From ‘The Undead will feast’ to ‘The time to kill is now’: Frankfurt school and freudian perspectives on death-metal

Abstract

Based on an analysis of archival interview data from online extreme-metal publications, this article presents and analyzes three perspectives about death-metal philosophy that draw upon Frankfurt School critical social theory and Freudian and neo-Freudian psychology. The three, not mutually exclusive, perspectives are: (a) death-metal as rejection of mainstream, capitalistic use of sex appeal to sell products and secure personal benefits in the workplace; (b) death-metal as identification of shared Freudian repressed destructive (death) instincts which form the basis for community; and (c) death-metal as a way of dealing with the issues of suffering and death which is not denial. It is hoped that these three perspectives will provide us with some insight into death-metal philosophy and the role that the band image and lyrics have played in creating and fostering a loyal and supportive fan community.

The author gratefully acknowledges the helpful comments of Keith Kahn-Harris, Michelle Phillipov, Christopher J. Tolliday, the two anonymous reviewers for this journal and its editor, Paul Watt.

The author gratefully acknowledges the helpful comments of Keith Kahn-Harris, Michelle Phillipov, Christopher J. Tolliday, the two anonymous reviewers for this journal and its editor, Paul Watt.

Notes

The author gratefully acknowledges the helpful comments of Keith Kahn-Harris, Michelle Phillipov, Christopher J. Tolliday, the two anonymous reviewers for this journal and its editor, Paul Watt.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kieran James

Dr Kieran James is a Senior Lecturer in Accounting at University of Southern Queensland (Toowoomba, Australia). He has 16 years experience teaching in Australia and Singapore and has published in leading international and national journals including Accounting Forum, Accounting and Finance, Critical Perspectives on Accounting, and International Journal of Critical Accounting. He is also a regular contributor to the Australian newspaper Socialist Worker. His main research interests are: accounting education, business ethics, critical and Marxist perspectives on accounting and the labour process, employment prospects in accounting for minority groups, ethics education including existentialist perspectives, trade unions in the post-modern world, and the sociology and psychology of popular music especially the death-metal and punk music scenes. He is also a lifelong fan of death-metal, thrash-metal and traditional heavy-metal especially AC/DC, Metallica and Motley Crue. He Vas there in '79 when the dam began to burst' (Saxon, ‘Denim and Leather’, 1981)