Metal Music and the Aesthetics of Representation

ABSTRACT

Metal music is here to stay, by all outward appearances, mainly, as I shall argue, by virtue of its expressive properties. Old calumnies excoriating metal for promoting immorality and the dark arts have collapsed under their own weight. Yet this article makes the harder case for representation as a value added to metal aesthetics. Metal goes so far as to assess ancient and modern foreign policy and to represent classical art forms. Philosophical aesthetics offers new insights into metal music, as shown via the article’s discussion of debates involving Roger Scruton, Stephen Davies, and Peter Kivy, among others.

KEYWORDS:

• metal music
• aesthetics
• representation
• expression

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ Ulrich, “Metallica: From Metal to Main Street.

² Zosimov, “Russian Rock Concert.”

³ Anselmo, “Full Disclosure.”

⁴ “Gorbachev Succession,” iv.

⁵ Ibid., remarks by Nicholas Burns, ixx.

⁶ Shevtsova, August 1991, 8.

⁷ Zosimov, “Russian Rock Concert.”

⁸ Scruton, “Representation in Music,” 286.

⁹ Ibid., 278.

¹⁰ Ibid., 283.

¹¹ Debussy, “Voiles.”

¹² Scruton, “Representation in Music,” 285.

¹³ Davies, “Expression of Emotion,” 300.

¹⁴ Davies, “On Defining Music,” 552.

¹⁵ Davies, “Representation in Music,” 17.

¹⁶ Kivy, “Listening,” 24.

¹⁷ Kivy, “Mood and Music,” 275.

¹⁸ Beato, “Top 5 80’s Metal Guitarists.”

¹⁹ “Guitarist Vivian Campbell Discusses Working with Def Leppard.”

²⁰ Talmor, “The Aesthetic Judgment,” 108.

²¹ Tolstoy, What is Art, 92.

²² Miller, “Creative Producers and Gender Relations,” 36.

²³ Walser, “Eruptions,” 304. Alone among metal virtuosos, Yngwe Malmsteen has (rightly or wrongly) developed a reputation for being a diva.

²⁴ Ibid., 287.

²⁵ Ibid., 277.

²⁶ Kivy, “Emotions in the Music,” 628.

²⁷ Kivy, “Listening,” 24.

²⁸ Glickman, “Creativity in the Arts,” 183.

²⁹ Thakur, “Original Music Defines Our Industry.” Addressing allegations of patronage systems in Bollywood lies outside the scope of the present study.

³⁰ Segovia, paraphrased in A New Look at Segovia, vol. 2, 188. Maestro John Williams famously disparaged Segovia’s influence as a teacher, but most experts like Julian Bream separate the Spanish master’s personal idiosyncrasies (if any) from his goal to expand the guitar’s “very listenable repertory” across the globe: see “Julian Bream, Maestro of Guitar and Lute, Dies at 87.”

³¹ Li, “DragonForce Herman Li reacts to Tina S.”

³² Goodman, Ways of Worldmaking, 9–10.

³³ Wolterstorff, “Toward an Ontology of Artworks,” 244.

³⁴ Levinson, Music, Art, and Metaphysics, 50.

³⁵ Davies, “Rock versus Classical Music,” 203.

³⁶ Ibid., 197.

³⁷ Ibid., 202. The abbreviation DAW means digital-audio workstation.

³⁸ Moreover, it is impossible to quantify the number of protesters arrested by Russian riot police for demonstrating against the invasion of the Ukraine, but a series of articles in the Moscow Times estimates a total of roughly 1,000 arrested prior to the government’s general conscription order, which produced a veritable flood of deserters escaping across the Russian border, including over 200 on one day: “More than 200 Detained in Ukraine Protests Across Russia.”

³⁹ “Russians Are Listening to More Heavy Metal, Sad Music”; Passenger is a sensitive one-man folk music band from the UK.

⁴⁰ Ibid.

⁴¹ Wolterstorff, “Toward an Ontology of Artworks,” 251.

⁴² Miller, “What Makes Heavy Metal ‘Heavy’?” 80.

⁴³ Kivy, “Emotions in the Music,” 636.

⁴⁴ Levinson, “Music as Narrative,” 132.

⁴⁵ Bryson, Word and Image, 5.

⁴⁶ Genette, Paratexts, 3.

⁴⁷ Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, 1.1.7–8.