Title: Running with the Devil : power, gender, and madness in heavy metal music /
Authors: Walser, Robert
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press ; University Press of New England,
Year: 1993
Subjects: Heavy metal (Music) History and criticism
Abstract: From the Publisher: A Choice Outstanding Academic Book. A musicologist and cultural critic as well as a professional musician, Robert Walser offers a comprehensive musical, social, and cultural analysis of heavy metal in Running with the Devil. Dismissed by critics and academics, condemned by parents and politicians, fervently embraced by legions of fans, heavy metal music attracts and embodies cultural conflicts that are central to our society. Walser explores how and why heavy metal works, both musically and socially, and at the same time uses metal to investigate contemporary formations of identity, community, gender, and power.
Contents: Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1: Metallurgies: Genre, History, And The Construction Of Heavy Metal -- Genre and commercial mediation -- Casting heavy metal -- Heavy metal in the 1980s -- Headbangers -- Nasty, Brutish, and short? Rock critics and academics evaluate metal -- 2: Beyond The Vocals: Toward The Analysis Of Popular Musical Discourses -- Genre and discourse -- Musicological analysis -- Writing about music -- Metal as discourse -- Runnin with the devil -- Negotiation and pleasure -- 3: Eruption: Heavy Metal Appropriations Of Classical Virtuosity -- Classical prestige and popular meanings -- Ritchie Blackmore and the classical roots of metal -- Edward Van Halen and the new virtuosity -- Randy Rhoads: metal gets serious -- Yngwie Malmsteen: metal augmented and diminished -- Popular music as cultural dialogue -- 4: Forging Masculinity: Heavy Metal Sounds And Images Of Gender -- Behind the screen: listening to gender -- No girls allowed: exscription in heavy metal -- Kiss of death: misogyny and the male victim -- Living on a prayer: romance -- Nothing but a good time? Androgyny as a political party -- Real men don't wear makeup -- 5: Can I Play With Madness? Mysticism, Horror, And Postmodern Politics -- Professing censorship: the PMRC and its academic allies attack -- Suicide solutions -- Mysticism and postmodernism in heavy metal -- Horror and history -- Guns N' Roses N' Marx N' Engels -- Appendix 1: Heavy metal canons -- Appendix 2: Heavy metal questionnaire -- Notes -- Select discography -- Select bibliography -- Index.