Metal Reviews

When we think of the genres origins immediately we conceive of the industrial origins of Black Sabbath. Further analysis of the genre indicates humble origins in the likes of said bands, with roots of most metal bands not deviating too far in terms of social status. Unless you are Dave Mustaine or Metallica, whose efforts in pioneering their sound has lined their wallets with ample resources for future albums. Or deathcore teenagers who use their parents money to buy equipment, the origins of metal as punk indicate a more humble upbringing for most bands. While a point to note is that not all metalheads or bands are obviously of the working/middle class, do you see any real distinction between their origins in the 80's to the bands who have it easier now? By the very origins do you see the music as having easily risen past said demographic orientation, or do you see the music as not necessarily being pidgeonholed to a certain socioeconomic standpoint?

Most Scandinavian metal, particularly Norwegian black metal, came from a very different background than those bands you listed. The kids that got into trouble in "The Inner Circle" largely came from very comfortable backgrounds. I also know that Dan Swano, of Edge of Sanity and a million other bands, never had a 'real' day job, as his parents were wealthy enough for him to make music as his career.

I think it depends on the point of view.

To me, metal isn't so much class based, but based on the social aspect, where people are more like misfits or outcasts in society.

Of course, that could easily fit in with them being of a middle or lower class, but I feel like basing it on class only stratifies people further.

It's more like an "alternative" community full of people who don't fully fit into contemporary society (whatever reason that may be), and it contains people from all over. You're no longer judged by your standing as you might be in the mainstream world. Once everyone enters they're all tied by a single bond.

Though I will admit what I wrote there seems a bit cheesy.

Then perhaps there is a certain feel to it then, as most of the Norwegian bands evoked a very hostile feeling in their early work. Most notably Gorgoroth as in particular I remember Gaahl walking up a mountain, showing his grandparents origins as a mere shack on a Norwegian mountainside. I have never quite forgotten this image, and while my knowledge of Dan Swano is miniscule as it ends with Edge of Sanity I cannot comment on him. Other than to say perhaps their living situation caused an inner discontent, that lead them to all be as creative in their respective subgenres.

I think much of it can be traced to the particular scene to an extent too, yes. The most well-known and popular metal has been largely working class, I agree, but as Whim noted about the union of outcasts transcends class.

Steve where do you come up with these unique topics? Not complaining at all just wondering what goes on in that head of yours.

Just wondering, now that you're a reviewer here are we gonna be seeing a lot of editorials from you?

I have no real intention of posting editorials, as for one I'll have to figure out how to do that, and secondly if I have any particular topic to share it would be in a thread. No real need to do it if you ask me, unless you have something that is an issue for broader discussion.

Short answer: yes.

Inherently? No. Actually? Yes. Don't really have any evidence for that other than metal shows are usually at dive bars rather than concert halls.

Rock started that way, as did metal. Has it stayed that way since? Not at all.

In my opinion it is basically for middle class misfits. Please note that in Australia, tradespeople suck as builders, plumbers etc are middle class.

Most metallers I knew came from that background.

In Australia the truly lower classes usually go for rap or Aussie rock ala Cold Chisel or AC DC.

I don't like arguments that pin metal as simply deviant from mainstream culture. Totally working class music.

Maybe expand my thoughts on this. Lower class education, in my experience, trains people to be lower class. I went to a rural school and quite often students were pushed into vocational education. For some people, it was right, like my friend who couldn't read after he graduated high school, he should be doing manual labor but even I who am now in grad school was pushed towards carpentry or masonry oddly enough. I think the children of the working poor are shaped to be content with living working poor lives. What that means for metal is that you have the lower classes being positioned and made content with a life that come the '80s was made impossible by Reagan and Thatcher. The working class kids were set to be working class and bam! the working class in the West is eliminated by union-busting, deregulation and outsourcing. It's not that we're all delinquent doomed to be drug users, like dead1 so often describes metal listeners, but we're the alienated youth of a society that fucked us over. It's like Breaking the Law. We have a reason to be who we are and they don't know what it's like. So we drink, we toke, and we listen to pissed off and rebellious music.

I'd say alot of this comes from Paul Willis' Learning to Labor but kinda directed at heavy metal. He lays the groundwork explanation of working poor being educated and essentially brainwashed to be satisfied with being working poor.

I wouldn't put outsourcing in the same terms as deregulation or union busting because both of those would encourage companies to stay in America because they could exploit workers more.

The reason outsourcing occurs as I understand it is because of the casting of more regulations and the strengthening of unions where it becomes obvious to the companies that they could turn a bigger profit in developing countries along with being able to skip out of taxes (If I recall from a lecture in ethics, Citizens pay about 25% or so more than the companies because they use loopholes to get around the system. For example, Carnival cruise lines paid about 1% of what they earned in US taxes last year).

But the Scandinavian variety, as I've pointed out, is on the whole, not working class.

Yeah but nobody likes black metal anyways. Black metal also has a totally different subject matter as a result. I wish I remember Lords of Chaos better. There's no anthemic Judas Priest tracks or dystopian narratives a la Iron Maiden or in-group solidarity like early Thrash or even partying tracks like hair metal. Even up through Carcass and Bolt Thrower, you have depictions of the mistreatment of youth being sent to war and mutilated in doing so.

My account is pretty solid for British heavy metal through the mid-80s, and I think also given what I understand about my old store manager, my stepdad and all of their friends that's what pushed them to partying, thrash metal and hair metal.

I don't see Scandinavian metalheads as an unexplainable anomaly just something which needs to be thought through.

If anything we could just say all those black metal kids were fucking posers de jure like the deathcore kids these days whose inauthentic sense of brutality is mocked nowadays in the same way which Alice Cooper mocks the "evil" nature of black metal. Rich kids getting into things screams the commodification of dissidence into a package more susceptible to bourgeois marketing ploys and a way of pacifying the radical anger of the original movement, in the way, pop punk lacks the politics of Crass or Discharge.

Oh you. Too much "authentic" happened in Norway in the early 90s for anyone to equate it to deathcore. Some of those rich kids were probably posing or being generally idiotic, but at the same time, some superior material was produced, material for which working class spirit become very hard to discern. And then you have the issue of projects like Xasthur which speak to my inability to see how black metal, relatively unpopular or not, fits into your framework.

Stabbing people is the "authentic" you speak of? I'm being dismissive of bm despite really liking it. But you know Marxism enough to know that I'm not going to conceptualize things as static. Contexts shift and change constantly, the thrash metal of today is not the trash metal of yesteryear and the black metal of the 90s is not the American/English metal scenes of the 70s and 80s.

The religious/cultural aspects are very formative of bm in most accounts and you know that's not my thing. I guess maybe in a moderately affluent area such as Scandinavia where the notion of lagom is prevalent material conditions may not be so prescient where the music is going to reflect other forms of discontent.

I disagree with trapt but I like that he's calling black metal musicians posers. 8-)