Heavy Metal Music, Texts, and Nationhood : (Re)sounding Whiteness

This book addresses how whiteness is represented in heavy metal scenes and practices, both as a site of academic inquiry and force of cultural significance. The author argues that whiteness, and more specifically white masculinity, has been given normative value which obscures the contributions of women and people of colour, and affirms the exclusory understandings of 'belonging' which have featured in the metal scenes of Norway, South Africa, and Australia. Utilizing critical discourse analysis and critical textual analysis of musical texts, promotional material, and participant-based observation ethnographies, it explores how the texts, discourses, and practices produced and articulated by metal scene members and scholars alike have presented heavy metal as a white, masculine pastime, yet also considers the vital work done by scene members to confront expressions of exclusory misogyny and racism when they emerge in metal scenes. The book will be of interest to researchers and scholars in the fields of metal music studies, leisure studies, sociology of culture and sociology of racism. Catherine Hoad is Senior Lecturer in Critical Popular Music Studies, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand Acknowledgements 6 Contents 8 1 Introduction 9 Metal and Critical Whiteness Studies 13 Objectives and Methodology 16 Structure of the Book 17 Conclusion 18 References 20 2 Mapping Representation in Metal Music Studies 24 Introduction 24 Whiteness, Texts and Leisure 27 Deconstructing the Default Metal Fan 33 Class, Masculine Transgression and Individuality 39 Spectacular Whiteness and Racism 45 Whiteness, Virtuosity and Majority Cultures 48 The Problem(s) with Global Metal 51 Conclusion 54 References 58 3 Norwegian Black Metal and Viking Metal 66 Introduction 66 Mapping Norwegian Whiteness in Metal 69 History of Norwegian Metal and Scholarly Appraisals 70 Norse Ethnosymbolism in Norwegian Black Metal 73 Satanism as a Response to Christianity, Capitalism and Globalisation 74 Radical Transgression, Racism and Spectacular Violence in Black Metal 76 Elitism and Anti-modernity 78 Peripheral Whiteness and Isolation in the Norwegian National Image 80 Politics of Monstrosity, Transgression and Counter-Colonialism 84 Viking Whiteness in the Social and Genetic Imaginary 91 Pastoral Neopaganist Fantasies and the Econational Nordic Self 99 Conclusion 103 References 108 4 Afrikaans Metal in Post-Apartheid South Africa 115 Introduction 115 Imagined African Geographies in Metal Music Studies 121 Whiteness and Afrikaner Nationalism in Post-apartheid South Africa 123 Afrikaners in the ‘Post-apartheid Culture Industries’ 126 Melting Pots and Moral Panics: Heavy Metal Music in Post-apartheid South Africa 127 Afrikaner Nationalism and the Post-apartheid Culture Industry 130 Metal for Modern Afrikaners 136 White Indigeneity, Victimhood and Genocide in Afrikaans Metal 139 Conclusion 146 References 150 5 Normophilia and Banal Nationalism in Australian Extreme Metal 157 Introduction 157 Down Under(Ground): Metal in Australia 161 Violence and Mundanity: Conditions for Australia’s Exclusionary Whiteness 170 Soldiers, Sappers, Saints: White Men as Symbols of Banal Nationalism 174 Anti/Colonial Whiteness and Indigenous Displacement 181 Brutality in the Backyard: Sacred Suburbia and Exclusory ‘Everyday Blokes’ 185 Conclusion 193 References 197 6 (Re)sounding, (re)sealing: Translocal Terrains of Whiteness across Norway, South Africa and Australia 203 Introduction 203 ‘Sealing’ Whiteness 206 Finding the Nation in Metal: Ethnonationalism and Narrative Belonging 207 Mapping Metallic Nationalisms 213 Monstrous, Resistant and Banal Nationalism in Perspective 214 Authenticating Authenticity: Crafting White Indigeneity 216 Colonisation, Displacement and Indigenisation 218 Colonial Ecologies of White Mastery and Black Alienation 222 Redressing Metallic Ideology: Transgression, Rebellion and Progressivism 226 Discursive Transgression—Conservativism and Neofascism 229 Liberalism, Progressivism, Anti-fascism 230 Apolitical Misanthropy 235 Power Structures, Commercialisation, Generational Gaps 237 Conclusion 238 References 242 7 Conclusion 250 Reflections on of the Research 252 Drawing Implications: Consequences and Effects 254 Looking to the Future 256 Coda 259 References 260 Index 262 "This book addresses how whiteness is represented in heavy metal scenes and practices, both as a site of academic inquiry and force of cultural significance. The author argues that whiteness, and more specifically white masculinity, has been given normative value which obscures the contributions of women and people of colour, and affirms the exclusory understandings of 'belonging' which have featured in the metal scenes of Norway, South Africa, and Australia. Utilizing critical discourse analysis and critical textual analysis of musical texts, promotional material, and participant-based observation ethnographies, it explores how the texts, discourses, and practices produced and articulated by metal scene members and scholars alike have presented heavy metal as a white, masculine pastime, yet also considers the vital work done by scene members to confront expressions of exclusory misogyny and racism when they emerge in metal scenes. The book will be of interest to researchers and scholars in the fields of metal music studies, leisure studies, sociology of culture and sociology of racism"--Page 4 of cover