Metal Music Studies - Volume 1, Issue 3, 2015

Studies have shown that learning to play in a band is largely a peer-based – rather than individual – experience, shaped by existing sex-segregated friendship networks. With the rise of the Internet and do-it-yourself recording techniques, new possibilities have emerged for music production and distribution. As male-dominated offline metal scenes are often difficult to enter for aspiring female metal musicians, online participation might serve as a possibility to circumvent these gender dynamics. This article therefore addresses to what extent female and male musicians navigate online metal scenes differently, and how this relates to the gender dynamics in offline metal scenes. By conducting ten in-depth interviews with women and men who produce vocal covers on YouTube, this article focuses on the understudied relationship between online and offline scene participation. Vocal covers are used for entertainment, skill development, online skill recognition and as a virtual springboard with which women in particular can (partially) circumvent gender inequality by allowing them to (initially) participate as individuals and pursue musical careers in metal music.

This article tries to come to terms with Islamophobia as an undercurrent of US culture, heavy metal’s notions of masculinity and authenticity, and the ways in which these two seemingly separate issues intersect in war-themed music videos. By analyzing the official music videos of Metallica’s ‘The Day That Never Comes’ and Lamb of God’s ‘11th Hour’, I will illustrate how the Arab or Muslim ‘other’ is used as a trope to affirm genre-specific notions of masculinity and authenticity. In support of my reading, and to help understand the ways in which music videos are used to communicate with a broader audience, the formal features of the medium will be investigated. Focusing on the structure of my chosen examples and on the way in which meaning-making processes are shaped and perceived by a knowledgeable, pre-informed audience, offers a new perspective to scrutinize the cultural impact of Islamophobic sentiments and shows that they found their way from the mainstream into heavy metal counter-cultures.

As feminist scholars, and heavy metal fans, it has been regularly pointed out that the two positions are inconsistent, ontologically and politically, given the linkages between misogyny and metal in public and scholarly discourse. Weinstein used sociology to inform public discussion of heavy metal; but given our own epistemology, we thought it would be interesting to analyse heavy metal through a postfeminist lens. Postfeminism contains a set of contradictions: on the one hand it contains claims that feminism is no longer necessary, the battles have been won; on the other, it argues the need for feminism is ever more urgent. These tensions can be explored with reference to postfeminist notions of ‘empowerment’ and we argue that there are similar contradictions in heavy metal. To make this argument, empirically we have explored what is happening on stage and in audiences at festivals and at the intersection between bands and audiences. We use postfeminist theorizing to inform our discussion, as a mechanism to unpack the ways in which heavy metal can be both empowering (sexy) and problematic for women (sexist). Understanding the tensions between and the duality of these positions also enables us to understand predominantly masculine cultures. We argue that where heavy metal is situated as marginal it may provide a site of empowerment where women are liberated from mainstream hegemonic patriarchal structures. In this sense, heavy metal provides a site where patriarchy may be destabilized. Paradoxically, we argue, this site of empowerment may also be limited by masculine definitions of the extent to which gender norms may be subverted.

On first inspection, the metal music subgenre of folk metal might be arguably residual white, masculine spaces. The subgenres are not fashionable within the metal music scene. Folk metal bands are ridiculed by fans of black metal for being too mainstream and crowd-pleasing, constructing fantasies of drinking and fighting that have no authentic connection to Vikings, Saxons or other (supposed) nationalist patriarchs. But folk metal bands are not part of the mainstream of modern heavy metal, judged by sales of records and numbers of fans on social media. This article draws on new research on folk metal and its reputation within heavy metal, using a range of Internet sources and semiotic analysis of folk metal bands’ songs and images. The bands at the focus of the case study research are bands that have been deliberately selected because they are well-established in the industry, and generally known to fans of heavy metal: Turisas (Finland), Týr (Faroe Islands), Eluveitie (Switzerland), In Extremo (Germany) and Cruachan (Ireland). In this article, I argue that folk metal is not easily dismissed as a fantasy space for young, white European men left behind by postmodernity, postcolonialism and a rearrangement of the gender order. Rather, folk metal remains central to the ongoing construction of heavy metal as a form of commodified leisure that makes the power of western, instrumental whiteness and hegemonic masculinity invisible, while ironically being in plain sight.

This article presents a discussion on how heavy metal’s foundational philosophy of inclusivity reproduces normative and ‘mainstream’ discourses that are oppressive to participants. Black and queer fans are the focus of this article as they face more overt and covert discrimination than other marginalized groups participating in localized heavy metal scenes. By using a recent example of the ramifications of speaking out about racism, this article will provide a brief overview on how racist and homophobic language by fans and musicians is not only a deterrent to active participation, but also a hindrance to the industry as a whole that places an emphasis on active fan participation for economic viability in an industry in which heavy metal record labels are not financially successful as other genre-specific record labels.

Metal Culture: Papers, Discussions and Exhibitions of the First Metal Music Book Fair of Buenos Aires, Gito Minore et al. (2014) Number 1, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires: Clara Beter Ediciones, 72 pp., ISBN: 9789872829964, p/bk, 90 Argentine Pesos

Melancology: Black Metal Theory and Ecology, Scott Wilson (ed.) (2014) Alresford, UK: Zero Books, 255 pp., ISBN: 9781780991894, p/bk, £12.99