Institute for the Study of Culture (IKV) U. of Southern Denmark (SDU) Campusvej 55, Odense

Seminar Series Topics in the Aesthetics of Music and Sound

Thursday, September 10, 2015 3:15-5 p.m. in U67

Clash of the Titans - Symphonic Metal: An Endangered Subgenre?

Evelyn Schrauder is a second-year year student in the Master’s Program in Middle East Studies at the University of Southern Denmark. She holds a BA in English Literature from the Faculty of Letters, West University of Timişoara, Romania. Her research interests include anthropology, migration studies, music aesthetics, symbols in rock and metal lyrics, gender studies, black metal theory and visual arts. Evelyn has been writing poems for the past thirteen years and her first volume of poetry will soon be appearing. Abstract: Symphonic metal, often called “operatic metal” continues to be one of the most appreciated and fan-embraced metal subgenres. Since its emergence on the metal scene during the mid-1990s, it has gained large crowds of enthusiastic fans and countless positive reviews by music critics, while succeeding in broadening the horizons of two categories of public: metal aficionados and classical music lovers. The poetic and symbolic lyrics - together with astounding live performances that incorporate theatrical and fantasy elements - bestow an undeniable value to symphonic metal. The immense appreciation that this subgenre has garnered ever since it conquered the metal scene (with the help of Therion, Nightwish, The Gathering, Epica, Within Temptation or After Forever) notwithstanding, we have seen that recently, new symphonic metal identities are barely managing to emerge from their cocoons. Bands often choose to focus on a different subgenre or to evolve into another one as they move forward in their musical development. In this paper, several hypotheses are examined concerning this abandonment of the initial concept: first of all, the fact that complexity of symphonic metal might make it too difficult to produce by bands relying on a low budget. Secondly, the recently formed groups might not consider themselves “worthy” or able to surpass the greatness of the subgenre as performed by its titans in the mid- 1990s. These bands succeeded in establishing a canon that is undeniably difficult to follow for the new bands. Thirdly, symphonic metal is often labelled by many as being “too soft” or as something “exclusively targeted at women”, due to the great number of female vocalists populating the aforementioned scene, but also due to the fairy-tale and mythological references often rendered in the lyrics. The present paper seeks to challenge these hypotheses as well as to critically underline and explore the issues that the new symphonic metal bands are facing in the struggle to make themselves known, heard and most importantly, taken seriously.

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