While it is not clear to me if the motivating power of death metal is generating a vanguard of energetic youth or drawing artistic and creative youngpeople into a trap of naive individualism, I believe that the political significance of musical sound is rooted in the meanings that the participantsconstitute and the consequences of those meanings for the participants’ lives and the larger society.[^motpower] [^motpower]:Harris M Berger, “Death Metal Tonality and the Act of Listening,” Popular Music 18, no.
…>It’s not the music, but the feelings of the people we hear playing that are important to us… it is not the music as a physical stimulus that manipulates our moods, but it is using the music as a communicative offering to influence our feelings in a re-creative process.[^recreat] [^recreat]:Oliver Grewe et al., “Listening to Music as a Re-Creative Process: Physiological, Psychological, and Psychoacoustical Correlates of Chills and Strong Emotions,” Music Perception 24, no.
And there were a couple of responses that succeeded in getting me thinking about more than just why I was asking the question in the first place, which I don’t find so interesting.
…My professor distilled my question in an interesting way, she said I was basically trying to figure out, “How a nice guy like you listens to such violent, angry music.”
The music is weak
impotent, despite their valiant
efforts to churn the air
The bass swallows,
the treble fades
I know the song yet cannot find the parts
Lost in this sea of adolescents and itching
adolescent eagerness.
My mind strains, and finally
begins to find familiar notes
My body wants to jump to sing to play
Yet locked and bound I stand, maybe a sway
But [...]
Drops of dancing light
Waves of dark, deep beneath
Break into a buzzsaw
Pounding, repeating
Primal rhythmic sense appeal
Aggressive cutting, harmonies
searing,
Even the piano
lurks.
A beaming wavering light emerges,
dodges and dips, then fades
Band: Beyond Twilight
Country: Denmark
Album: Section X, released June 15, 2005 in the USA
Label: Nightmare Records
Genre: Sci-Fi themed Progressive Metal
Section X is, to put it bluntly, a masterpiece. With Finn Zierler on Keyboards and as producer and the driving creative force behind the band, they have brushed aside all conventions and created a truly unique piece [...]
THE ESSENTIAL JUDAS PRIEST
Well, I just stopped by wrmc to see if there were any new stuff for me to review, and there was one curious album in the usual pile… “The Essential Judas Priest”. Now I consider myself as much an expert on Heavy Metal as anyone, but Priest are one of the few bands I really [...]