Nicola Allett Department of Sociology University of Warwick Email: n.f.tovey@warwick.ac.uk

1. “As soon as that track starts I feel...” Unravelling Attachments to Extreme Metal Music with ‘Music Elicitation’ Nicola Allett Department of Sociology University of Warwick Email: n.f.tovey@warwick.ac.uk

2. Listening to ‘Darkthrone’... As soon as that track starts I feel like this change comes over my body and I feel [pause] I feel totally powerful. I feel like I am standing on my own on a wind-swept plain, or something like that, and I feel like it brings out something. It puts me in a trance-like, almost psychotic, mood. There is something really primal in me, that [pause] it doesn’t come out here. I’m not really an aggressive person but it makes me just, [pause] I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. (Ben) Darkthrone. ‘En as I dype Skogen’ on Transylvanian Hunger. 1994. Peacevile Records

3. Researching Music Cultures • CCCS - Spectacular and working class music subcultures. • Post-subculture - Points to the shifting of musical preference. • Return to subculture - Continued existence of stable, committed music-centred identities. • Fandom - Focus on fan relationship with music artist not the music. • My PhD Research - considers that fans/music scene members have distinct relationship with music, particularly in relation to affective feeling.

4. Using Music as a Method • To Elicit Memory We all know of occasions when a popular song or piece of music is suddenly heard, connects us seemingly in a very direct manner to a particular time in our past, perhaps quite long ago. It can recreate for us the texture of a specific experience, including the way that it became assimilated into our own interiority and was felt in a quality that we never quite put into words (and perhaps cannot now). (Keightley and Pickering, 2006: 153) • To Elicit Response and Discussion

5. Music Elicitation • Members bring a music track to the research group. • The group listens to a group member’s music track. • Members are supplied with notebook to write down thoughts/feelings/reaction. • After track is played, members take turns to describe reactions. • Finally return to the participant who chose the music to give an account of their reaction accompanied by an explanation for their choice of track. • This is repeated with each participants choice of music. • Discussion follows.

6. Resulting Data FEELING TALK • Reveal feelings associated with Extreme Metal music. • Reveal the shared languages used to express the feelings from Extreme Metal. COLLECTIVE DISTINCTIONS • Highlight the group’s shared distinctions of taste. • Discussions of likes and dislikes. How music is personally and collectively judged FAN PRACTICES • Classifying of genre. • Descriptions of the listening experience • Use of music in everyday life

7. Some Considerations... • The method needs clear direction from the researcher. • Size of group • My respondents still found it difficult to verbalise ‘feeling’.

8. In Conclusion... • Music elicitation proved successful in gaining thick descriptions of my respondents feelings and affective attachments to Extreme Metal music. In addition it produced valuable data about fan practices, and scene hierarchy. • It is a valuable method for researchers of youth, music culture and fandom. • It points to the possibility of using other forms of media to elicit response within interviews. • Experimenting with qualitative methods can produce exciting results! • Finally, I urge researchers of music culture/fandom to consider the significance of the individual and collective relationship with music.