Heavy metal is now over forty years old and has developed into a diverse and multi-faceted genre. Wherever it is found and however it is played, metal’s fascination with transgression has often meant it has been embroiled in controversy. Controversies surrounding the alleged connection between heavy metal and, variously, sexual promiscuity, occultism and Satanism, subliminal messages, suicide and violence have made heavy metal a target of moral panics over popular culture. Metal has variously embraced, rejected, played with and tried to ignore this controversy and it remains irrevocably marked by its controversial, transgressive tendencies.
This anthology provides a thorough investigation of how and why metal becomes controversial, how metal ‘scenes’ are formed. It examines the relationship between metal and society, including how fans, musicians and the media create the culture of heavy metal.
Contents
1. Introduction: Heavy Metal as Controversy and Counterculture
Titus Hjelm, Keith Kahn-Harris and Mark LeVine
Part I: Controversies
2. Suicide Solutions? Or how the Emo Class of 2008 were Able to Contest their Media Demonization, whereas the Headbangers, Burnouts or ‘Children of ZoZo’ Generation were not
Andy R. Brown, Bath Spa University
3. ‘How You Gonna See Me Now’: Recontextualizing Metal Artists and Moral Panics
Brad Klypchak, Texas A & M University – Commerce
4. Triumph of the Maggots? Valorization of Metal in the Rock Press
Hélène Laurin
5. Dworkin’s Nightmare: Porn Grind as the Sound of Feminist Fears
Lee Barron, Northumbria University
6. The ’Double Controversy’ of Christian Metal
Marcus Moberg, Åbo Akademi University, Finland
7. Hellfest: The Thing that Should not be? Local Perceptions and Catholic Discourses on Metal Culture in France
Gérôme Guibert, University Paris III, and Jedediah Sklower, independent scholar
Part II: Countercultures
8. Malang, Indonesia and Toledo, USA: A Theory of Metal Scene Formation
Jeremy Wallach, Bowling Green State University, Ohio, and Alexandra Levine
9. Voice of Our Blood: National Socialist Discourses in Black Metal
Benjamin Hedge Olson
10. Extreme Music for Extreme People? Norwegian Black Metal and Transcendent Violence
Michelle Phillipov, University of Tasmania
11. The Extreme Metal ‘Connoisseur’
Nicola Allett, Louchborough University
12. Black Metal Soul Music: Stone Vengeance and the Aesthetics of Race in Heavy Metal
Kevin Fellezs, Columbia University
13. (I) Hate Girls and Emo(tion)s: Negotiating Masculinity in Grindcore Music
Rosemary Overell
14. Heavy Metal and the Deafening Threat of the Apolitical
Niall Scott, University of Central Lancashire