Deena Weinstein Contents I I I Appreciation Acknowledgments 1 Studying Metal: The Bricolage of Culture 1 2 Heavy Metal: The Beast that Refuses to Die 1 3 Making the Music: Metal Gods 4 Digging the Music: Proud Pariahs 5 Transmitting the Music: Metal Media ( 6 The Concert: Metal Epiphany 7 Maligning the Music: Metal Detractors 8 Metal in the '90s I Appendix A: Suggested Hearings: 100 Definitive Metal Albums 295 Appendix 3: Gender Preferences for Metal Subgenres 299 Appendix C: Proportion of Heavy Metal Albums in Billboard's Top 100 301 About the Author 353 Appreciation Iam greatly indebted to a multitude of generous people who helped to make this book possible in both its original version and in this new revised edition. They have come from all corners of the metal and academic worlds-musicians, fans, and mediators. Much gratitude goes to the legions of metalheads of all ages, genders, and races, from a variety of educational and religious backgrounds, who have shared their insight and pleasure with me. A shout out to those who have gone beyond the call of duty: Denis Chayakovsky, Jim DeRogatis, Joey DiMaio, Natalie DiPietro, Bill Eikost, Paula Hogan, Randy Kertz, Michael Mazur, Paul Natkin, Patrik Nicolic, Rodney Pawlak, Jeff 1 Piek, Kira Schlecter, and Tony7Tavano, E i E 1 Acknowledgments Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following publishers for permission to quote from their work: Straight Arrow Publishers, Inc.: Excerpts from "Money for Nothing and the Chicks for Free," by David Handelman, Rolling Stone, August 13, 1989. By Straight Arrow Publishers, Inc. Copyright 1989. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission. Also excerpt from "The Band that Wouldn't Die," by David Wild, Rolling Stone, April 5,1990. By Straight Arrow Publishers, Inc. Copyright 1990. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission. Los AngeZes Times: Excerpt from "Heavy-metal hit wins new respect for Iron Maiden," by Dennis Hunt, Los Angeles Times, September 9, 1983. By Los Angeles Times. Copyright 1983. Reprinted by permission. The Sun: Excerpts from "7 Tribes of Britain," by Les Daly, The Sun (London), October 2,199 1. Reprinted by perrnission. Doubleday: Excerpt from Soviet Women: Walking the Tightrope, by ?rancine Du Plessix Gray, Doubleday, 1990. Originally appeared: "Reflections: Soviet Women," by Francine Du Plessix Gray, New Yorker, February 19,1990. Reprinted by permission. Permission granted to publish excerpts from personal correspon- - dence with authors by Mars Bonfire, Gary Dray, and Michael Wedeven. The Richmond Organization: Lyrics fiom "Suicide Solution," by John Osboume, Robert Daisley, and Randy Rhoads. Copyright 1981. Essex Music Publishing International Inc. and Kord Music Publishing. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission. Photographs on pages facing chapters 1,3, and 7 by Paul Natkin. Photographs on pages facing chapters 2, 5, and 6 by Kathy Pilat, DePaul University, 1991 Photograph on page facing chapter 4 by Eric Adams. Photograph on page facing chapter 8 by Frank White. Studying Metal: The Bricolage of Culture Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds; At which the universal host upsent A shout that tore Hell's concave, and beyond Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night. -Milton. Paradise Lost' N Heavy metal: pimply, prole, putrid, unchic, unsophisticated, anti- intellectual (but impossibly pretentious), dismal, abysmal, terrible, horrible, and stupid music, barely music at all; death music, dead music, the beaten boogie, the dance of defeat and decay; the huh? sound, the dub sound, . music made by slack-jawed, alpaca- haired, bulbous-inseamed imbeciles in jackboots and leather and chrome for slack-jawed, alpaca-haired, downy-mustachioed imbe- ciles in cheap, too-large T-shirts with pictures of comic-book Ar- mageddon ironed on the front."' So heavy metal music is described by Robert Duncan, a rock critic. Baptist minister Jeff R. Steele is known for his lectures on the adverse effects of rock and roll. Certainly, few of his values are the same as those of Duncan or other rock journalists. But he shares a disgust for heavy metal, judging that it "is sick and repulsive and horrible and dangerou~."~ Dr. Joe Stuessy, a professor of music at the University of Texas at San Antonio, testified about heavy metal before a United States Senate Committee. "Today's heavy metal music is categorically dif- ferent from previous forms of popular music. It contains the ele- ment of hatred, a meanness of spirit. Its principal themes are . I' 2 Heavy Metal Studying Metal: The Bricolage of Culture 3 extreme violence, extreme rebellion, substance abuse, sexual pro- the genre of heavy metal as "Downer Rock," commenting that its miscuity, and perversion and Satanism. I know personally of no "chief exponents were Black Sabbath, a thuggy, atavistic, and form of popular music before which has had as one of its central philosophically lugubrious British quartet who became quite suc- elements the element of hatredem4Professor Stuessy served as a cessful performing songs about paranoia, World War 111, and other consultant to the religiously oriented Parents Music Resource Cen- whistle-a-happy-tune subject^."'^ ter (PMRC). His testimony to the Senate Committee also included Politicians have also passed judgment on the genre, Senator Al- this observation: "Martin Luther said, 'Music is one of the greatest bert Gore, during Senate hearings on record labeling, asked a wit- gifts that God has given us; it is divine and therefore Satan is its ness "Do you agree that there does seem to be a growing trend, at enemy. For with its aid, many dire temptations are overcome; the least in the heavy metal area, that emphasizes explicit violence and devil does not stay where music is.' We can probably assume that sex and sado-masochism and the rest?"13 Martin Luther was not familiar with Heavy Metal!"s The mass media has joined the chorus of contempt. Newsweek, In the early 1970s a rock critic characterized the quintessential in 1990, ran the following advertisement for its upcoming issue on I heavy metal band Black Sabbath as having the "sophistication of youth: "Is being a teenager still something to look forward to? 1 four Cro-Magnon hunters who've stumbled upon a rock band's Little kids think teenagers are really cool. But how cool is it to eq~ipment."~ come of age in the age of AIDS, crack and heavy metal?"14 A journalist in the Musician noted that most people see heavy Heavy metal music is a controversial subject that stimulates vis- metal as "a musical moron joke, fodder for frustrated teens and ceral rather than intellectual reactions in both its partisans and its dominion of dim-witted devil-worshippers."' detractors. Many people hold that heavy metal music, along with A Rolling Stone review of a recent heavy metal album claims drugs and promiscuous sex, proves that some parts of youth culture that the singer's "voice rarely drops below a banshee soprano, and have gone beyond acceptable limits. To many of its detractors heavy I the content of the lyrics is a hoot."8 Eighteen years earlier a Los metal embodies a shameless attack on the central values of Western Angeles Times reviewer described another heavy metal group as civilization. But to its fans it is the greatest music ever made. I having "a complete lack of subtlety, intelligence and ~riginality."~ The severity of the denunciations directed at heavy metal and Lester Bangs, the only noted rock critic who had anything fa- the disagreement exhibited by its two major opponents, the liberal- vorable to say about heavy metal at its inception, writes some years left rock critics and the religious right, concerning what to de- later: "As its detractors have always claimed, heavy-metal rock is nounce are enough to pique a sociologist's interest. wyshould a nothing more than a bunch of noise; it is not music, it's distor- style of music have occasioned such extravagant rhetoric, not only tion-and that is precisely why its adherents find it appealing. Of from members of the lunatic fringe, but also from responsible ele- all contemporary rock, it is the genre most closely identified with ments on both sides of the political spectrum? Can a form of music violence and aggression, rapine and carnage. Heavy metal orches- that has attracted millions of fans for more than twenty years be trates technological nihilism."10 all that dangerous? Does a form of music warrant being placed An academic scholar who specializes in the history of the devil along with a dread disease (AIDS) and drug abuse? Are the critics concluded that "Overt Satanism faded rapidly after the 1970s, but of heavy metal really talking about music? If not, what is it that elements of cultural Satanism continued into the 1980s in 'heavy they are talking about? metal' rock music with its occasional invocation of the Devil's name The broadest purpose of this book is to show how sociology can and considerable respect for the Satanic values of cruelty, drugs, inform public discussion of heavy metal. This book is not meant ugliness, depression, self-indulgence, violence, noise and confusion, to be another voice in the controversy, but an effort to step back and joylessness." and reveal the elusive subject that is at the center of the contro- In his social history of rock music, Loyd Grossman referred to versy. In light of public debates over the advisability of censoring 4 . Heavy Metal Studying Metal: The Bricolage of Culture 5 heavy metal music, this study is meant to show how heavy metal of political science. It is not concerned with the impact of social music is made, used, and transmitted by social groups. Only an policy, nor with the formation of new policies. It addresses a more objective inquiry can permit rational judgment about the merits of immediate question: What are we making a public issue about? the proposals to limit the freedom of heavy metal's artists, audi- Sociology of culture contributes to public discourse by Pxploring ences, and media.