watched on Wednesday stated, “That’s a way of thinking about gender -- by not thinking about gender.” This quote really stuck with me because I believe this could really be what happened regarding the presence of women in metal as musicians in particular. Since men have historically had more mobility and abilities to create change, metal is a form of creativity that generated among solely men unintentionally. Perhaps women weren’t intentionally excluded from the metal scene, but instead were not considered because there was no voice of the women. Now, as women have emerged in various forms of metal, a feminine presence is clear, at least in the realm of vocalists of metal bands.

I also think that often time women in bands (of any genre) tend to get the limelight because they stick out like a sore thumb. I think this is in a way a problem when it comes to women being accepted in subcultures, such as metal. In the photos we went through you can see how women deliberately stand out from the rest of the band, which ends up looking like a backing back. Women have long hair, are often wearing a bright color (usually red) and are always in the front of teh band. If, instead, women were equal to any other member of the band and did not stand out so prevalently, women would be considered equal and more equally a part of the band rather than the frontman and spokesperson for the band, which is what usually happens.

I’ve added a few videos of women in metal from my experience.

The first video is of Eyes Set To Kill, a band fronted by a woman and that has another woman in the band. What I find interesting about this band is that they combine both the feminine high vocal range with the deep guttural vocals of the male. Even more, the female vocal that drift over the guitar riffs compose the verses while the male vocals compose the choruses. Also, finally it’s a woman with short hair.

The next video is of Walls of Jericho, which has a female front-person, who imitates the male guttural singing style.

Another example of this style of singing is Otep.

Week Seven: Feasting on Metal

Kahn-Harris mentions what I would refer to as the function of extreme metal as being a safety valve for the audience. He states about Johan, “In claiming that this cathartic process reduced aggression, he refutes those psychologists who argue that violent media ‘prime’ real-life aggression (e.g. Anderson et. al. 2003) and bolsters those who see metal as a way of coping with aggression (e.g. Nahum 2004)” (p. 53). As a journalist, and as any media studies student would know, one of the commonly referred to functions of the media in general is the safety valve function. This allows people to take out aggression or emotions that are not commonly accepted in our society, and essentially keep them from committing crimes. One of the most popularly discussed topics regarding the safety valve function is the existence of violent video games, such as Grand Theft Auto. I find it really interesting that extreme metal is regarded in this same fashion, which makes sense in that metal strays from the hegemony of popular culture and serves to shock those audiences while fulfilling a void for its own audience. This alternative form of music, extreme metal, allows these aggressions and forms of violence to be translated through music. One of the previous arguments we heard in a video explained how extreme metal introduces violence as a means to make its audience feel something under the ideology that we are sheltered from such realities. Extreme metal is then, in a sense, a way of getting back to basics and the presence of death, violence, and killing in our lives.

I think there’s something to be said about the safety valve function of extreme metal as being true and valid, at least for some audience members. I say this because when I am angry I’m not going to listen to calm, peaceful music unless that is the goal to be reached. Instead I would listen to some heavy, such as metal, to fuel or at least equal my emotions. Therefore, I believe people in general seek music that matches their own emotions, even if those emotions are ever-changing. When someone is happy, they listen to up-beat poppy music, and when they’re sad they listen to depressing slow music. Given that extreme metal caters to a certain audience demographic (young men, let’s say) it makes sense that music about violence that sounds violent itself would serve as a safety valve and a release from reality and everyday frustrations. Kahn-Harris goes on to point out, “The experience of the scene does not take place in an isolated, socially abstracted environment but in the ‘everyday life’ of members (Douglas 1971)” (p. 55). This also follows this concept in that scene members use music to react to things happening in their every day lives and their every day lives are a reflection of their music tastes and ideologies.

Kahn-Harris goes on to say, “Since the scene is male-dominated, heterosexual scene members are forced to look outside the scene for a partner, which can be a difficult process” (p. 58). I find this really interesting because it’s something I had not considered. While I know that the scene is generally male-dominated, I’ve found that females make their presence known within the scene, accepted or not. We’ve mentioned how women aren’t exactly welcomed or needed in the scene model, but I’ve noticed a general increase in the female population of the metal scene in recent years. In my own experiences, there used to be very few girls in the scene and the women who existed were generally very masculine in their demeanor. Now, however, more women are accepted and expected to be part of the scene, most likely as a result of this need for heterosexual men within the scene desiring partners.

Week Six: Fragmentation & Intensification of Heavy Metal

There is one particular statement made by Kahn Harris that I would like to address in that I do not agree with his perspective on extreme metal. Kahn Harris states, “More than any other kind of metal, extreme metal is exceptionally diverse. There has been a continual process of musical experimentation that has expanded the possibilities of metal. Extreme metal culture is equally diverse, with musicians and fans located across the world” (p. 6). As shown in the video on Wednesday, the majority of black metal originates from and is produced in Norway, where black metal rules and is one of the largest exports in the country. Being a relatively small, tight knit country, I think it odd that black metal in this sense could be very diverse. While there will always be a desire to deviate from what is already being produced in the scene, there seems to be very little room to differentiate in order to maintain the sound of black metal. As we began discussing in class, there are every so slight differences between death metal and black metal, which, to be honest, sound very similar to me. Therefore, I can’t see how very much differentiation within black metal and the Norwegian scene could be possible. That said, Norway is home of black metal and this form of extreme metal is not found in such concentrations anywhere else in the world. So, while we consume black metal here in the United States, it’s all coming from the same place, the same people, and the same sound ends up being recycled time and time again (just like it does everywhere else).

As Kahn Harris explains the fear of metal in Chapter 2, I think this is one of the most intriguing social factors extreme metal brings to the musical table. “A classic ‘moral panic’ developed around heavy metal, stimulated by powerful political groups that saw it as a dangerous influence on the nation’s youth” (p. 27). Even before it was brought up in a video on Wednesday, as the fear of metal began to surface through the narration, I immediately thought of the Columbine killings and how Marilyn Manson was blamed for the murders that those boys undertook. I remember the media played Manson up to be too influential and discussed how his violent music needed to be censored from young people. The truth of the matter is it worked. Adults were scared into thinking that Manson was more or less subliminal messaging kids into killing people -- my own mom was one of those people. It took years for her to get that connotation out of her head about Manson, whom she now enjoys listening to on occasion. I think the media, and people in general, find scapegoats for tragedies they cannot explain by any other means, and when music, metal in particular, is such a pervasive factor in the lives of (sometimes troubled) young people, it’s the easiest, most misunderstood, medium to blame. Everything about extreme metal artists, such as Manson, produce fear and confusion in the minds of hegemonic society. Does extreme metal address death and violence more overtly than any other genre of music? Of course. But does it directly cause violence in young people? I’m not sure it can cause violence any more than the war and dead bodies portrayed on the news hour after hour, desensitizing America’s youth is.

Week Five: Heavy Metal Aesthetics and Sensibilities

Metal has inherently developed a sense of community between metal-heads and fans of the music to create a culture within the music. As this music began shifting away from the core of metal, towards sub genres of metal, the community began to dissipate, which is something I’ve seen first hand on a smaller scale. Waksman addresses this occurrence by stating, “Indeed, James Hetfield claimed that the band’s preference for fast tempos arose in part from their desire to confront the tastes of local metal audiences around L.A.: “Eventually we started playing everything faster, because...the crowd wasn’t paying any attention to us and that pissed us off. In L.A., people were just there to drink and see who’s there and shit. We decided to try to wake everybody up by playing faster and louder than anybody else” (p. 276). Hetfield’s recollection of this increase in order or the community led to the development of harder, faster, more up-tempo metal that generated a number of sub-genres, such as thrash.

This relates to the sense of order and disorder required for metal to function properly. Metal innately requires a sense of disorder to fuel the chaos, relating to the concept of creation through destruction. This sense of chaos was the core of metal music, and once the community became too ordered and too constructed it began falling apart and pissing the artists off when the audience had no interest in the music itself but rather the community and who was at the show.

On more than one occasion I’ve heard by boyfriend say, “Grunge killed metal in the 80s.” I generally blow it off, but Waksman makes a similar connection between the two generations and the music that represented them. Waksman states, “Moreover, grunge was the one genuinely mass-oriented musical phenomenon, in U.S. popular music at least, predicated on the interplay between heavy metal and punk” (p. 301). In other words, grunge takes aspects of both punk and metal and the ideologies that follow these musical genres and their respective communities and incorporates them into the music of a mass culture that ultimately turns into popular culture, i.e. Nirvana and Kurt Cobain. Grunge inevitably became glorified for its musical contribution, which responded to both punk and metal and the concept of identity for young people.

Waksman goes onto say, “Both metal and punk emerged in the early 1970s as ideas, if not genres, out of the perception that rock was in danger of losing the capacity to represent its core teenage audience. The idea that rock’s core audience was, or should be, teenagers was itself an ideological construction designed to promote the notion that rock should be visceral rather than reflective, Dionysian rather than Apollonian” (p. 301). This certainly relates to my article through the importance of youth in the metal scene, but also relates to the larger picture of heavy metal in that the Dionysian model relates directly to metal and the chaos that comes along with it that can ultimately only come out of the presence of young people and the need for rebellion. Unlike Apollonian music, such as progressive rock, the reflection and intellectuality isn’t key to the development or listening of the music. The behavior and ideologies are vital to the function of metal and when those behaviors and ideologies sway away from rebellion, naivety, individuality, and disorder, metal has historically created a new shock value and a new way to keep the attention of listeners. In some of those instances, such as grunge, the music has gained the attention of popular culture, at least temporarily.

Week Four: Forging the Heavy Metal Sound & Style

The new wave of British heavy metal brought a whole new realm of music that inevitably invaded the United States. Where the music came from and the culture that surrounded it is particularly interesting to me, however. The film we watched in class discussed the community of the British heavy metal was very small, connected an intimate in the sense that bands would pool together enough money to create an EP and press a small number of albums to be handed out, making their music personal and required to be shared in order for more people to hear them outside of live shows. This is really interesting to me because it’s very different from how music, and even metal, today has developed. Today albums are mass produced and can be bought nearly anywhere. During the new wave of British metal, these albums were part of the community of young people who shared the EPs, within the pubs and the larger community of fans that followed these groups.

Waksman states, “Live music, or alternatively, the gathering of fans to listen to a genre-specific records as occurred at Neal Kay’s soundhouse, was crucial to the growing momentum of heavy metal” (p. 179). I believe the physical space for metal fans to come together was crucial to the movement and progression of metal due to the fact that metal developed into a community of people who cam together to escape their mundane lives, thus coming back to the concept of re-enchantment. Therefore, this tight-knit community, sharing of exclusively released albums, and physical spaces for the metal community served as the stepping stones to the greater re-enchantment of metal on a large scale as we later see Iron Maiden becoming popular in the United States and greater Britain.

Waksman goes on to explain that, “In what was becoming a pattern, the band drew considerable attention on the basis of a self-released cassette of demo recordings that circulated under the name “Soundhouse Tapes,” in tribute to Neal Kay’s role in popularizing the group by playing their unreleased songs at the Bandwagon” (p. 180), which I touched on earlier. This sense of DIY mentality in the metal scene is also something we see as a cross-over from punk. I found it really interesting in the video how Kay had such an influential role in the metal community, particularly through his construction of the top metal hits lists. As the DJ, Kay had a unique perspective on the metal scene, allowing him to see both the bands and their construction of music and the changes throughout the music, as well as the responses of the audience to various changes. Within the community, Kay became somewhat of a role model as well as an opinion leader through his list constructions.

Week Three: Embryonic Heavy Metal

Since the focus of this week reading surrounded the presence of youth in the metal movement through artists such as The Runaways and The Dictators, I found one quote interesting in Waksman’s argument regarding the presence of youth in the music industry. “It is the moment, in others works, when commerce triumphs over creativity, as the record industry figured out how to appropriate the youthful appeal of the music while excluding those elements that made it a threat to the social order” (p. 111).

First, this argument is intriguing to me in that Waksman states there is no creativity present in the youthful production of metal and punk, which is staunchly incorrect in my opinion due to the fact that The Runaways, for instance, were a group of young girls who all played their instruments and wrote their own lyrics. I believe Waksman himself acknowledges that the lyricist of The Runaways was just 13-years-old when they wrote their first hit song. It’s also a contradicting statement in that both of these artists are seen are trend-setters and revolutionary for the time period. While the producer of The Runaways was searching for an all-female rock group to be overly sexualized, I think it says something about the culture within which these girls lived due to the fact that these girls previously had interests in being rockstars and playing instruments before being introduced to The Runaways and the commercial music industry.

I also believe this was one of the remarkable turns of the music industry from the creative, “for the music” lifestyles, as Waksman explains, to the commercial, all-for profit, less talented rock, pop and rap industry that we see today. This strategy and method have crossed over genres from rock and have reached pop and rap artists whose main role is to entertain audiences and make money. Instead of creating intellectual, thoughtful pieces of work, music is about merchandising, ticket/record sales and who can be the biggest star. I’m not saying that sexualizing young girls and creating a platform for the commercialization of youth through metal was the only turning point in the music industry, however. Clearly arena rock and theatricality play a huge role, as well as the emergence of a focus on recording rather than performances (i.e. The Beatles’ Sgt. Peppers) and the sexualization of young girls to draw in audiences who might not otherwise be interested in a bunch of teenage girls singing about the melodramas.

Week Two: Mourning the 60s and Reviving the Corpses of Rock

The rock n’ roll of the 1960s veered away from the capitalist approach to society, where musicians were playing music to play and to share that experience with their audience. Rather than sticking with straight mainstream society, musicians in the 60s wanted to go back to nature and away from the industrial and capitalist frameworks that had ben constructed in society. However, this ideology shifted back when arena rock came along. I noticed this primarily in the following excerpt (Waksman, p. 31):

‘Rock and roll had started in the clubs and the streets and the parks. Then it became a game of supple and demand. As the market price went up, the negotiations got heavier. It wasn’t just who had the better amps or piano or stage crew. it got to the point where bands were earning money beyond their wildest dreams. Musicians realized, “God, I have a second car. I can have a home in the country. I can have a sailboat. I can have everything I want.” What else did they need? The time to enjoy all these things. Because the road was always the same, the conclusion they reached was, “I want to make more money in less time.” Result? Stadiums.’

This merely capitalist approach to the musical career shifted the role and status of musicians drastically between the 60s and 70s, ultimately changing their ideology and creating what may be argued as the “inauthentic” rockstar. Other bands, such as Grand Funk Railroad, however, maintained their authentic nature, which has ultimately led them to being less well known than bands such as Led Zeppelin. “Rock festivals rather than clubs or ballrooms were Grand Funk’s proving ground, affording them access to crowds of thousands without having the bear the burden of headliner status” (p. 33).

Along with this shift of bigger and better rock shows came theatricality through artists such as Iggy Pop and Alice Cooper, which I find most interesting. By not only wearing makeup and costumes during his performance, Alice Cooper conducted a mini rock theatre performance during every show, thus tinkering with this sense of authenticity. Cooper “oscillated between entrapment and freedom, self-immolation and empowerment” which “formed the crux of Alice Copper’s persona and proved a significant mechanism through which the singer sought to produce a specific series o effects and experiences for his audience” (p. 79). Cooper took all authenticity and stood it on its head, creating an experiences not only through his music but through his appearances and actions unlike any other artist of the time had done. As we know metal has played with the concepts of death, here I believe Cooper was playing with the concept of watching a person die and that being an experience that many people don’t have nor want to have necessarily. This theatrical manner of showing the audience this (apparently) realistic guillotine scene of his death takes singing and thinking about death to a whole ‘nother level for the audience.

Beyond the concepts and appearances of death, Cooper meddled with sexual concepts, drawing in necrophilia in Love It to Death and songs such as “I’m Eighteen,” which Waksman examines in depth. “He was not corrupting young minds so much as he was expressing the fundamental sensibilities of young Americans” (p. 84). Waksmans’ take on this is particularly interesting since he goes on to say that Cooper acknowledged that sex was still a mystery for many young adults and for that reason he wanted to essentially scare them and tease out their longings for such desires. I’m sure at the time critics of the past generations fully believed Cooper was corrupting young people through his theatrical performances of death and his lyricism of necrophilia, as well as through his ability to shift back and forth, the previously mentioned oscillation, between concepts, making him hard to follow, but none the less an unmistakable act.

Iggy Pop on the other hand represented the dominancy and masculinity of rock music during this time through his performances. Often removing his shirt while wearing tight pants, intentionally harming himself with glass and commanding the attention of the audience, Pop symbolized the ideal masculine rockstar of the 70s.

Week One: Introduction

My main interests as a journalism student include music and performance entertainment. Metal and other types of heavier rock have been my passion for 7 years now, but I don’t know the history of the music. I’d love to have the background knowledge of the culture of metal and the development of the music as a background for comparison to current artists as well as to better understand the motives and techniques of today’s music. As most music fans know, much of music becomes repetitive through generations and genres, so having this background knowledge will help me even in an always changing music scene.

When the theory of disenchantment began being discussed in class, it clicked for that this was what had happened both for me and a large number of friends throughout high school regarding the local music scene in our town. We went to local concerts every weekend to see our friends perform this music that was both rebellious and unifying. We all had similar ideologies about everything going on in our minuscule lives, and we were all searching for something more. Music was our escape from the tedious lives of high school. Simply said, this was my small-scale re-enchantment through music. Therefore, though only a theory, disenchantment and the presence of a dull culture with metal music providing an escape for the lower middle and working classes makes a lot of sense to me.

It also makes sense that metal sprung up as a post-countercultural genre of rock, where progressive rock and metal served as the fork in the road. Since the counter culture of the 60s believed in rebellion in not fitting into the conservative culture developed by the 50s, metal followed this trend ultimately creating a new genre post audiences with similar ideologies. Rather than be part of the thousands of workers in a factory, metal allowed an audience to rebel and become part of a sub-society that accepted them for what they were in an atmosphere that felt more “alive” than the mundane everyday lifestyles of the working class.

This type of atmosphere also allows the audiences and musicians to critically look at power and their role and positions of power and disempowerment. Because of this, metal often discusses power and taking that power, designated for the working class, into their own hands to have control of their lives. By taking part in the subculture of metal, audience members ultimately take control of their lives and the activities they participate in (attending concerts) as well as the music they listen to and are dedicated to.