Rock Music Cultures

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Article

"Characterizing Rock Music Cultures: The Case of Heavy Metal" Will StrawCanadian University Music Review / Revue de musique des universités canadiennes , n° 5, 1984, p. 104-122.

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CHARACTERIZING ROCK MUSIC CULTURES:

THE CASE OF HEAVY METAL

Will Straw

I INTRODUCTION

One of the questions centra l to the sociology of popular

music a t the moment concerns the appl icabi l i ty of subcul tura l

theory, developed principally in Great Brita in, to the s tudy of

North American rock music culture(s) . While i t may be observed

tha t American academic wri t ing on rock music places cons ider

able emphasis on the inst i tut ions producing and disseminating i t ,

and that British research has focussed primarily on the processes

of consumption and appropr ia t ion carr ied out by audiences ,

the extent to which this divergence is the product of differences

be tween North American and Br i t ish rock cul tures remains a

point of contention.

The issue is further complicated by specif ic characteris t ics

of North American rock culture in the 1970s, between the

decomposi t ion of the hippy-psychede l ic counter-cul ture and the

l imited emergence of punk and pos t-punk cul tura l format ions

near the end of that decade. Should this period, as is sometimes

argued, be regarded as one in which inst i tut ional-economic

impera t ives resul ted in the recupera t ion and dissolut ion of

sub -cu ltur al activity s urr ou nd ing rock music? If so, the re la t ive

va l id i ty of sub-cul tura l or ins t i tu t iona l-manipula t ive forms of

explana t ion (what might be c rude ly te rmed bot tom-up and

top-down models , respectively) becomes a question of transitory

pert inence, ra ther than the s take in more general debates over

the nature of rock music processes as a whole . One can suggest ,

for exam ple, th at H irsch s cyclical accou nt of rock m usic s

his tory , which dis t inguishes be tween per iods of indus try

turbulence and periods of re-oligopolization,

1

may be seen as

Canadian University Music Review No. 5, 1984



105

different iat ing those periods for which subcul tural models and

i n s t i t u t i o n a l - e c o n o m i c e x p l a n a t i o n s a re m o s t a p p ro p r i a t e

(see Hirsch 1972). The obvious problem here, however, is one of

conceptual consistency: not ions of audience pract ice, modes of

subjective invo lvem ent and the ver y me aning of rock m usic are

sufficiently fundamental to an epistemology of the sociology of

rock music that they themselves should not change substantively

with each generic current or period analyzed.

In this pape r, I seek to incor pora te obse rva t ion s and

hypotheses concerning the consumption of music within the

cha racte rizatio n of a specific genre w ithin rock m usic— that of

Heavy Meta l .

2

My point of departure is the argument that

Heavy Metal audiences in the 1970s manifested certain regu

larit ies arising from their posit ion within rock culture, and

within a network of inst i tut ions and discourses const i tut ive of

this cul ture. A consistent emphasis of this paper is the ways in

which information and knowledge about rock music circulate

with in He avy M etal aud ience s. I hav e chosen Hea vy M etal

because i t seemed to me to consti tute the locus of a number of

tendencies characterist ic of rock cul ture in North America in

the 1970s.

The discussion that fol lows is organized around a number

of principles of description and classification which seem

necessary to the characterizat ion of any current within rock

music cul ture. In adopt ing this procedure, rather than the search

for an exp lana tory key wh ich w ould reduce Hea vy M etal to a

par t i cu la r ideo log ica l func t ion o r ou tg rowth o f aud ience

predicam ent , I am aw are th at I run the risk of a simple d escr ip-

tivism. Nevertheless, given the frequent tendency of the sociology

of music to reduce instances of popular music to simple mani

festat ions of more general cul tural processes, a turn toward

some level of descriptive detail seems at least a useful corrective.

II . HEAVY METAL STYLISTIC DERIVATION A N D

INSTITUTIONAL DISSEMINATION

In discussing Heavy Metal music, and rock music of the

1970s more general ly, I am interested primari ly in North

American rock culture, though a significant feature of that

cultur e is i ts as sim ilatio n of Brit ish rock mus ic. I sus pec t th at

certain features of Bri t ish rock cul ture, primari ly those arising



106

out of radio programming polic ies , have made the dissemination

of Heavy Metal in the United Kingdom different in significant

ways from the forms it has taken in North America. Differences

between the United States and Canada, however, would seem to

be negligible.

1) enealogies of Sty le

At one level, linear, genealogical explanations of music

style possess a c lear theoretical inadequacy, carrying, as they

inevitably do, resonances of origin-as-explanation. Nevertheless,

an a t tention to the intr icate patterns of influence and cross-

fert i l izat ion between and within generic currents seems an

essential component of a theory of musical meaning, if it is to

avoid grounding that meaning in intr insic , formal quali t ies of

the musical text . I t is the re la t ionship of newly-emergent

stylis t ic and structural features to the background of conven

tions against which these appear, that determines in large part

the way in which a new song, a lbum, or genre wil l be heard.

Like wise, it is the shifting coa lition s of different sty listi c

curren ts , and the ins t i tu t io na l boun dar ies radio formats ,

record label divisions, etc.) which seek to regularize these,

that consti tute the his tory of popular musical s tyles .

Heavy Metal has genealogical l inks with psychedelic rock,

and can be said to have emerged as the hard edge of the latter

see Bangs 1976: 302). The decomposition of psychedelic music,

in the late 1960s, followed three principal directions. The first

of these , in the United States , involved a re turn to tradit ional ,

rural musical s tyles , with the emergence of country-rock,

the best-known examples being the s tylis t ic changes in the

ca ree rs of Th e By rds in 1968) an d Th e G ratefu l D ead in 1970).

In Great Britain and Europe, a second tendency took the form of

a very eclectic reworking of tradit ional and symphonic musical

forms within an e lectr ic or e lectronic rock context , with groups

such as King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Genesis, and, to a lesser

extent, the early Traffic and Soft Machine. The baroque-folk

of such art is ts as Scott Walker and Donovan was a s ignif icant

transit ional moment in the emergence of this second current .

The other major orientat ion, which may be found in both Brit ish

and North American rock music of this period, was that towards

the Heavy Metal s tyle , frequently based in the chord s tructures

of boogie blues, but re ta ining from psychedelia an emphasis on

technological effect and instrumental vir tuosity.



107

A number of characterist ics of rock group formats and

performance styles in the late 1960s were important in the

transi t ion into Heavy Metal : the cul t of the lead gui tarist , the

pow er t r io and other indices of the em ph asis on virtu osi ty ,

the supergroup phenom ena, and the importance in performance

of extended solo playing and a disregard for the temporal l imits

of the pop song. In groups on the periphery of psychedelia

(such as Blue Cheer, Iron Butterfly, and The Yardbirds), many

of the styl ist ic t rai ts that would become dominant within

Heavy Metal are in evidence. This relat ive coherence would be

reinforced, through the 1970s, by the sedimentation of other

s ty l i s t ic a t t r ibutes ( those associa ted wi th s tage shows, a lbum-

cover design, and audience dress and l i fe-style pat terns) and

relatively long-lived sites of insti tutional support (radio formats,

touring circui ts , record industry st ructures, e tc . ) .

2)

Ins titution s and Ind ustries in the Early 197 s

I t may be said that the historical s i tuat ion in which Heavy

Metal music came to prominence was one in which ins t i tu t ions

associated with the psychedel ic period were ei ther disappearing,

or being assimilated within larger st ructures as part of wide

spread changes wi th in the music-re la ted indust r ies . The over

riding tende ncy in these chan ges w as the dim inishing of the role

of a variety of classes of local entrepreneurs in the processes

by which music was developed and d isseminated . The ins t i tu

tions in question include free-form radio, a large number of

independent record labels, the bal l room performance circui t ,

and the underg roun d pre ss, a ll of wh ich had contribu ted, at least

ini t ial ly , to a high degree of regional izat ion within psychedel ia

and associa ted movements wi th in rock music .

For a number of record industry analysts , the number of

hi t -making independent record labels is an index of the degree

of turbulence wi th in the ind ust r y . A conse nsus has emerged

according to which, on this basis , the modern history of the

American recording industry has been divided into three epochs:

one run nin g from 1940 to 1958, m ark ed by co nce ntra tion and

integrat ion within and between the electronics, recording, and

publishing industries; the 1959 to 1969 period, characterized by

the turbu lence asso ciated w ith the introd uct io n on a large

scale of rock music; and, finally, the period which began in 1970,

and which saw re-oligopolization to the extent that in 1979,

the six large st co rpo ratio ns acc ou nte d for 86% of Billbo ard's



108

total chart action (see A nd ers on et

l

1980: 41 ; Pe terso n &

Berger 1971; and T itus 1980). Tw o other stat ist ics are w or th

noting: by the late 1960s, the album format had displaced the

single as the dominant format in record sales, with 80% of do llars

spent on records going for LPs in 1969 (see Chappie Garofalo

1980:

76 and Fornatele

Mills 1980: 74); and, during the 1970s,

in large part as a result of the overhead costs associated with

oligopoly, the break-even point for album sales went from

20,000 to nearly 100,000 copies (see Taylor 1980: 298).

While this oligopolization of the American record industry in

the 1970s is undeniable, i t is less certain that one can correlate

with it the principles of functioning normally applied in the analy

sis of commodity production: specifically, the sequence oligopoli-

zat ion-bureaucrat izat ion-conservat ism-standardizat ion. Wri ters

such as Paul Hirsch have argued that the central izat ion and

bureaucratization of decision-making in the industries producing

enter tainm ent texts is rarely com para ble to that found in

other indust r ies , and tha t en ter ta inment ins t i tu t ions more

closely resemble the house construct ion industry, with i ts

organization of production along craft l ines. Within the record

industry, horizontal integrat ion has frequent ly taken the form

of the assimilation of smaller, specialized labels within con

glomerates (through direct take-overs or production-distribution

agreements), often in such a way that the posit ions of those

involved in select ion and product ion remain intact . The record

industry in the 1970s rel ied more on outside, contracted pro

ducers or product ion companies than i t did earl ier , in the days

of the salaried artist and repertory director (see Hirsch 1972).

I would argue that a defining characterist ic of much rock

music product ion in the early 1970s was i ts dominat ion by rock

elites,

by people establ ished in creat ive capaci t ies within the

indust ry . The supergroup phenomena of th is per iod i s symp

tomatic of this, as is the fact that most of the leading Heavy

Metal bands (such as Humble Pie) were formed by remnants of

groups popular in the 1960s. With except ions, the country-rock

and s inger-songwri ter genres which achieved h igh market

penetrat ion in the early 1970s drew as wel l upon earl ier groups

or indiv iduals who had been present wi th in the indust ry wi th in

a variety of capaci t ies (Randy Newman, Leon Russel l , Carole

King, members of the Eagles, etc.)

The implicat ions of this si tuat ion for characterizat ions of

the American record industry during these years are not obvious.



109

The rel iance on industry el i tes is symptomatic of industry

con serv at ism insofar as it displac ed mo st st reet-level talent

hunting and m ight be seen as a resistance to innova tion. H owev er,

this displaced, as well , tradit ional processes (in periods of

turbulence ) w her eby m usicia ns w ith local fol lowings and

local entrepreneurial support f i rst establ ished themselves

regionally, recorded for minor labels, proved their financial

viabi l i ty , and then were signed by majors. The lat ter now

released records without this ini t ial form of market-test ing,

a contributing factor in the increasingly high ratio of unprofitable

to profitable records. The selection and development of talent

and ini t iat ion of new styles became increasingly the act ivi ty of

establ ished creat ive personnel , and art ist contracts common

in this period of growth gave almost unprecedented control over

the choice of pro du ce rs and m ate ria l (see H irsch 1971: 384).

I t is somewhat paradoxical , then, that in this period

establ i shed crea t ive personnel were depended upon and pro

vided much of the innovat ion and styl ist ic change within rock

mu sic, given the high degree of oligopoly and v ertical integ ration

within the industry. It is clear, for example, that many of those

formerly involved in support capaci t ies (songwri ters, session

m usic ians, etc .) achieved s tar sta tus beca use of the f luidi ty

with which they could in this period move between or combine

the product ion, composing, and performing funct ions, or with

which members of groups could record albums.

3

Moreover, this

looseness of role definit ion, combined with the prosperity of

both perform ers and the ind us try as a wh ole, encoura ged the

internat ional izat ion of record product ion, with, as one of i ts

effects, the free movement of session personnel between

Britain and North America and the emergence of eclectic

cross-ferti l izations of style.

If I stress these aspects of record industry functioning in

the early 1970s, i t is because the mutations of this period are

a principle si te over which two currents implici t within rock 's

historiography have bat t led. Much of the l i terature of the

mid-to-late 1970s, describing industry growth in terms of the

co-optat ion and destruct ion of the energies unleased in the

1960s, regards this period as exemplifying processes inevi table

w ithin m as s or ca pita list c ultu re (see e.g., Ch app ie & Ga rofalo

1980).

It might be argued, however, that this period saw the

triumph of craft production structures, in a sense that emphasizes

degrees of art isanal control rather than the scale of the enter-



110

prise. In this respect, the punk critique of early 1970s rock music

— which focusses on i ts excesses and i ts eclectic ism, ra th er tha n

on an assum ed s tandard iza t ion— is a t the very leas t a nece ssary

counterweight to those historical accounts which stress processes

of recuperation.

The changes which occured in the programming polic ies of

FM radio s ta t ions in North American between the la te 1960s

and mid-1970s are well-documented e lsewhere , as is the decline

of the local un de rgr ou nd pres s (see e.g., Ch app ie G arofalo

1980; Fornatele

M ills 1980; and Lam pm an 1980). In both case s,

r is ing overhead costs and an increased re l iance on large

adver t is ing accounts (wi th record companies prominent among

these) grew out of and furthered the desire or need for expansion

and in tegra t ion. These processes contr ibuted to the diminished

a t tent ion to margina l or regional musica l pheno men a . O verhead

costs and group performance fees were the major factors in the

replacement of the mid-sized performance circuit by the large

arena or s tadiu m , a proc ess that continu ed thro ug ho ut the

1970s, until the emergence of punk and new wave re-established

the viabil i ty of certa in c lasses of smaller venues.

I t is c lear that these developments led to increased s tan

dardization in FM radio and the rock press . The r ise in radio

playl is t consul tants , automated s ta t ions , and sa te l l i te -based

networks were a l l s ignif icant e lements in the evolution of

FM radio throughout the 1970s. As well, the evolution of the

rock press from local , subculturally based publications to

national magazines is evident in the changes in olling Stone,

one of the few to su rviv e. I wo uld arg ue, ho w eve r, again st seeing

these developments as local examples of a more general trend

toward s tandardization which would include the record industry

as well . The new importance of radio playlis t consultants was

in part a response to the eclecticism and bulk of record company

product and to the inability of individual stations, in most cases,

to choose from among this product. More importantly, perhaps,

the r igidity of formats grew out of demographic research

concurrent with the widening of the rock audience to include

a s ignif icant part of the actively-consuming population, and

with the recessions of the 1970s which called for a more accurate

tar ge ttin g of listen ing gr ou ps (see M oon ey 1980: 85). W hile

demographic ta rge t t ing would appear to remain a re la t ive ly

minor aspect of record company stra tegies (except in the most

general sense), it became crucial in shaping the formats of radio



I l l

s tat ions and magazines, two media based on the del ivery of

audiences to adver t i sers .

3)

Hea vy Metal udien ces and Rock Institutions

The processes described earl ier as leading to the renewed

importance of the nat ional rock audience worked to const i tute

this as a m ass audienc e in that the med ia diss em inat in g rock

music or information about i t (radio and the press) increasingly

rel ied on formats appl icable on a nat ional basis , rather than on

ties to local communities (or, in the case of radio specifically,

on the popularity of local radio personalit ies). Equally important,

in my opinion, is that these developments increased the impor

tance of an audience segment that had been somewhat dis-

enfranchized by movements within rock in the late 1960s—

the suburban youth market . Throughout the 1970s this has

const i tuted the principal const i tuency of Heavy Metal music,

and of Album-Oriented Rock, the format adopted by FM stations

that play it.

In stressing the geographic situation of Heavy Metal audiences,

rather than their regional, ethnic, racial , or class basis, I am

conscious of the fact that the latter have had wider currency

and have possessed greater theoret ical acceptabi l i ty within the

sociology of rock m usic . Nev erth ele ss, I reg ard the place of

audiences within North American habi tat ion pat terns as crucial

in determining the relationship between music, those insti tutions

which disseminate i t , and l i fe-styles in a more general sense.

The host i l i t ies of the late 1970s betw een H eavy M etal au dience s

and disco subcul tures are indicat ive in this respect ; the demo

graphics of disco showed it to be dominated by blacks, Hispanics,

gays , and young professionals, who shared l i t t le beyond l iving

in inne r ur ba n are as (see For nate le & M ills 1980:

77 .

Suburban l i fe is incompatible for a number of reasons with

at tendance at clubs where one might hear records or l ive

performers; i ts main sources of music are radio, retail chain

record stores or departments (usual ly in shopping centers) and

occasional large concerts (most frequent ly in the nearest arena).

These inst i tut ions make up the network by which major label

albums are promoted and sold, and from which music not

available on such labels is for the most part excluded.

My argument is not that this inst i tut ional network gave

major labels a free hand in shaping tastes, but that, in conjunc

tion with suburban life-styles, i t shaped the form of involvement



112

in rock cul ture, discouraging subcul tural act ivi ty of the degree

and kind associated with, for example, disco or punk. Heavy

Metal audiences may be characterized in part by the absence of

a st rong middle-strata between the l is tener and the professional

group. Only in rare cases, within such audiences, could there be

found an echelon of local Heavy Metal bands performing their

ow n m ate rial in local ve nu es. W hat I ha ve referred to as the

dominance of rock music during this period by eli tes, in conjunc

tion with the overall decline in small-scale l ive performance

activity in the early 1970s, worked to block the channels of

career advancement characterist ic of other styl ist ic currents

or other periods within rock history. It might also be suggested

that the economy of North American suburbs in most cases

discourages the sorts of marginal i ty that develop in large inner

urban areas and render them appropriate to the fostering of

musical subcul tures. High rents and the virtual absence of

enterprises not affi l ia ted with corporate chains mean that

venues for dancing or l istening to l ive music are uncommon.

If, for the purposes of this discussion, a musical subculture is

defined as a group whose interaction centers to a high degree on

si tes of musical consumption, and within which there are

comp lex g r ad a t io ns of p ro fe ss iona l or sem i -p ro f ess ion a l

involvement in music and a relat ive looseness of barriers be

tween roles (such that members will all be involved, in varying

degrees, in col lect ing, assessing, present ing, and performing

music) ,

then Heavy Metal audiences do not const i tute a musical

subcul ture .

III. ROCK CULTURE: HISTOR Y DISCOUR SE GEN DER

1] H eavy Metal and the D iscou rses of Rock Culture

Equal ly important to the characterizat ion of Heavy Metal ' s

place within rock cul ture was i ts relat ionship to what might be

cal led the rock mu sic archive . A major at t r ibu te of He avy

Metal, I would argue, is its consistent non-invocation of histories

or mythologies of rock music in any self-conscious sense. The

iconography of Heavy Metal performances and album covers,

and the specific reworking of boogie blues underlying the music,

do not suggest the same modal ized relat ionships to popular

music history that country-rock, gl i t ter-rock, and even disco

(with i ts frequent play upon older motifs of urban show-business



113

night-l i fe) demonstrated. As well , there is nothing to suggest

that Heavy Metal l isteners regularly became interested in tracing

the roots of certain musical traits back to periods prior to the

emergence of He avy M etal. W hile the ter m s rock and rock and

rol l recur within lyrics and album t i t les, this is almost alw ay s

in reference to the actualities of the performance and the energies

to be unleased therein, rather than to historical mythologies of

rock music.

I t may be argued that rock music cul ture exhibi ts a

cont inuous tension between a discourse wherein is evident a

modal ized relat ionship to rock music 's history and mythologies,

and a d iscourse of au th ent ic i ty and presence . The t rans form a

tions of country-rock groups such as The Eagles or Poco from

genre revival ists to purveyors of a mainstream eclect icism

demonstrate one response to this tension, clearly shaped by

commercial constraints . More recent ly, competing defini t ions

of punk have l ikewise reflected this tension, some seeing in i t a

self-conscious minimalist reduct ion of rock song structures and

other regarding i t as the expression of raw energy.

The response of American rock cri t ic ism to Heavy Metal

in the early-mid 1970s was consistent ly a negat ive one. The

increased reliance of rock crit icism, such as that in olling

Stone, on the terms of journalist ic fi lm crit icism, resulted in i ts

valuing fideli ty to basic generic structures and links to the

archive of American popular music . (The enormous enthusiasm

accorded Bruce Springsteen is reveal ing in this respect . ) The

emphasis on the individual career or genre as the context within

which records were evaluated accompanied the rise of the

serious record review . These new emp has es not only dimin

ished the interest in Heavy Metal , to which these cri teria were

applicable only in very l imited ways, but they made the audience

a relatively minor focus of rock crit icism, as the latter moved

away from the pop-journal ist ic or counter-cul tural concerns of

a few years earlier.

These developments had two principal effects on Heavy

Metal ' s place within the discourses of rock cul ture. On the one

hand, cri t ical dismissal frequent ly resul ted in Heavy Metal

musicians employing a discourse of populism, whose main tenet

was that cri t ics had lost touch with broad sections of the rock

audience. On the other, this presented cri t ics with the di lemma

of responding negat ively to a current within rock music without

employing the terms t radi t ional ly used to condemn rock music



114

overal l (sameness, loudness, musical incompetence), or those

with greater acceptabi l i ty within rock cul ture, but inappropriate

in this case (commercial ism, standardizat ion). Only Creem

magazine was able, for a l imited t ime, to construct a relatively

coherent discou rse wh ich al lowed for a qual i f iedly pos i t ive

response to certain types of Heavy Metal , primari ly by placing

these within a genealogy of bad-boy or punk-ish currents within

rock history.

Accompanying this expulsion from the dominant value

system of rock crit icism, the lack of historiographical

self

r e f e re n t i a l i t y , a n d t h e n e t w o rk of i n s t i t u t i o n a l su p p o r t s

described above, is the almost total lack of hobbyist activity

sur rou ndin g Hea vy M etal in the 1970s. Un ti l recent ly, par t ici

pat ion in Heavy Metal cul ture was not accompanied by record

collecting on a large scale, the hunting down of rare records,

the reading of music-oriented magazines, or high recognition of

such things as record labels or producers. To the extent that a

Heavy Metal archive existed, i t consisted of albums from the

1970s on major labels, constantly in print , and easily available

in chain record stores. There was thus l i t t le basis for the

presence, within Heavy Metal audiences, of complex hierarchies

based on famil iari ty with the music, possession of obscure

records, or relat ionships of opinion leadership as determinants

of taste and acquisi t ion pat terns. An infrastructure of importers,

special i ty stores, independent labels, and fanzines was almost

non-existent in Heavy Metal cul ture during the early 1970s,

and has emerged only to a l imited extent in the 1980s.

In i ts distance, both from Top 40 culture, and from the

mainstream of cri t ical discourse on rock music, Heavy Metal

in the 1970s was the current least marked by rock culture's

usual processes of contextualization. It is st i l l rarely the case,

for example, that Heavy Metal cuts are played on the radio for

their nostalgic or oldies value; they are pres ente d imp lici tly

as exist ing contemporaneously with recent material , with none

of the t ransi tory resonances of Top 40 or the contextual izat ion

within individual careers or genres which the rock press brings

to bear upon other forms.

The specificity of Heavy Metal, in a sense, may be said to

l ie in the apparent ly paradoxical relat ionship between two of i ts

principal attributes. On the one hand, as suggested, i ts audiences

were not involved in the music in an intensely hobbyist fashion

and they lacked most of the features of a musical subculture.



115

At the same t ime, however, these audiences exhibi t coherent

and consistent taste pat terns which dist inguish them from the

casual audiences for eclect ic , t rans-generic examples of rock

music.

2]

asculinity

That the audience for Heavy Metal music is heavi ly

male-dominated i s genera l ly acknowledged, and s ta t i s t ica l ly

confirmed.

4

Clearly, the performers of Heavy Metal are almost

exclusively male, recent except ions such as Girlschool being

accorded at tent ion most often for their s ingulari ty . In this

sect ion, I tentat ively explore two aspects of Heavy Metal ' s

relat ionship to male gender styles: the place of i ts audiences

within a l imited typology of such styles, and the iconography

that has come to surround this music.

Rock culture both offers and draws upon a variety of male

gender styles, of which a l imited number wil l be discussed here.

A crucial determinant of such styles, I would argue, is the

relat ionship between the possession of knowledge and the

deployment of this knowledge within social interact ion, the

presentat ion of the physical body, and the construct ion of a

stance as a gendered subject . The deployment of knowledge in

the adoption or construction of a gender style may be called

the erot icizat ion of this kno wle dge , if by erot icizat ion

we designate a process whose significance is primari ly internal

to male peer cultures, and is not based to any great extent on

measurable or observable effects produced in those to whom

these styles or stances might be directed. Rock music cul ture,

as a result of i ts significance within youth peer cultures overall ,

provides a privi leged reservoir of knowledge sui table for

deployment in these ways.

One of the problems in the study of Heavy Metal arises in

at tempting to reconci le the observat ion that heavy involvement

in rock music—as a collector, reader of the rock press, etc.

is pr im ari ly a ma le pu rs uit (see Frith & M cRo bbie 1978/79)

with the recognition that these activit ies are for the most part

abse nt from the mo st m ascu l inist of rock aud iences , that

surrounding Heavy Meta l .

Within male youth culture, a strong investment in archivistic

or hobbyist forms of knowledge is usual ly devalorized, mar

ginalized as a component of what in North America is called

nerd cul tu re. Th is m argin al izat io n is not sim ply directed at



116

intellectual or knowledgeable males; rather, i t involves specific

relat ionships between knowledge and the presentat ion of the

physical body.

If, within a typology of male identity patterns, Heavy Metal

l isten ers are in a rel atio ns hip of po lari ty to ne rds , this is

primari ly because the former do not usual ly regard certain

forms of kno wle dge -po ssess ion (par t icularly those derived

from print media) as significant components of mascul ini ty.

Stated schem atical ly, the nerd is dist ingu ished by his inabi l i ty

to t rans la t e knowledge in to soc ia l ly -accep tab le fo rms o f

competence, and more mascul inist peer groupings (such as that

const i tut ive of Heavy Metal cul ture) by their emphasis on

competences demonstrable in social s i tuat ions exclusively.

Interest ingly, nei ther of these groups is seen to partake of what

the dom inan t disco urse w ith in rock cultu re ha s defined as cool.

Cool may be said to involve the eroticization and s tylizatio n

of knowledge through i ts assimilat ion within an imagery of

competence, experience, and detachment . Increasingly, through

out the 1970s, the imagery of a wide range of Anglo-American

rock perform ers (Lou Reed, Dav id Bow ie, Pa tty Sm ith, Iggy Pop,

Bryan Ferry, etc.) based i tself on the integration of street

wisdom, a certain i ronic invocat ion of rock mythology, and,

in some cases, gender ambigui ty (whose overriding significance

was as an index of experience) within relat ively coherent styles

and physical stances. The recurrence of black leather, or of

rebel posture s in the iconography surro und ing such music

never resul ted in i ts assimilat ion within the more mascul inist

tendencies within rock cul ture, s ince these motifs overlapped

con sidera bly w ith those of gay cul ture, or involved a significant

degree of intelle ctua lizatio n (such as the use of cam p ).

Since the mid-1970s, a current has emerged that occupies

a posi t ion equ idistan t betw een the cool and m ascu l inist

stances described above, and which has been a central com ponent

of the FM rock mainstream. Bruce Springsteen, John Cougar,

Bob Segar, and numerous others play on variants of a stance

that has integ rate d both the cool ins crip tion of a m odalized

relat ionship to rock history and mythology and the anthemic

authent ici ty of presence whose ful lest f lowering occurs within

Heavy Metal . What part icularly serves to dist inguish this

hy br id from the more pu re ex am ples of cool is the relativ e

absenc e in the former of andr ogy nou s m otifs, and the celebration,

within songs, of ri tuals of male peer group interaction (albeit

with varying degrees of detachment).





118

seen as the development of certain tendencies present within

psychedel ia . I t is known, for example, that within the hippy

counter-cul ture fantasy l i terature such as Tolkien 's Lord

of th

Rings w as w idely read and pro vided motifs for a wid e range

of examples of poster art , songs, album covers, and so on.

In progressive rock of the 1970s, album covers by artists such

as Roger Dean, which were commercialized in poster and book

form, represented a continuation of this current. The iconography

of Heavy Metal culture, as i t became more coherent by mid-

decade, grew out of one part icular st rand within this overal l

tendency: that of heroic fantasy l i terature and i l lustrat ion,

most closely associated with f ict ional characters such as Conan

the Barbarian. Dominated by an imagery of carnage, and mildly

pornographic, the i l lustrat ive style which emerged around

Heavy Metal may be seen as a mascul inizat ion of the fantasy

elements present within psychedel ic cul ture.

As this iconography came to dominate within Heavy Metal

cul ture there was a prol i ferat ion of fantasy and satanic imagery

as elements of vehicle decor, pinball machine thematics, poster

art , T-shirt and jean jacket i l lustration, and so on. For the most

part , this tendency has involved the inscribing of a mascul inist -

heroic element within the fantast ic or myst ical motifs that

surrounded psychedel ic and, later , progressive rock. These

motifs increasingly stand out against the geometrical-minimalist

and retro design principles that became widespread within rock

music fol lowing the emergence of punk and new wave.

IV . ON LUSION

Heavy Metal is at once the most consistently successful

form of rock music and the most marginalized within the

discourse of inst i tut ional ized rock cul ture. That l i terary cri t i

cism is not regularly unset t led by the populari ty of Harlequin

Romances, while North American rock cul ture regards Heavy

M etal as a prob lem is sy m pto m atic of the tensio n in the 1970s

between the ascension of cri t ical discourse on rock music to

respectable inst i tut ional si tes and the populist reading of rock

music as an important underpinning of that discourse.

Heavy Metal in North America offers perhaps one of the

purest examples of involvement in rock music as an activity

subordinate to, rather than determinate of, peer group formation



119

—one reason, perhaps, for the restriction of i ts appeal to l imited

age groups. While involvement in disco or punk very often

determines choices as to the types or si tes of interpersonal

interaction, or even the selection of occupations or places to

live,

involvement in Heavy Metal, for the most part , does not.

In the last five years, both the nature and place of Heavy

Metal have undergone a number of t ransformat ions . The

fol lowing summary remarks , whi le by no means exhaust ive ly

characterizing Hea vy M etal s more recent developm ents, sh ould

at least suggest directions for further research:

1.

Following the cross-ferti l izations at the beginning of the

1980s, which saw numerous hybrids of Heavy Metal and both

symphonic and mainstream rock, 1984 has seen, in certain

quarters, the resurgence of a new purism. The rise of independent

labels disseminat ing Heavy Metal , and the new wave of Bri t ish

Heavy Metal bands, are indices of an emergent Heavy Metal

subcul ture with more of the t radi t ional features of rock music

subcul tures. At the same t ime, a return to a purist form of

Heavy Meta l has been promoted by Album-Oriented Rock

consul tants as one possible response to the crisis of Album-

Oriented Rock radio.

2. The relat ionships of Heavy Metal to the new Top 40

mainstream const i tuted primari ly around black-and-white dance

music, has produced further retrenchment , as Heavy Metal is

often proferred as the refuge of authenticity (and, implicit ly,

of mascul inist values). Amid the shift ing coal i t ions of mid-

1980s rock genres, with the re-enfranchisement of young

teenagers and females as significant forces in the music markets,

Heavy Metal is often presented as anti-fashion, anti-commercial ,

and authent ic . The fragmenta t ion of post -punk, and movement

of i ts dance components into the mainstream, has been such

that much hard-core or neo-punk music now occupies a structural

posit ion similar to that of Heavy Metal vis-à-vis this mainstream.

Each now represents an almost exclusively mascul inist response

to this mainstream, and profers a discourse of authent ici ty and

ant i-fashion. While a highly intel lectual ized hard-core avant-

garde continues to develop, i t must be noted that the level of

female inv olve m ent one found at the t im e of pu nk s em ergence

has been lost .

3. F inal ly, mention should be made of the documentary-

parody on Heavy Meta l , This is pinal Tap , an insightfu l



120

ca ta loguing of many t ra i ts of Heavy Meta l cul ture . Par t icula r ly

perceptive , in my view, are such detai ls as the debased, la te-

1970s New Wave fashion motifs (skinny leather t ies , leopard-

skin pants ) adopted by the music ians in an apparent and inept

concession to fashion, and the mystical component of Heavy

M etal ico nog raphy , ep itomized here in the grou p s u se of a

recons truc ted Stonehenge as par t of a s tage show.



121

N O TES

1. Oligopoly

is a

term dra w n from economic ana lysis w hich

refers

to the

control

of an

indus t ry

by a

l imited number

of

corporat ions.

2.

I use the

term Heavy Meta l

to

designate those forms

of

music

which

the

discourse

of

rock culture

has

come

to

call He avy M etal,

without entering into complex discussion

of the

generic trai ts

of

this

music. Clearly, the more this term has become accepted within rock

culture, the more it has become the bas is of the cohering of a number

of iconographie, musical,

and

promotional s tyles ,

so

tha t

the

exis tence

of

the

term itself

has

been

a

factor

in

shaping

the

development

of

this

music

and the

cul ture tha t surrounds

it.

3.

While

the

bases

for

comparison

are

limited,

the

American

record industry

in the

1970s resembled

in

cer ta in ways

the

American

film industry following

the

anti- trust decis ions

of the

1940s which

divorced

the

product ion

and

dis tr ibution enti t ies from those involved

in exhibition.

In

both cases ,

one

finds

a

high reliance

on

licensing

agreements between major companies and smaller production enti t ies ;

in both cases, there is a fluidity of movement between occupational

roles

and a

tend ency (often tax -rela ted)

for

s ta r s

to

build corpora te

enti t ies around themselves

and

work

in a

var ie ty

of

in terna t ional

locales.

4.

See, for a

recent

proof, New

Wave Beating

Out

Heavy Metal ,

Billboard June

2, 1984; and, for a

discuss ion

of the

demographics

of

Album-Oriented Rock radio, Fornatele

&

Mills

1980: 74).

5. Anthemic is a term drawn from rock criticism; rock songs

and performances

are

considered

to be

anthemic when they appear

to

express

the

concerns

and

impulses associated with youth culture.

6.

The

source

for the

demographic information

on

science-fiction

reading and musical preferences is a personal in te rview in July 1981,

with

Len

Mogel, publish er

of

Heavy Metal

magazine .

The

link be twe en

subcul tura l involvement

in

science-fiction

and

ne rd i shness

is no

more absolute than

are the

definitions

of

these a t t r ibutes ,

but is

often

commented upon within science-fict ion fandom

itself; my

r e ma rk s

are

based

on my

reading

of

seve ral hu nd red science-fiction fanzines from

the 1970s.



22

REFERENCES

ANDERSON, B. , HESBACHER, P. , ETZKORN,

K.P., AND DENISOFF, R.S.

1980:

Hit Record Tre nd s: 1940-1977, Journal of Com munication

XXX/2, 31-43.

BANGS, L.

1976: H eav y M etal, in M iller, J., éd., The Rolling Stone

Illustrated History of Rock and Roll. New York: Rolling

Stone Press /Random House , 302-05.

CHAPPLE, S. and GAROFALO, R.

1980: Rock V Roll is Here to Pay. Chicago: Nelson-Hall .

FORNATELE, P. and MILLS, J.

1980: Radio in the Television Age. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook

Press .

FRITH, S. and McRobbie, A.

1978/79: Rock and Se xu ality , Screen Edu cation , No. 29, 3-19.

HIRSCH, P.

1971: Sociological Ap proa ches to the Pop M usic Phen oem ena,

American Behavioral Scientis t ,

XIV/3,

371-88.

1972:

Process ing Fads and Fashions : An Organiza t ion-Set

Analysis of Cultural Industry Systems, American Journal

of Sociology LXXVII/4, 639-59.

LAMPMAN, R.

1980: The M etaph ysics of A utom ated Rock Radio, Popular

Music and Society Xll/3, 159-64.

MOONEY, H.

1980:

Tw ilight of the Age o A qu ariu s? Po pula r M usic in the

1970s, Popular Music and Society

vii/3,

182-98.

PETERSON, R. and BERGER, D.

1971:

E n t r e p re n e u r s h i p in O rg a n i z a t i o n s : E v i d e n c e fro m

the Popular Music Indu s t ry , Ad m inis t ra t ive Sc ience

Quarter ly ,

XVI/1,

97-107.

TAYLOR, S.

1980: The Se ve ntie s, in Co llins, J., éd., The Rock Primer.

Harmondsworth , Middlesex: Penguin Books , 291-323 .

T I T U S , P.

1980: The Rise and Fall of the First A lbu m , New York Rocker

September, pp. 24-25.

Documents

Rock Music Cultures