Critical Review: "Digging the Music: Proud Pariahs"

Weinstein’s article describes Metal and its audience in detail, characterizing its various aspects as she witnessed through her research. First, she defines the core audience of Metal, a genre that seems to be somewhere in between a “commercial” (or “mass”) genre and a “folk” genre. Metal is an example of both a “Taste Public” and a Subculture, as its audience shares aesthetic values, but also shares a way of life consistent with the musical form. Metal’s audiences, though they have similarities, are distinct and change according to geography, time, and which subgenre they are a part of. According to Weinstein, the stereotypical Metal fan is “male, white, and in his midteens.” She explains the roots of each of these characteristics and also discusses the roots of Metal itself.

The Heavy Metal subculture is a direct outgrowth from the youth culture of the 1960s, which was dominated by white, male, blue collar workers. When the 60s subculture collapsed, the bikers and hippies it once supported found each other and created Metal. Although not all white, male, blue collar youth are members of the Metal subculture, they constitute Metal’s core audience because Metal seemed to express their discontents and life style. Weinstein provides a hierarchical order for the characteristics of the core Metal scene: maleness, youthfullness, whiteness, and finally, blue collar sentiments. The heavy Metal audience is, at its most basic, masculinist. They strongly value masculine identity and what that represents, and strongly oppose homosexuality. Although females may be accepted into the Metal scene, it is only those who dress in the typical male fashion. Females who dress in a provocative manner are either shunned as sluts or oggled in an objectifying fashion. Metal became a youth scene in response to the antiyouth crusade of the 1970s. Like the Punk subculture, Metal borrowed heavily from prior youth cultures with their mottos of teenage rebellion. Even today, the Metal subculture does not fully include Metal fans once they pass adolescence. The “whiteness” associated with Metal gets its roots around the time of the civil rights movement, when marginal whites began to strongly resent blacks pushing for more rights. Metal is more so a “cultural grouping” than a racially based scene, however, as it tends to tolerate those outside its core demographic who follow its strict codes of dress, appearance, devotion to music and behavior. Many Metal fans come from working class and blue collar homes. In the 1970s, economic crisis and the growth of the middle class life style in the mass media caused blue collar workers to turn to Metal. Although not all Metal fans today are blue collar, it is blue collar ideals (ethos) such as masculinity, sexism, and antibourgeois sentiment that permeate the Metal scene.

Although the core fanbase of Metal is a demographically similar group, the 1980s brought a shift. More nonwhites and females entered the Metal scene, and more subgenres emerged. While the audience of classic Metal remained the same, lite Metal audiences became composed of teenage females, and thus the audience for thrash Metal became exclusively male. Although Metal emerged in Britain, the United States and other European countries soon had fully formed Metal scenes. Weinstein tried to find a pattern in the countries with Metal scenes: they are countries without a strong dominant religion, no severe political struggle that absorbs the commitment of adolescents, and iconography of European Pagan cultures.

Weinstein also discussed Metal music itself, and how it relates to the subculture. Music is “the master emblem of the heavy Metal subculture.” Loudness, bottom sounding pitch, a strong lead vocalist, and virtuosic lead guitarists are all important components of Metal music. Standards for lyrics are less precise, but it seems as though knowing the lyrics to Metal songs is a form of subcultural capital. The fashion of the Metal scene is very specific. The general uniform of the Metal fan is as follows: blue jeans, black T-shirts with band logos (those from tours and concerts are considered the most legitimate), black leather or jean jackets, leather boots, patches, tattoos, pins and rings, and most importantly, long hair. Dancing is practically forbidden to the Metal fan because of Metal’s masculine and youth ideals. Beer and drugs are also an important part of Metal, though drugs are not as important to Metal as they were to the youth counterculture. The blank slack-jawed stare is also representative of a long exhausting night at a Metal concert.

One final aspect of Metal is that it “mythologizes itself.” Metal artists boast about themselves, and fans boast about them too. Bands that romanticize a life of sex, drugs, and “raising hell” thus legitimize it. Members of the Metal scene are convinced that their music is great, and they are thus drawn to it. It is the reciprocity between Metal music and the Metal fanbase that has kept its fans enthralled.

Discussion Question: Females in the Metal scene are either masculinized or objectified. How does this relate to the view of women in Hip Hop culture? Are women as thoroughly accepted into Hip Hop culture if they stick to the male prototype as Weinstein claims “masculinized” women are in the metal scene?