Mercury Models: Postmodernism, Simulacra, and New Heavy Metal

University of Alberta Mercury Models: Postmodernism, Shulacra, and New Heavy Meta1 David Warren Lloyd O A thesis submitted to the faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Comparative Literature Department of Comparative Literature, Religion, and FilmMedia Studies Edmonton, Alberta Nationai Library Bibliothèque nationale I+I,Canada du Cana& Acquisitions and Acquisions et Bibliographie SeMces seMces bibliographiques 385 Wellingbtl Street 395. rUe WeUingtOn Ottawa ON KIA W OtEawiaON KIAM Cenada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une iïcence non excl~velicence allowing the exchisive permettant a la National Liirary of Canada to BibIiothQue nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or seIl reproduire, prêter, distri'buer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forne de microfiche/slm, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fiom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or othenvise de celle-ci ne doivent être miprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. Abstract Contemporary heavy metal rock bands are displaying and giving voice to postmodern qualities which are similar to those described in critical works such as Jean Baudrillard' s Simulacra mrd Simulation. The ub iquitous presence of today 's communications media has caused popular culture to be permeated and defined by simulacra-reproductions of reproductions. In my thesis 1 argue that the music of ~'m, Defiones, Limp Bizkit, Marilyn Manson, and Rob Zombie demonstrate the pervasiveness of the postmodern phenornena identified by critics such as Baudfillard and, equally importantly, point to the paradoxes inherent in the condition of postmodemity. My study begins with an examination of the history of new heavy rnetal and proceeds to a close analysis of the lyrics and the music, pointing the way to a better understanding of this particular form of popular culture. This work is dedicated to Nasrin Rahimieh, Janet Ould, and Barbra Churchill, to whom 1 grata for their infinite support, guidance, inspiration, and fnendship, and to my mother, Edie Lloyd, to whom I am grata for her infinite eveything. Table of Contents Introduction Chapter 1- Ferrous Roots: New Metal and 1950s Rock and Roll 17 Chapter 11 - Postmetalism: New Metal and Postmodemism Chapter III - Numb By Painten: Close Examination of New Meta1 as Text Conclusion - Steel Mirrors: New Metal and other Popular Culture Product Works Cited Works Consulted Introduction Something takes a part of me Something loa and never seen Every the I start to believe Something's raped and taken fiom me - From "Freak on a Leash," by Kom We live in a world where there is more and more information and less and less meaning. - From Simulacm und SimztIatio~~,by Jean Baudnllard Popular music, since it began to get rowdy in the 1950s, has reflected the concerns and anxieties of North Arnenca's younger generation. From the Everly Brothers' "Wake Up, Little Suie" to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana, popular musicians have acted as a voice for the teenage generation, speaking their minds, addressing their joys and worries. Also, the younger generation is becorning increasingly sensitive to the state of the culture that surrounds them. Students around the world are known for their outrage at injustice, for their joy in celebration, and their general cultural perceptiveness. Recently, cenain segments of music popularity charts have been occupied by some alarming music. Rap music, dominated by male Afncan- Arnericans, has been hyper-excessively violent and misogynist, and is ofien admired by its fms simply for the audacity of its praise of criminal activity-aithough some praise it for depicting the grim reality of the lives of urban Afncan-Amencans. Rock music has also been making some alarming aatements, which are not the sarne as in rap music. A new variety of popular music, which has fused elements of heavy metal and Afncan-Amencan hiphop music, has reached #1 ranking on popularity charts. This music-which 1have chosen to term "new metal," although it eludes existing labels-is characterized by some unconventional and startling qualities. As North American culture has become more permeated with information and communication technology, the qualities and characteristics associated with postmodemism have become stronger and more common. As information-in foms that Vary fiom Street billboards and pht media through radio and television to the intemet and vhal reality-fills Our environment, the relationship between culture and media seems to have reversed. Formerly, it can be argued, culture detennined the content of communications media, and media reflected culture. In other words, real- life, actual activities, beliefs, and identities of Nonh American individuals (culture, reality) were reflected and reproduced in information-replicas such as advertisements, news programs, and entertainment products like film and television (media, reproduction). This has gradually changed so that it seems increasingly that the vast amount of information present in our environment is determining the fabric of our culture. Real life and culture began to reflect what was being portrayed in communications media. People turned to media representations as a source of identity; the tmth and reality of the world began to be detennined by the way they were portrayed in media. The unsettling repercussions of this information-culture phenomenon were felt by the modemists in the middle of this century and have continued to grow stronger with time. Postmodemism reflected the growing intensity of the effects of our information saturation, and now it appears that we are entering a post-postmodemism which is continuing the trends set in motion by the growth of communication technology. Today's state of &airs is visibly a progression from the recent past because now it appears that the relation between culture and media has eroded. There no longer appears to be any distance, direction, or order of operations between real culture and the information contained in communications media. They have become intertwined and are so closely related that they are now inextricable fiom each other. We have entered what Jean Baudrillard calls "hyperreality," in his book entitled Sihlacra md SimuIation, where "the medium and the real are now in a single nebula whose tnith is indecipherable" (83). Baudrillard's concept of "simu1acra"- reproduction without original-is the embodiment of this condition, a sign that is "never exchanged for the real, but exchanged for itself, in an uninterrupted circuit without reference or circumference" (6). The existence of simulacra would not necessarily be threatening, were it not for the super-accelerated circulation of simulacra performed by information and communication technology. The Pace of advertising has risen to the point that the sole referentiality it retains is to capital gain. Al1 sense of value, tmth, and identity has disappeared in the fiantic circulation of the simulacra that advertising has become, which Baudrillard calls the "hypennarket," or "ground-zero advertising." In such a state of affairs "there is the sound track, the image track, just as in life there is the work track, the leisure track, the transport track, etc., al1 enveloped in the advertising track" (9 1). As Baudrillard illustrates, advertising, at its now maniacal rate, devours every sign and every image. Anything one could possibly want to think, do7or be is now always already taken up by advertising and made into a flat, pixelated sign that refers to nothing but itself, to other such signs, and to money. When one looks at Las Vegas, for instance, 4 one sees that advertising is not what brightens or decorates the wails, it is what effaces the walls, effaces the streets the facades, and al1 the architecture, effaces any support and any depth, and that it is this liquidation, this reabsorption of everything into the surface (whatever signs cirailate there) that plunges us into this stupefied, hyperreal euphoria that we would not exchange for anything else, and that is the empty and inescapable form of seduction. (Baudrillard 9 1-2) We have indeed become subject to this "stupefied, hypeneal euphoria," and as a response, we are given to "[planic-stricken production of the real and of the referential, parailel to and greater than the panic of material production" (7) which is great indeed. Consequently, as Baudrillard suggests, it seems that "al1 of society is irremediably contaminated by this mirror of madness that it has held up to itself" (9). Baudrillard has recognized and diagnosed the condition of today's culture and given words to the phenornenon; 1 intend to demonstrate that new metal has recognized this condition, experienced it, reacted to it, and given voice to the paradoxes inherent in the evocation of the hyperreal. New metal is extremely popular right now, and many devotees of heavy metal and hard rock music have welcomed it with joy as the retum of heavy metal to its rightfully acclaimed position in our culture. Other followen of heavy and hard music have deplored it as a sofiening of heavy metal, as heavy metal watered down for the middle-class, video-watching, t-shkt-buying masses. No matter what one thinks about new metal, the fact is that it is loud, aggressive, profane, dissonant, chaotic, offensive, and generally contrary to hegemonic nomof popular music (those generally being qualities that are "easy" to listen to and acceptable to a wide range of audiences). What are even more striking are the qualities of the music that seem to reflect Baudnllard's diagnosis of today's hyperrreal culture.

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