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Death Metal: How The Social Defines The Aesthetic

Asja Voronkova Center for Youth Studies at the National Research University – High School of Economics, St. Petersburg asja.voronkova@gmail.com Death And Emotions, 19.11.2011 Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies. Death Metal: How The Social Defines The Aesthetic.

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Death Metal: How The Social Defines The Aesthetic

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  1. Asja Voronkova Center for Youth Studies at the National Research University – High School of Economics, St. Petersburg asja.voronkova@gmail.com Death And Emotions, 19.11.2011 Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies Death Metal: How The Social Defines The Aesthetic

  2. Although using the same basic set of instruments, rock and heavy metal are semantically different Heavy metal culture started as an opposition to the mainstream culture as well as the pacifist hippie culture associated with rock music The main value of heavy metal is “reality” Heavy Metal: An Overview

  3. Heavy metal splits into the mainstream and underground branches, the underground branch acquiring the label “extreme” Extreme metal is characterized by “musical radicalism” – Keith Kahn-Harris. This subgenre continues the search for the “real” on the base of nihilism. “Only death is real” – Hellhammer, “Messiah” Underground Heavy Metal In The 1980s: Transformation Of The Topic Of The “Real”

  4. Musical Features Of Death Metal: Overview Hardcore punk as the main source for new means of expression: • general musical aggressiveness • tendency towards experimenting • chromatic riffing • song structure doesn't depend on harmonies • rhythmic structures and riffing take over the duty to hold the structure together, which suppresses the melody

  5. Deena Weinstein “Heavy Metal: A Cultural Sociology” (1991): a sociologist's point of view that omits musical features, losing important information • However, this method is applicable to old school death metal (of the 1980s), because musically it is not interesting enough

  6. <...> Stare into his eyes Now in his spell Kiss the rotting flesh Now you're in hell Drink from the goblet, the goblet of gore Taste the zombie's drug, now you want more Drifting from the living, joining with the dead Zombie dwelling maggots now infest your head <...> “Zombie Ritual” – Death, from the album Scream Bloody Gore (1987)

  7. ...And There Are Reasons To Be Scared, Indeed • Strategic Defense Initiative Program • Chernobyl disaster • AIDS • Conservative leaders closing their eyes on all of the above Ulrich Beck: Risk Society

  8. Horror movies • Development of visual component in music results in the need for provocation • Pop goes with the topic of sex • Underground is interested in dying! • Zygmunt Bauman: “The remoteness and unreachability of systemic structure, coupled with the unstructured, fluid state of the immediate setting of life-politics...call for a rethinking of old concepts that used to frame its narratives. Like zombies, such concepts are today simultaneously dead and alive.” – Liquid Modernity (2000)

  9. Robbed of the soul. Live in hell.Rise above the charred believings' bowel.Rise above the soul's chalky chains.Give the destiny what it's named.The darkest white brought in death balloons soon to come.Rise above the dark demon's tower.Body's seized the charge.You've killed yourself.Rotting the soul to leave.Ranting, "she's one to give."Darkening your soul to waste.Ranting, "She's soon to gain."Rotting above the tide.Ranting, "She's holding time."Killing their souls in pain.Ranting, "she's one to gain." “Intoxicated” – Obituary, from the album Slowly We Rot (1989)

  10. Semantic Collapse • Death metal becomes relatively popular in the 90s, after the end of Cold War • There is no more need in the ideology of suppressed fears • Result: change of topic!

  11. Conclusion • Early death metal mirrored what the creators of this music felt about the time they were living in • Slow rotting and walking dead seem to be good metaphors for the social processes of the 1980s (Beck, Bauman)

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