Application of Theory to Heavy Metal Music

A number of theorists have attempted to apply specific theoretical constructs to different musical genres in an effort to advance the field of ethnomusicology. Casual journalists have also used the tools of their trade to explore the meaning, value, cultural causes and effects, and symbols that are employed by different genres. In the present study, Marxist theory and phenomenological theory have been identified as useful in examining the genre of heavy metal music, a musical genre whose history has been divided into two periods: pre-Kurt Cobain and post-Kurt Cobain (Moses & Kaye, 1999: H10).

While assuming that heavy metal music was dramatically changed by the emergence of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana, Moses and Kay (1999: H10) recognize that somewhere in the early 1990s the genre itself changed in a fundamental and significant way. However, other analysts divide heavy metal musical periods less rigidly, suggesting that over time, this genre has been fragmented, indefinable, and in flux, experiencing numerous radical transformations in which the lines between hard rock, funk, pop, rap, alternative, and metal itself have blurred, and audiences have merged (Halbersberg, 1992: HM3).

Indeed, Jim Bessman (1993: HM3) pointed out that heavy metal music has been permeated by various musical styles throughout its history. However, even though crossover between heavy metal and other genres continues, this analyst takes th

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ic - the one commodity that a Marxist analyst might contend is actually "owned," at least in terms of performance, by musicians and not owned in reality by producers and record company magnates. Walser (1999: 22) does note that his focus in analysis is on non-celebrity heavy metal and other musicians who perhaps more nearly reflect the true frustrations of the Marxist proletariat. (One finds it difficult to think of Tommy Lee as a member of a working class, or to regard Eddie van Halen as lacking in economic control over his own existence; these celebrities are "made men" in a manner of speaking, in that while they may still be dependent upon elites in the music industry, they have achieved economic sufficiency and even great wealth and are no longer "wage slaves" in the classic Marxist sense). Indeed, Walser (1993: 163) states that "the dark side of heavy metal is intimately related to the dark side of the modern capitalist security state." He sees "the insatiable drive for destruction and development" attributed to capitalism by Marxist writers as similar to "the appetite for destruction" imagined by Axl Rose of Guns N' Roses (Walser, 1993: 166). This writer believes that heavy metal works almost exclusively within a

Category: Arts - A