Heavy Metal essay (2)

The use of drugs, however, is a form of violence against self, just as satan and hell come into play once life on this earth is over. Taken together, and combined with the sound, image and attitude of most bands, heavy metal may be said to be presenting an aesthetic of violence, even of death²⁹. Band names include Iron Maiden—a torture device, Poison, Megadeth, Mercyful Fate, Broken Bones and Suicidal Tendencies. Artists pose in aggressive stances, sometimes carrying knives and wearing studs. Concert performances are rife with guns and axes, blood, mock hangings, mock sacrifices, snakes, doll mutilations, explosions, whips, leather, and fire³⁰. Rocker Ted Nugent is well-known as a wild game hunter, and many band members are notorious for destroying hotel rooms³¹. Fans at concerts express their enjoyment by “head banging”, throwing themselves into the crowd, and on occasion, accidentally hurting themselves imitating some aspect of the concert act. Some have naturally claimed, therefore, that heavy metal incites kids to violence. Ozzy Osbourne has even been sued for allegedly inspiring a young boy to kill himself with the song “Suicide Solution” (he was acquitted). There have also been incidents of fans rioting and destroying seats at metal concerts, but these have largely been resolved through the efforts of the artists themselves, and they have never been as bad or common as those which occur at British soccer games³², for instance. Supporters argue that as heavy metal is “a soundtrack to teenage emotion”³³, the aggression is an attempt to inspire feeling, not action, and that it is thus a safe outlet for male adolescent tension.

In fact, the violence is just used to give the music an appearance of danger and make it especially appealing to young boys—and boys only. Heavy metal is “cock” rock, “a masturbatory celebration of penis power” from which not only adults but girls are structurally excluded³⁴ at several levels, from the emphasis on the technical phallus—the volume, size and quantity of the equipment used³⁵, to the aggressive and boastful performance style, with artists displaying their bodies and using their mikes and guitars as symbols of pineal power. Even the songs are composed on the basis of arousal and release³⁶. Machismo also extends offstage, where heavy metal performers lead the lives of “rampant travelling men, smashing hotels and groupies alike”³⁷, and making “a big macho point of drinking lots of Budweiser”³⁸. Even flirting with death is hyper-masculine. In metal imagery, men are primal and beast-like, and women are symbols of conquest. They belong in the scene only as signs of success, existing to pay homage to the men and offer them sexual accessibility with no ties³⁹. Groupies are the ultimate manifestation of this role.

As is usual in metal, the sexism is not subtle. Lyrics range from the suggestive—“Let me put my love into you” (AC/DC), “Love gun” (Kiss), “Going to give you every inch of my love” (Led Zeppelin, “Whole Lotta Love”), to the obscene—“(Animal) Fuck Like a Beast” (WASP—We Are Sexually Perverted), “I’m going to force you at gunpoint/To eat me alive” (Judas Priest), and “Turn around bitch I got a use for you/Besides you ain’t got nothing better to do/And I’m bored” (Guns’n’Roses). The latter’s album cover also originally featured a painting of a woman being raped by a robot; when objections were raised it was moved to the inner sleeve⁴⁰, supplanted by semi-satanic skulls. As well, heavy metal videos often feature “beautiful girls, wearing hardly anything and draping, rubbing, crawling and otherwise displaying themselves”⁴¹, who are sometimes put in cages and/or in chains. And many artists spend a great deal of time bragging about their sexual conquests.

One real consequence of this is that “except for Heart and Pat Benetar, heavy metal’s macho maidenhead remains fundamentally unbreached”⁴², and even these stars “ont quelque chose du groupie”⁴³. Heart is not really metal—their music is too soft and poppy—and Benetar has not sold as well recently, perhaps because “most heavy-rock fans are in their mid-teens and don’t want to go and see someone who looks like their mom wearing a miniskirt strutting about”⁴⁴. There are only two roles women in metal seem able to adopt—slut and butch. Except for Benetar (slut) and Joan Jett (butch), few have achieved much commercial success: Canadian Lee Aaron gained notoriety by being chained, half-naked and sweating, in her videos, but she is now singing show tunes instead. The Runaways were teenage girls who, under the complete dominance of their male manager, were presented as jailbait, and thus were never taken seriously. Alumnae Lita Ford continues to strive for heavy metal success; she recently posed naked behind a guitar on her poster—“I think a 14-year-old boy’d love that!”⁴⁵--for publicity. That is all she got. Wendy O Williams, a razor-stropped ex-stripper who chainsaws televisions on stage, “manipulates all the standard heavy metal cliches”⁴⁶ but does not sell a lot of records. Naturally, most women singers do not even make the attempt. As Canadian singer Sass Jordan said, “It just looks too weird to see a woman playing heavy rock”⁴⁷.

The Fans

Nevertheless, “there are more and more women enjoying heavy metal music”⁴⁸. They are a different sort of fan than the boys, however, primarily in that metal is not be the only kind of music they listen to. They select certain bands of various genres as being worthy of attention, including some heavy-metal artists. Metal-inspired teen idols Bon Jovi and Def Leppard, both of whom are “cuter” than your average heavy metaller, have many female fans, who seem in this case to be assuming the standard homage paying role. However, “ugly” bands such as Metallica, Motley Crue and Guns’n’Roses also have significant factions of women followers, who were perhaps introduced to them by their boyfriends. How do they share in the celebration of their own subordination? Most likely they simply enjoy the feeling the music gives them, much as the boys do. Ellen Willis is a case in point. A feminist who had difficulty reconciling her political beliefs with the messages being transmitted in the rock music she loved, she finally decided that the appeal lay below the surface:

A similar process, in fact, is probably going on with the vast majority of heavy metal fans, who are basically “good kids... they never give me any trouble”⁵⁰, according to a paraphernalia shop owner. They are not the passive receptacles of the music’s explicit messages; they know they are participating in a “fantasy of a community of risk” with little basis in reality. The most popular bands are not the most vulgar—Metallica, at number one,⁵¹ lyrically and symbolically eschews satanism, violence and sexism for “an admirable desire to expose corruption, the justice system, and the ravages of war and discrimination”⁵². Furthermore, the fans are aware of the constant, evident, humorous and fun-loving side to metal that is always missed by the protestors. In its very obviousness, heavy metal is “the most complete example of rock as mardi gras”⁵³. Some of their videos straightforwardly mock the metal aesthetics: the diffused sexism of Van Halen’s “Hot for the Teacher”, the cartoon violence of Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” (both of which were protested), and the hilarious posturings of Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way”, for instance. The film parody Spinal Tap was in a sense homage⁵⁴. Interviews with the artists, as revealed in Penelope Spheeris’ film documentary The Metal Years, are inevitably light-hearted; these are funny guys, whose only “message” is to not take life—or them—so seriously. It is all a joke. Many of the bands are just straight-forward dumb and fun-loving, Ratt, the Scorpions and Slade (You Boyz Make Big Noize) being prime examples. Heavy metal is

In this sense it has the “soul of conservatism”⁵⁶.

For the time being metal offers a fun, dangerous-appearing alternative to the “glib blandness of modern corporate existence”⁵⁷, but it does not signify true rebellion —just the delaying of the inevitable. The life options offered by heavy metal are fairly limited. There is no place for adult fans. A disturbed few do choose the path of self-destruction, and in this way manage to stay young forever. The vast majority of former metal fans, however, give in to encroaching aging, cut their hair, put on their neck braces and keep their records around as fond memories of youth that they cannot stand to listen to now. The rest, the eternal optimists, opt for the eternal teenagehood of the heavy metal scene itself, seeking the brass ring as writers, club owners, deejays, possibly groupies, and of course, as performers. What else is there? Unlike punk or rap, metal does not advocate trying to change (or hurt, damage, destroy, eschew) the system—in fact, it embraces the system. The system is making them rich. In essence, heavy metal is the “real corporate rock”⁵⁸.

Conclusion

Meanwhile, the mainstream has to cope with the continued existence and growing popularity of the form, of the “eternal embarrassment that will not die”⁵⁹. The music press, who vilified and ignored heavy metal in the 1970’s, are now glorifying Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, et aI, and using them as the standard to judge the new crop. To wit: “Led Zeppelin’s ‘Whole Lotta Love’ sounds better now than ever, especially in light of its hideous spawn”⁶⁰. Other bands are dismissed as mere rip-offs. A few groups do receive critical approbation—most notably Metallica—but reviews are still not based on popularity, and fans are quick to respond in kind:

Poison have more of the accoutrements of success than rock critics do; therefore they are better. The fans understand. MuchMusic sees fit to keep heavy metal videos separate from the rest of its programming, isolated into their own “Power Hour”. Spheeris’ The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years documents the LA glam-metal scene, talking to the stars, aspirants, and inspirations of it. The film has received mostly positive reviews, but one did advise that parents go see it as a dire warning of what their children are getting involved with⁶². The Grammy’s gave out a “Heavy Metal” award for the first time ever this year. Jethro Tull, “an eclectic, electric, amalgamation of jazz, classical and folk”⁶³ received it. Most fans were wondering what they were even doing in the category. Heavy metal may have to adopt a mainstream approach someday. But of course, then it will not really be heavy metal. It is all in the attitude.