Showmanship and Metal:Creating an Understanding and a Community

Metal has come a long way in my eyes as I understood that it was about showmanship and pagentry, though I never fully internalized this fact on an emotional level. I would watch and listen to Heavy Metal videos and music and not have much of a reaction to it. As I had always thought of it as a superficial genre of music where style and substance are more important than content. I know I have raised similar issues in my previous post but I feel I am beginning to have a better grasp or understanding of metal and why inviduals enjoy it.
I believe one reason is the sound it is fast aggressive and loud as it is "characterized by high-intensity auditory sensation: pounding rhythms, high distortion in the tone of the electric guitars, and "singing" that more resembles an angry scream." (Arnett) To those of the of a more classical bent this may sound like a bad thing. I say notice that it still grabs your attention and holds it. Secondly metal has a distinct look and feel which is similar to punk is different and more recognizable to its fans. This look usually consists of long hair, dark clothing. Said cloting can often include gothic imagery be skulls, dragons, dragons, or even swords. I have mentioned the imagery that is incorporated into Heavy Metal before, though I have recently read that this imagery and style goes towards creating a community or as one academic put it a "homology" (Arnett) which is an code for the imagery and or style that should be used with dress. This in my opinion is another one of Heavy Metal's appeals basically it has a distinct community that is renforced through dress. Whereas Punk which is similar in its imagery and dress is very broad and diverse, Heavy Metal seems to have a single code or style. I would imagine that Punk fans would have a hard time pick one another out of crowds, Heavy Metal fans or afficiandos would not have the same difficulty when it came to identifying each other.

I have come to realize that Heavy Metal is not as superfical as I once thought it to be. I attribute this to the Punk bands that I listened to namely The Clash, X-Ray Spex, and The Stranglers. All of the aforementioned bands had very good song writing that tackled a diverse and serious range of issues. I remember distinctly The Clash song entitled  All Lost in the Supermarket. Which is a song that voices the author's concerns with consumerism and the ditachement that it causes in his life. Another Clash song which I consider "good writing" is entitled The Card Cheat, and on the surface it is about a man who cheats and cards and is later shot for his offense. Where the songs "wows" or becomes "serious" is when it mentions mortality "and all of the men who have stood with no fear in the service of the king". Essentially the song is questioning both life and at the same time the endevors of men, and at the same time again serving as an anti war song. Another punk song that comes to mind as a good example of what I thought was at the time to be supeior music is an X-Ray Spex song that comes to mind as an example of solid or good song writing is Genetic Engneering. The song is essentially Poly Styrene voicing her concerns of the then recent technology of genetic manipulation known as Genetic Engineering. What makes this song significant is that is was written and performed in the early 1980's. Lastly I would like to point to  a song by The Stranglers in which a man's home is invaded and his family is killed. Where the song stands out is in the lyric "when they spoke they spoke with nouns". The song was a basically a set up for that joke. I had always considered Heavy Metal to have none of these qualities as to me it seemed to be crass and basic. However this is not true as metal is just different in its approach of reaching or effecting its audience. As Black Sabbath's The Mob Rules, is a cautionary tale about poor governance and how it can destroy a community. As the lyric goes "when you listen to fools the mob rules." This example is hardly primative, crass or superficial. In fact the song is urging listeners to use their intelliegence. Baiscally I have come to understand that Heavy Metal is more like story telling as its lyrics and imagery are descriptive and not explanatory. Metal is about performance and experience, as I remember listening to The Mob Rules and feeling nothing but the experience and sensation it generated. I also remember how the music effected me as it created a kind of joym, while  Punk is more of a conversation. As I remember listening to punk and thinking about the concepts being explained in the songs.

Works Cited

Arnett, Jeffrey. "Three Profiles of Heavy Metal Fans: A Taste for Sensation and a Subculture of Alienation."

DU Blackboard. Qualitative Sociology, 1993. Web. 28 Jan 2011.

Heavy Metal Deserves Attention Too

Heavy Metal is an odd beast in my mind as it as a genre seems completely silly. As it did not seem to be a very intellectually complex genre of music. Furthermore I never really understood the Gothic imagery either. I viewed the genre known as Punk to be far more important and sophisticated than Heavy Metal. Though according to Steve Waksman in This Ain't No Summer of Love, Metal and Punk “arguably represent the most significant developments in rock music after 1970.” (P.6) Basically both genres are important in how they contribute to music as a whole but elements I had thought of as distinctly belonging to Heavy Metal namely theatrics, also belong to punk as well. I had always disproved of the theatrics which were associated with Heavy Metal. I considered said theatrics to be immature and removed from reality. However as mentioned before theatrics exist in my favorite genre punk as some of the same shocking costumes that Man o war wear exist in punk music this can be seen in what punk songstress Siouxsie Sioux would wear early in her music career as she would occasionally wear Nazi paraphernalia to events.

What all this leads me to believe is that people not only enjoy spectacles they enjoy limited risk or controlled chaos. Hence the need for shocking content be it clothing, violent imagery, Gothic imagery, and or sexual imagery. I came to this conclusion that people like controlled risk while playing a video game that takes place in a combat zone. These warfare games are some of the best selling genres in the games world, who has hasn't heard of Halo or the Call of Duty series?

It occurred to me that the same element of controlled risk isn't just found in music or video games it can be found in almost any type of entertaining medium from written works to film. What all this causes me to ask is why do we as human beings have a need for danger or dangerous themes in our lives? I know that people do enjoy a break in the monotony and conformity that everyday life can place on them. However it leads me to wonder “is life really that boring?” I understand that Heavy Metal is a type of theater I get that. I know that it is a type of fantasy show, though what this makes me wonder is why do we gravitate towards violence and death? I have heard from soldiers having served in Afghanistan and Iraq that they considered themselves lucky that they have never had to deal with any extreme violence. What does this fascination with violence say about people? Are we morbidly curious is this normal or is there a scientific reason for our curiosity in regards to violence?

In conclusion I now view Heavy Metal as an important musical genre that has pushed given rise to new and interesting developments within the musical world, and that music doesn't necessarily need to highly intellectual or focused on real world concerns to be worth listening to. I would also like to apologize for asking too many rhetorical questions as well.