Essay Sample on Heavy Metal Music

Introduction

Heavy metal music is a genre of harsh-sounding rock music that stresses more drumming and guitar instrumentals and high vocals. This genre of music started in the U.K and U.S where it has considerable roots and growth. The practices and form of this genre of music are widely influenced by its global multiplicity and diverse local contexts (Weinstein, 68). Heavy metal music has gained popularity all over the world due to its expansion outside the borders of its birthplace. The music has many fans in Latin America, India, Jamaica, and the Middle East.

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Majority of the fans are mostly open-minded young people who connect with heavy metal music on a cultural level and are strongly influenced by its message or do not appreciate popular mainstream genres. Heavy metal music is currently on the rise in places such as Kenya due to a growth of the urban infrastructure. Its growth is however slow in rural regions due to exclusion regarding communication and music distribution. Indonesia has produced a vast number of local metal bands to this day. The growth of the music in Indonesia is closely linked country's development in a democracy (Weinstein, 56). In European countries, heavy metal music exports and markets have broadened although it provokes controversial opinions.

The Asian music market has adopted heavy metal and has grown significantly. In the Muslim world, heavy metal music is still censored and suppressed. Fans of the music in countries such as Morocco, Egypt, and Tunisia have been repressed and prosecuted on religious and political grounds. Heavy metal music fans are not just individual brought together by the love of the genre of the music. The fans have created a subculture that is often regarded as controversial. The fans have a community of shared values, norms and behaviors. There is a code of authenticity that is central to heavy metal subculture (Eason). The code requires bands to be disinterested in commercial appeal, radio hits and refusal to sell out. The codes dictate opposition to established authority and alienation from the rest of the society. The fans have a total vocation and devote themselves fully to the music by having a deep loyalty to the genre. The fans of the genre are mostly white men who are in lower or middle youth. The fan has activities which include attending concerts, buying albums and contributing to the metal website (Hjelm, Kahn-Harris, and LeVine, 267). To affirm the solidarity of the subculture attending concerts is crucial as it a way of celebrating the music. There is a metal magazine which helps the fans to connect and find information about bands and albums. The fans have fashion identification where they keep long hair, wear leather jackets and band patches (Weinstein, 324). The heavy metal music genre is subculture due to its shared values and a sense of identification associated with the group.

The fans have developed a strong sense of identification and alienation from the rest of society. The fans have beliefs about protesting popular music, challenging wrong politics and opposing established authority. The bands such as the black Sabbath conveyed messages in support of the youth in the 1970s when the economy was slow and unemployment. This strong sense of solidarity and shred beliefs proves heavy metal to be a subculture. Sam Dunn in his effort to understand the heavy metal subculture used participant observation method. He was able to go to concerts and interact freely with the fans of the genre of music. The method is significant as firsthand information about the study is captured. By sharing in the subculture, he can learn and come up with the meaningful conclusion about the study. Sam Dunn carried out natural conversation, interviews and immersed himself fully to the subculture to understand what was happening

Works Cited

Eason, Bill. Metal A Headbanger's Journey. (2016). Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyWeNFTm1hk on date 12/3/2018

Hjelm Titus et al. Heavy Metal: Controversies and Countercultures. Equinox. 2013. Print.

Weinstein, Deena. Heavy Metal: The Music and Its Culture. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2009. Internet resource.