Metalheads

Heavy Metal Music And Adolescent Alienation

Jeffrey Arnett

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9780429978616
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

A study of heavy-metal music and its performers, and its message about American adolescents.

1

A Heavy Metal Concert:

The Sensory Equivalent of War

Heavy metal is, as much as anything else, an arena of gender, where spectacular gladiators compete to register and affect ideas of masculinity, sexuality, and gender.

—heavy metal scholar Robert Walser, Running with the Devil

The death of a culture begins when its normative institutions fail to communicate ideals in ways that remain inwardly compelling....At the breaking point, a culture can no longer maintain itself as an established span of moral demands. Its jurisdiction contracts; it demands less, permits more. Bread and circuses become confused with right and duty. Spectacle becomes a functional substitute for sacrament.

—Philip Rieff, The Triumph of the Therapeutic

You must wait in line to enter the concert arena, along with the pilgrims. There are several lines leading into the arena, but every person who enters must be frisked to make sure he is not attempting to smuggle in alcohol or photography equipment. It is quite cold outside, being early March in the Midwest, but few people seem to mind. Their thoughts are on the spectacle to come and on past spectacles. You hear their comments. “Did you see these guys last year?” someone says, presumably referring to the headline act for the evening, the heavy metal band Iron Maiden. “It was great!” His companion says regretfully that he missed that show, but he offers similar praise for a Metallica concert he attended.

Most of the concertgoers waiting to enter are young males (about 90 percent of the crowd), in their teens and early twenties. You see a few who look younger, surprisingly young, perhaps nine or ten years old, and a few others who are clearly adults, middle-aged. Some of these adults you will recognize later on during the show, reading, smoking, and chatting in the lobby, avoiding the noise to the extent possible and waiting to escort their children home.

At last you enter the lobby, which is warm with activity. The action is centered around the concession stands, where t-shirts ($18-20), programs ($10), and other items bearing the logos of Iron Maiden or Anthrax are being sold. The young “metalheads” (as they call themselves; also known as “headbangers”) press forward eagerly, awaiting their chance to purchase one or more of the tokens displayed there.

Dressed to thrill at a heavy metal concert. (Photo by Nick Romanenko)

You move through the lobby and find your reserved seat, about thirty rows up. From the looks of the sound system, you should have no problem hearing the bands. It is evident that the metalheads have come to exalt not only performers and music tonight but volume, sheer volume. There are twenty raised speakers on each side of the stage, plus ten five-foothigh speakers sitting on each side, and ten more sitting center stage. These are, undoubtedly, the best speakers that money can buy, designed with breathtaking technological sophistication. Any one of them alone would probably be sufficient to fill even this enormous arena with sound.

People are filing in gradually and taking their seats. Not much is happening so far. “Heavy fucking metal!” a beer-swilling, mesomorphic young man of about twenty years old shouts periodically. Two boys near the front of the stage hold up an American flag, to loud cheers. Two other boys in the vicinity hold up another American flag, this time with the Iron Maiden logo in place of the field of stars, to louder cheers.

The girls are noticeable as they walk in to find their seats, not only because they are distinctly in the minority, but because many of them are dressed in highly suggestive clothing. The nature of this suggestion is not lost on the boys around them. One girl walks down the aisle wearing a dress better suited for prom night than a heavy metal concert. It is deep red, with bare shoulders, a mostly bare back, and a low neckline. Wolf whistles, predatory stares, and derisive smiles follow her as she goes.

Other girls wear clothes that are not only suggestive but downright obscene. One girl who walks by you in the lobby is wearing a blue spandex top with no bra. The top button of her faded jeans is open, and the zipper is down about two inches. She has a blank, addled look on her face. Another girl is wearing a bright purple dress with large oval spaces on each side revealing her flesh (and the absence of underwear) all the way up to her waist. She, like many of the other girls, is laden with makeup. But not all of the girls are dressed in this neoprostitute style. Many are dressed like the boys, in the trademark metalhead style of denim jeans, a black “concert” t-shirt bearing the logo of a heavy metal band, and a leather or denim jacket.

Some metalheads also wear these clothes for occasions other than concerts, and their dress marks them off as different from peers at school. It is their declaration of identity as a metalhead /headbanger.¹ But there is a certain conformity in their nonconformity: The standard dress is the black t-shirt, worn-out jeans, and jacket. Still, not everyone at the concert is dressed that way; many of them look like they could be at a basketball game or a party.

At last the crowd has filled the seats and the concert seems about to begin. The first band to take the stage is Anthrax, named after the cattle disease. Their stage prop is a clock with skulls at three, six, and nine o’clock, red lights for the eyes of the skulls, and the bones of a human skeleton shaping the number twelve and serving as the minute and hour hands. The hands of the clock begin to move, and the band takes the stage. The crowd roars in greeting. The lead singer of the band shouts a greeting in return, and the concert begins.

The volume of the sound that follows is stunning, even for those who are prepared for it. On occasion you can actually feel your ribcage vibrating. The musical emphasis is on volume, power, and intensity, whereas melody and harmony are virtually absent. It is a cacophony in rhythm; virtually all you can hear is the beat being pounded out by the drums and the bass guitar, and the singer’s voice screeching something unintelligible. Although there are two electric guitar players, you can hardly hear the electric guitars at all. You certainly cannot hear individual notes.

Whatever an unbeliever might think of it as music, the metalheads appear to be enjoying it thoroughly. Often they sing along on the chorus, indicating their prior familiarity with the songs. As you look around you can see their faces intermittently lit up by the reflected light from the stage. When they are not singing along, many of them have a mesmerized look about them, mouths open, sometimes a slight smile. Virtually all of them remain on their feet through the entire performance.

Down on the floor of the arena a commotion is taking place. The fans there have cleared out the chairs to form a dancing “pit” about twenty-five feet in diameter. (Pits are de rigueur at metal concerts; they are sometimes referred to as a “slamdancing pit” or “mosh pit.”) In it there are bodies crashing into one another, and the more you watch the more it becomes apparent that they are doing this deliberately, in a violent dance. This is what metalheads call “moshing” or “slamdancing.” They often slam against one another so hard that one or both of them end up on the floor. After one especially forceful collision you see a boy put his hand to his head as he pulls himself up from the floor. He appears to be bleeding, but he is smiling in a pained way. Is he smiling in spite of, or because of, his injury?

A battalion of security guards moves into the slamdancing pit and soon restores order of a sort. Attention returns to the stage. The band is performing with great energy, the drummer thrashing relentlessly in every direction, the guitar players and singer jumping, leaning, running, twisting, and writhing during every song. The band members generally look like those of most other heavy metal bands: long, unkempt hair, loose dark shirt, leather or denim pants. The long hair is intended partly to convey a daring androgyny, partly to display a contempt for convention, but for the bass guitar player it is also a prop: Frequently he thrashes his hair in circles as he pumps away.

The crowd, avid from the start, heats up even more as the concert progresses. The pinnacle of enthusiasm is reached during the final song of the regular set. For once the lyrics of the chorus are clear because the entire crowd is singing, shouting along: “An-ti-so-cial!” It is the cry of the alienated but defiant outcast. “An-ti-so-cial!” It is a celebration of scorn, an ecstasy of alienation. You look around at the devotees; they seem truly happy.

Fans exult in the high-sensation intensity of a heavy metal concert. (Photo by Nick Romanenko)

This closer is followed by the band’s exit, then a minute or two of crowd chants and applause in an attempt to persuade them to return. Soon they do, but they do not break immediately into an encore. Instead, the lead singer leads a ritual that seems like a vulgar caricature of a religious call-and-response: “Suck my motherfucking dick!” he shouts to the crowd, and they shout it back to him. After repeating this several times, he varies the theme: “Fuck yeah!” he shouts, over and over, and again they shout it back to him each time. The crowd loves it. The usual barrier between adolescents’ private profanity (with their friends) and their public restraint (with adults, especially familiar adults) is rent. Vulgarity is made public and celebrated.

After this goes on for a while, the band plays an encore and then leaves to the vigorous cheers of the crowd. During the intermission you walk around the lobby, where people are streaming toward the food/beer lines, the restrooms, the concession stands. If anything, the press of people at the concession stands is even greater than before. You wonder whether the metalheads will be able to reach the same level of intensity for the headline act, Iron Maiden.

You soon find out. Iron Maiden is greeted with even louder hosannas than Anthrax received. This band has been touring for many years, and they have developed a loyal following. You can perceive something like a melody in many of the songs Iron Maiden plays, and you can hear some of the notes of the guitar players. As for the fans, there can be little doubt of their enthusiasm. You can see easily where the term “headbanger” comes from: Many of them “bang” their heads up and down to the rhythm of the songs, eyes closed, transported. If you still cannot make out more than an occasional word of the lyrics to the songs, once again the crowd comes to your aid by singing along with many of the songs. They are especially vocal on a song toward the end of the show, an Iron Maiden classic from their early days, called “The Number of the Beast.” “Six! Six! Six!” they shout together. “The number of the beast!” Looking around you, you see a young woman shouting the words, her face radiant with joy. The encore that follows is a hit from the band’s latest album. “Bring your daughter, bring your daughter, to the slaugh-ter!” the crowd shouts along joyfully, “let her go, let her go, let her go!” Over and over again they sing this.

The band exits at last. The drummer throws several drum sticks to the crowd, and metalheads reach and scramble for them the way medieval peasants might have strained to grasp a reputed fragment of the cross of Jesus. At last the crowd exits, and you with them.

The concert as a manhood ritual

As bizarre as a heavy metal concert may seem to a nonfan witnessing one for the first time, it is actually not unlike other cultural rituals that have been constructed by people in other places and other times. The precise form of the spectacle may be new, but the group psychology of it, as well as the yearning for ritual and ecstatic transcendence that underlies it, are ancient and go very deep. Specifically, the heavy metal concert could be said to resemble the manhood rituals that have taken place for centuries in many cultures around the world.² Typically, these rituals serve the function of publicly inducting boys into the role requirements that will be expected of them as adult men. However, although the heavy metal concert contains some of the age-old elements of manhood rituals, it differs in that it leads adolescent boys against adult ideals; it represents a declaration of rejection of the ways of the adults in the larger culture. It is all spectacle and no sacrament; it leads not to an embrace of the moral demands of their culture but to a defiant rejection of all moral demands.³

Let us look around the world at what occurs to boys when they reach adolescence and at the rituals that mark male adolescence. Such a comparison highlights the ways in which the heavy metal concert is a ritual of adolescence, and also the ways it is different from traditional rituals. The comparison will also illustrate how the passage to adulthood in the contemporary United States is in some ways unusually ambiguous and problematic.

In cultures nearly everywhere there are clear expectations for what it means to be a man and clear guidelines for how to go about achieving manhood status.⁴ Virtually always these expectations and guidelines are upheld and promoted by the adult men of society. From their fathers, grandfathers, uncles, and other men, boys learn what they must do, how they must behave, what they must believe, and what they must achieve in order to be considered worthy to be called a man. Almost universally the expectations are that in order to be a man, an adolescent boy must learn how to procreate, provide, and protect. For the requirement of learning to procreate the emphasis is on reproduction, not merely on sexuality; if boys are encouraged to experiment sexually in adolescence, it is understood that this is a way of learning how to perform adequately as a husband so that they may successfully conceive children. They must learn how to provide, too, not just for themselves but for their families; in many cases they also learn to make a contribution to the community as a whole. They also learn how to protect family and community, from animal and human predators. These three tasks must be mastered during adolescence before a boy is deemed worthy to marry and be considered an adult.

Observe the East African Samburu for illustration. Often the path to mastering these tasks begins with a formal ritual.⁵ A boy’s adolescence begins at age fourteen to fifteen, with a ritual of circumcision. No anesthetic is provided, yet the boy must remain utterly still during the procedure; should a boy cry out or even flinch, he will shame not only himself but his entire lineage—in the present and for generations to come. This initiation is followed by a tribal festival in which there is music, singing, costumes, and vigorous dancing. The nubile girls sing songs taunting the newly initiated young men for never having been on a cattle raid; men often conduct such raids against neighboring tribes, but the boys have not yet taken part. For the boys, the combination of music and sexual provocation reaches such a height of intense sensation that the characteristic response is “shivering,” a shaking and palpitating movement of their entire bodies. Thus inspired, the boys soon go forth on their first cattle raid.

Over the next twelve years the cohort of boys who have been circumcised together learns together how to procreate, provide, and protect, instructed in all of these tasks by elders. They have sexual involvements with various girls, they learn to steal cattle and to tend the ones they steal, and they learn to protect their tribe from the depredations of other tribes. In all of this the boys are encouraged, instructed, and admonished by the adult men of the tribe. In this way the continuity of generations is maintained, and the skills and knowledge necessary for survival are passed on.

Almost always performing the tasks of manhood requires taking risks of one kind or another. Courting young women and having intercourse carry the risks of rejection and of revealing ignorance or impotence during intercourse. Learning t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Listoftables
• Preface
• Profile
• 1 A Heavy Metal Concert
• Profile Nick
• 2 Heavy Metal Music and the Socialization of Adolescents
• Profile Mark
• 3 What Is This Thing Called Heavy Metal?
• Profile Brian
• 4 The Allure of Heavy Metal
• Profile Spencer
• 5 The Effects of Heavy Metal
• Profile Lew
• 6 Sources of Alienation I
• Profile Reggie
• 7 Sources of Alienation II: School and Religion
• Profile Jean
• 8 The Girls of Metal
• Profile Barry
• 9 Heavy Metal Music, Individualism, and Adolescent Alienation
• Appendix:Interview Questions
• References
• About the Book and Author
• notes
• Index