Weinstein writes about metal and heavy metal music in the article "Digging the Music: Proud Pariahs." When people think of heavy metal fans they picture an image of a white teenage boy with long hair and a band T-shirt from their favorite heavy metal group. Weinstein confirms this stereotype because he looks at this scene as a subculture directly related to the white working class. In fact, he finds that there are four factors that are important to the members of this group: maleness, youthfulness, whiteness, and blue-collar sentiments in generally that order of importance. These characteristics are probably important to heavy metal fans identifying with each other and with the subculture. It also displays the genre's roots from 60s hippy music and the popular, macho biker gangs. Combining the Utopian ideals with violence and machismo created a strong, rocking, white male sound that all came together once the 60s scenes disbanded giving the long haired men looking for rock a subculture in heavy metal.
Question: Peaceful hippy, Utopian ideals and psychedelic music seem and odd match for rock and roll, violent, macho styles and yet they both came together to form heavy metal. Are there other genres of music that combine such different roots?
Friday, March 27, 2009
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