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Beneficial effects of heavy metal music on wellbeing

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• Peer review
• Kate Quinn , clinical psychologist 1 ,
• Angela Glaves , senior lecturer in mental health nursing 2
• 1 South West Yorkshire NHS Foundation Trust, Wakefield, UK
• 2 Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK
• katequinnpsychology{at}gmail.com

We welcome Martikainen and colleagues’ findings highlighting the potential health and wellbeing benefits of exposure to heavy metal music. 1

There is a growing body of work that suggests, contrary to previous assumptions, that listening to heavy metal music and attending heavy metal concerts can be beneficial for mental health. 2 3 For the past three years we have been running a mainly online peer support community for heavy metal fans, Heavy Metal Therapy, focused on mental health promotion for those who find the music enhances their wellbeing. This includes highlighting some of the music’s potential benefits for emotional processing and sense of community. We see from our work a range of future research opportunities looking into the relationship between engagement with heavy metal music and health outcomes.

Competing interests: None declared.

• Martikainen P ,
• Korhonen K ,
• Tarkiainen L

OPINION article

Bang your head: using heavy metal music to promote scientific thinking in the classroom.

• Department of Psychology, MacEwan University, Edmonton, AB, Canada

While heavy metal music may not be something typically covered in an introductory psychology textbook, there are many useful resources from this area of popular culture that can help promote scientific thinking in the classroom. From hidden messages in Judas Priest's music to Slayer being accused of inciting murder, heavy metal music has a long history of unique instances that are directly related to psychology. By incorporating examples from the world of heavy metal, educators can discuss scientific thinking in a way that is engaging and memorable for students.

Helping students think like scientists—that is to apply the rigorous principles of hypothesis testing outside of the classroom—is a challenge ( Willingham, 2008 ). Robert Cialdini proposed that creating mystery in the classroom is an effective means to engage students and promote learning ( Cialdini, 2005 ). Specifically, Cialadini argued that instructors should frame a lecture in the same way a mystery writer frames a novel, by posing a puzzle and providing the information for the reader—or in this case, the student—to solve it. The question, or mystery, can be broadly stated as, “Can music lead people to commit harmful acts?”

Using the Cialadini approach of creating mystery, educators can frame a discussion around music as a way to introduce a variety of topics related to scientific thinking, such as logical fallacies, issues in research methodology, and biases in thinking. For example, the belief that there is a causal link between music and harm could be discussed in terms of the argumentum ad antiquitatem fallacy, also known as the appeal to traditional (e.g., Vaughn and Schick, 1999 ). For over two thousand years, there has been public concern about the impact of certain types of music on behavior. Aristotle stated that “…if over a long time (a person) habitually listens to music that rouses ignoble passions, his whole character will be shaped to an ignoble form” ( Grout, 1988 ). As music has historically been associated with causing harm, people may fall prey to the argumentum ad antiquitatem fallacy and accept the claim of causality between music and harm, without examining any empirical evidence.

Further discussion of fallacies and biases can be grounded in cases where heavy metal has been implicated in graphic and disturbing crimes. Heavy metal music came under intense scrutiny in the 1980's when heavy metal artists, such as Judas Priest and Ozzy Osbourne, were blamed for adolescent violence and suicide ( Martin et al., 1993 ; Weinstein, 2000 ) 1 . The shocking nature of these crimes are memorable, and as such are easily brought to mind when people think of heavy metal music. By discussing the availability heuristic—basing the likelihood of an event on the ease with which it comes to mind—educators can challenge students to consider what evidence they have used to assess the impact of music on behavior ( Kahneman et al., 1982 ).

To facilitate scientific thinking, especially in terms of methodological issues, educators can present cases in popular culture and challenge students to determine the validity of the claims made. One of the most famous cases of heavy metal being implicated with harm is of Judas Priest. The band was charged with planting a subliminal message in the song Better By You, Better Than Me ( Moore, 1996 ; Bushong, 2002 ). Specifically, when the song is played backwards the phrase “Do It” can be heard 2 . In this case, two teenage boys who had spent several hours listening to Judas Priest while drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana went to a local park and attempted suicide with a shotgun. Judas Priest was eventually acquitted of any wrongdoing, though for a somewhat surprising reason. Rather than the case being dismissed on account of the clear empirical evidence that subliminal messages could not cause a person to commit suicide (e.g., Vokey and Read, 1985 ; Egermann et al., 2006 ; Moore, 2008 ), the band was found not guilty because the “Do It,” which can be heard backwards, was not intentionally placed in the song. This case can lead to an interesting class discussion on how extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The claim that a backwards, subliminal message can lead someone to take their own life is an extraordinary claim. Students can be challenged to describe how they would experimentally test the impact of subliminal messages on behavior, followed by a class discussion of how the actual research was conducted in the field (e.g., Vokey and Read, 1985 ). This is an engaging example to help students better understand variable manipulation, demand characteristics, and issues of generalizability. At least in the case of subliminal messages, students will learn that music does not lead to problematic or harmful behavior 3 .

In terms of creating mystery in the classroom, Cialdini suggests that instructors need to “deepen the mystery” and provide more details to the “case.” While there is no evidence that subliminal messages in music produce changes in behavior, there are examples where the link between harm and music is less clear. Norwegian Black Metal, an extreme form of heavy metal music consisting of distorted guitars and vocals, has been associated with murder, arson, and even cannibalism ( Moynihan and Soderlind, 2003 ). To highlight the alarming nature of some of the acts associated with this type of music, educators may want to provide examples incorporating bands such as Mayhem, whose lead singer committed suicide in the band's recording studio in 1991. Upon finding the body, rather than calling the police, the guitarist for the band took polaroid photos and collected pieces of the skull to make necklaces for those he deemed “worthy.” 4

Another example of music associated with disturbing and harmful acts can be found in the case of the band Slayer. In 1996, two teenagers were charged in the murder of a 15-year-old girl ( Horn, 2000 ). The boys claimed they took inspiration to commit the crime from lyrics in the Slayer songs Postmortem and Dead Skin Mask 5 . The parents of the victim sued Slayer and their record label for unlawfully marketing and distributing obscene and harmful products to minors ( Phillips, 2001 ; Potter, 2003 ). The crimes committed in the name of Black Metal and Slayer are very disturbing. While reliance on the availability heuristic provides an explanation as to why people could overestimate the likelihood of music causing harm, the mystery is far from solved.

Students should be challenged with providing the nature of the claim, and then exploring the evidence supporting the claim ( Bartz, 2002 ). Is the evidence sufficient to demonstrate a causal relationship between heavy metal and problematic and deviant behavior? One approach to further engage students is to divide the class into groups to act as the prosecutor or defense in a mock trial of the Slayer murder case. The value in using this case is that the real-world outcome is known. The case did not go to trial, as the perpetrators of the crime had a history of criminal behavior, drug and alcohol abuse, as well as other factors that clearly demonstrated that listening to the music of Slayer was not the cause of the horrific crimes 6 . Cases like Slayer and Mayhem can lead to fruitful class discussion regarding how correlation does not equal causation.

There is a correlational relationship, but not a causal one, between music preference and problematic behavior. People who engage in problematic or criminal behaviors are more likely to listen to problem music, such as Black Metal (e.g., Epstein et al., 1990 ; Hansen and Hansen, 1991 ); however, the style of music a person prefers does not allow us to predict any problematic behavior. Simply put, if someone is wearing a Mayhem t-shirt, we cannot make any predictions about the likelihood that this person will commit a criminal act. If we know though, that a person has burned down a church, we are able to predict which type of music they most likely prefer. In these cases, the impact of music on behavior is mediated by other variables such as psychoticism ( North et al., 2005 ), sensation-seeking ( Litle and Zuckerman, 1986 ; Arnett, 1992 ), or negative family relationships ( Arnett, 1992 ; Took and Weiss, 1994 ).

One of the reasons heavy metal music ideally fits Cialdini's structure of creating mystery in the classroom is that many of the mysteries regarding heavy metal music and harm have been solved. An interesting example, and an ideal one for class discussion, is the impact of the Parent's Music Resource Centre (PRMC), formed in 1985 and led by Tipper Gore ( Chastagner, 1999 ). The PMRC believed that the lyrics in heavy metal music were directly contributing to the rise in suicide attempts and sexual assault among adolescents ( Sampar, 2005 ). The PMRC demanded that albums be censored, leading to the “Parental Advisory” sticker now found on many popular albums. The PMRC implemented measures specifically, putting warning labels on music and trying to ban certain types of music, in order to protect people from the supposedly harmful effects of listening to heavy metal music. The PMRC can be used as a way to introduce further logical fallacies, such as the emotional fallacy (e.g., Slovic and Peters, 2006 ) and the argument from authority ( Smith, 2010 ). The evidence on which the PRMC based their decisions was entirely anecdotal, and the anecdotes were highly emotional. While the members of the PMRC portrayed themselves as experts, none of the members had sufficient expertise in understanding human behavior. The PMRC is an ideal discussion point, as research has been done to demonstrate that the claims made by the organization were incorrect.

Contrary to the concerns of the PMRC, people who were fans of heavy metal music in adolescence fared better in many aspects of their adult lives than people who were not fans. Howe et al. (2015) surveyed people who were adolescent fans of the heavy metal in the 1980's. In comparison to college students and to a middle-aged comparison group, heavy metal fans reported that they were happier during adolescence, and were better adjusted as adults 7 . While the Howe et al. (2015) study shows that listening to heavy metal does not appear to have any negative long-term effects, what about the impact of listening to aggressive music on people who are fans of heavy metal? The PMRC claimed that listening to problematic music would lead to a cause in aggression. Sharman and Dingle (2015) found that listening to extreme music actually led to an increase in positive emotions for people who enjoy this type of music. The data indicate that the PMRC would have been wise to direct their attention elsewhere.

Heavy metal is certainly not the only topic, let alone music, that is associated with problematic behavior. Instructors are encouraged to use Cialdini's approach of bringing mystery to the classroom with other elements of pop culture, such as film, videogames, comic books, and other forms of music to promote scientific thinking. The value of using examples in heavy metal is that instructors can refer to the research that sheds light directly on the relationship between harm and this style of music. By using examples from heavy metal music, instructors are able to pose the question of the relationship between harm and heavy metal, allow students to consider the claims, apply critical thinking skills, propose how these claims should be tested, and finally solve the mystery with data from the relevant literature.

Author Contributions

The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and approved it for publication.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

The reviewer, MD, and handling Editor declared their shared affiliation, and the handling Editor states that the process nevertheless met the standards of a fair and objective review.

1. ^ See North and Hargreaves (2008) for more historical examples of public panic regarding music.

2. ^ To enhance the impact of this example, I encourage educators to allow students to hear the audio of the backwards message in class. The backwards version of the song is available on YouTube.

3. ^ Judas Priest is arguably the most famous case of backwards messaging, though there are many more examples. A thorough list of songs including backwards messaging, which can be useful class material, can be found on Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_backmasked_messages ). A personal favorite is “Weird Al” Yankovic's backwards message in the song, “I Remember Larry.” When played backwards, the listener hears, “Wow, you must have an awful lot of free time on your hands.”

4. ^ For further details on Black Metal and criminal behavior, see Moynihan and Soderlind (2003) .

5. ^ To increase the impact of these examples, I recommend playing parts of these songs, or showing videos of the songs performed live. Both of these songs are available on YouTube.

6. ^ For a detailed example of how critical thinking skills can be related to a legal setting, see Ennis (1987) .

7. ^ Howe et al. (2015) also surveyed groupies and heavy metal musicians. While not the focus of this paper, the results from groupies and musicians can also make for interesting class discussion.

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Keywords: scientific thinking, teaching resources, heavy metal, music, introductory psychology

Citation: Schmaltz RM (2016) Bang Your Head: Using Heavy Metal Music to Promote Scientific Thinking in the Classroom. Front. Psychol . 7:146. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00146

Received: 20 August 2015; Accepted: 26 January 2016; Published: 10 February 2016.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2016 Schmaltz. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Rodney M. Schmaltz, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Suicide, Self-Harm and Survival Strategies in Contemporary Heavy Metal Music: A Cultural and Literary Analysis

• Published: 29 March 2014
• Volume 37 , pages 1–17, ( 2016 )

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• Charley Baker 1 &
• Brian Brown 2  

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This paper seeks to think creatively about the body of research which claims there is a link between heavy metal music and adolescent alienation, self-destructive behaviours, self-harm and suicide. Such research has been criticised, often by people who belong to heavy metal subcultures, as systematically neglecting to explore, in a meaningful manner, the psychosocial benefits for individuals who both listen to contemporary heavy metal music and socialize in associated groups. We argue that notions of survival, strength, community, and rebellion are key themes in contemporary heavy metal music. Through literary-lyrical analysis of a selection of heavy metal tracks, this paper aims to redress the balance of risk and benefit. We argue that listening to this type of music, the accompanying social relationships, sense of solidarity and even the type of dancing can ameliorate tumultuous and difficult emotions. Songs which could be read as negative can induce feelings of relief through the sense that someone else has felt a particular way and recovered enough to transform these emotions into a creative outlet. This genre of music may therefore not increase the risk of untoward outcomes in any simple sense but rather represent a valuable resource for young people in difficulty.

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Willis, Paul. 1977. Learning to Labour: How Working Class Kids get Working Class Jobs . London: Saxon House.

Wilson, Richard E. and Mike Thomas. 2011. “Textual Analysis of Song Lyrics Adopting a Mental Health Diagnostic Standard as Method.” In Can I Play With Madness? Metal, Dissonance, Madness and Alienation , edited by Colin. A. McKinnon, Niall Scott and Kristen Sollee, 25–32. Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press.

Wooten, Marsha A. 1992. “The Effects of Heavy Metal Music on Affects Shifts of Adolescents in an Inpatient Psychiatric Setting.” Music Therapy Perspectives 10 (2): 93–98.

Wright, Robert. 2000. “‘I’d sell you suicide’: Pop Music and Moral Panic in the Age of Marilyn Manson.” Popular Music 19 (3): 365–385.

Young, Robert, Helen Sweeting and Patrick West. 2006. “Prevalence of Deliberate Self Harm and Attempted Suicide within Contemporary Goth Youth Subculture: Longitudinal Cohort Study.” British Medical Journal 332:1058–1061.

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Baker, C., Brown, B. Suicide, Self-Harm and Survival Strategies in Contemporary Heavy Metal Music: A Cultural and Literary Analysis. J Med Humanit 37 , 1–17 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-014-9274-8

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The Effects of Heavy Metal Music on Arousal and Anger

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William Neil Gowensmith, Larry J. Bloom, The Effects of Heavy Metal Music on Arousal and Anger, Journal of Music Therapy , Volume 34, Issue 1, Spring 1997, Pages 33–45, https://doi.org/10.1093/jmt/34.1.33

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Despite the controversy surrounding heavy metal music and ifs effects on listeners' levels of arousal and anger. a methodologically sound experimental study has not tested this relationship. This study incorporated an experimental design in order to utilize individual differences of subjects as a moderating variable in determining the effect of heavy metal music on listeners' self-reported levels of arousal and anger. It was found that heavy metal music aroused all subjects but that increases in subjects' anger levels were due to an interaction of heavy metal music and the listener's musical preference. Overall, subjects who identified themselves as heavy metal fans did not show higher levels of anger than subjects who were not heavy metal fans. It is suggested that the effects of heavy metal music are mediated by subjects' individual differences and that examination of the effects of heavy metal music should take individual factors of the listeners into account.

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Metal Music Studies

Published by Intellect since 2015, the aims and scope of the journal are:

• To provide an intellectual hub for the International Society of Metal Music Studies and a vehicle to promote the development of metal music studies;
• To be inclusive of (but not limited to) sociology, musicology, humanities, cultural studies, geography, philosophy, psychology, history, natural sciences;
• To subject all articles to a double-blind peer-review and publish high-quality, world-class research, theory and shorter articles that cross over from the industry and the scene;
• To be a world leader in interdisciplinary studies and be a unique resource for metal music studies.

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Members of ISMMS get full access to every issue of  Metal Music Studies .

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This peer-reviewed journal provides a focus for research and theory in metal music studies, a multidisciplinary (and interdisciplinary) subject field that engages with a range of parent disciplines. It provides a platform for high-quality research and theory and aims to be a unique resource for metal music studies.

More information can be found at the journal website here.

Watch the founding co-editor of the journal, Karl Spracklen, describe its aims and scope:

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Classical Antiquity in Heavy Metal Music

Click to view front cover image and volume's table of contents. And, now, enjoy a playlist of songs that feature in the volume on Spotify! https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3o9hGYk3LHfs2lcA4gzC6O

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This paper examines the role of cover songs in the continuation of tradition, and in the formation of a musical canon. It explores the connections between 'classical' and heavy metal music as expressed by musicians of said genres, specifically those who partake in both. Furthermore, I argue that the practice of covering works from the Western art music canon in the metal genre, evinces the consequent development of the symphonic metal sub-genre. An embedded investigation attests to Western art music having inspired numerous metal musicians, who have in turn covered said music as a means to show their respect for the tradition. As such, cover versions are essential to continue one tradition in a new direction. Ultimately, these cover versions of classical works liaise classical music and heavy metal, resulting in the formation of the symphonic metal tradition. Covering music also strengthens a musicians' position as authentic artists by demonstrating their belonging to two rites, and through their work of synthesizing grounds for the fusion of aforementioned rites. This research provides a further basis for examining the same phenomenon in other genres of music that demonstrate inter-and intra-generic links. It also provides a base for research into how rock and metal bands construct their own notions of tradition, canon, and authenticity through the music that they create and adapt.

Metal Music Studies

Lewis F Kennedy , M. Selim Yavuz

Given its short history as a self-conscious academic field, metal studies' interdisciplinarity is impressive. Metal studies actively draws upon and engages sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, gender studies, history, geography and, of course, musicology. This special issue of Metal Music Studies, 'Metal and Musicology', is primarily concerned with the latter discipline and its interaction with metal studies. This is the editorial for the 'Metal and Musicology' special issue of Metal Music Studies journal, co-edited by Lewis F. Kennedy and M. Selim Yavuz (2019). The rest of the issue can be found here: https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/intellect/mms/2019/00000005/00000003. Members of the International Society for Metal Music Studies have access to the entire back catalogue of Metal Music Studies journal. Join the society here: https://www.metalstudies.org/membership

Revista Icono14 , Nuria Picón del Campo

The study of music is gathering strength in the academic world, although the scope is still growing, and there are plenty of elements it does not contemplate yet. As a multidisciplinary subject, music has the power of the melody and the power of the lyrics, which, apart from being able to reach any social nook, makes it a gigantic cultural tool with the force of sending any kind of message in a dynamic and effective way. The way in which heavy metal – and especially its symphonic branch – plays with this duality of melody and text, together with the mythological content where its lyrics feed on makes this genre an essential step in this kind of research. This investigation has been focused on symphonic metal as a source of mythological knowledge to build a bridge that links this genre of popular music with one of the most celebrated works of literature of all times: The Divine Comedy: with a double purpose: on the one hand, to demonstrate the importance of this genre within our society and, on the other, to study yet one more field which has not escaped the influence of the Dantesque world.

Kris Fletcher

Bloomsbury Academics

Eleonora Rocconi

This book explores the pivotal role played by ancient mousike-in all its facets-in the development of musical practices and ideas throughout history. The discussion is structured around the key concepts, theoretical models, and aesthetic issues at play – from the educational and therapeutic value of music to its place in the ideal of cosmic harmony and its relationship to the senses and emotions – as well as the function of music in debates around individual and cultural identity. What emerges is a timely reassessment of the paradigmatic value of the Greek model in the musical reception of antiquity in different historical periods. It highlights the ongoing contribution of mousike to modern cultural debates within the realms of classics, musicology, philosophy, aesthetics, anthropology, performance, and cultural studies, as well as in artistic environments, and offers a clear and comprehensive account of its inexhaustible source of inspiration for musicians, theorists, scholars, and antiquarians across the centuries.

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Metal In Theory

Analyzing heavy metal music, distinguished lecture at uc riverside.

I was recently invited by the music department of UC Riverside to give a distinguished lecture as part of their Florence Bayz lecture/concert series. The talk I gave, on December 6, 2023 , drew on two chapters of my ongoing book project, titled Heaviness in Metal Music , which is currently under contract with Oxford University Press. I’m posting the abstract below for anyone who is interested in getting a preview of what I’m working on!

The parts of this talk that were about headbanging are an expanded version of one of my first conference papers , and I’ve got an article version of this chapter in the works that I hope to be able to announce soon.

“Headbanging and Heaviness in Metal Music, and their Origins in ‘White Blues’ (Mis)Understandings of Blackness”

Metal’s roots in the blues are often invoked at the beginning of genre histories, but this invocation often seems to isolate Blackness in a separated past. I argue, however, that heavy metal’s initial and present conditions are shaped by White (mis)understandings of Blackness, with continuing legacies including two central aesthetic practices, heaviness and headbanging.

Song Form and Storytelling in Mainstream Metal

I’m happy to announce that my latest article “Song Form and Storytelling in Mainstream Metal” has just been published by Metal Music Studies ! I’m especially proud of this publication because I think it represents some of my most vivid and accessible writing to date. It’s also the first time I’ve contributed my original research to Metal Music Studies , although I’ve written one or two reviews there before.

You can read the full version of this article at the journal’s website: https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/mms_00092_1

You can read a pre-print version on my Academia.edu page: https://www.academia.edu/96202545/Song_Form_and_Storytelling_in_Mainstream_Metal

The Longest Riff Turnaround in the World? “The Last Hope in a World of Hopes” by Temperance

I was listening to a Spotify-generated power metal playlist recently, and a song by the Italian band Temperance made me do a double take. And by double take, I mean, imagine me snorting my drink out of my nose, making the widest eyes I can make, and saying to myself, “Did that really just happen? Holy shit.”

What was it that caught my attention? Nothing less than the most audaciously prolonged riff turnaround I think I’ve ever heard in my two decades of listening to metal music.

Some of you might ask, what’s a riff turnaround? And what difference does it make if one is long or short?

Some others of you might ask, what were you drinking? Did you really snort it out your nose? Did that hurt? I’m not answering those questions, but I will tell you what a riff turnaround is.

The Music Theory Unicorn in the Most Metal Anime Theme Song Ever Made

“The Rumbling” by SiM is the latest opening/credits song to the shockingly bloody hit anime Attack on Titan , and judging by its Spotify streaming numbers (65 million, and the song’s only been out for 8 months) it’s one of the most-listened-to metal songs of 2022. It’s the most brutal metal song I’ve ever heard used as the theme for a Japanese anime, which makes sense because the show is so unrelentingly violent.

It also has a flattened tonic (Do-flat or De in movable solfege), a note which isn’t supposed to exist.

Why Do-Flat Doesn’t Exist in Traditional Music Theory …

I’ve got to take a step back to explain what I mean by “a note which isn’t supposed to exist.” This note doesn’t exist in a classical music theory system called “solfege.” Solfege is a system where you label each note with a special syllable to track what role it plays in a song’s key or scale. ((This is a system called “movable-do” solfege. There is also a system of “fixed-do” solfege, in which C is always Do, and D is always Re, no matter what key you’re in.)) The home note of a scale, the note that the scale or key is named after, is called “Do.” So if a song is in F major, F is Do; if a song is in G major, G is Do. In a regular major scale, the next note above Do is Re, and the next is Mi, and so on.

I’m Moving to Los Angeles!

I’ve got big news! I’m starting a new job this Fall as an Assistant Professor teaching music theory at Occidental College in Los Angeles. I’ll be joining a department that has been named one of the country’s top music business programs by Billboard magazine. Occidental is close to the center of America’s entertainment industry, and through its faculty and alumni has a lot of connections to the music business. It’s also one of the oldest liberal arts colleges on the West Coast, and word is a certain president spent some time there. Plus they’ve got beautiful weather! On a more personal note, I’ll be back in California where I grew up, and where my parents still live. Which is pretty cool! Although I grew up in Northern California so I’m in for lots of new adventures learning about the south end of the state.

I’ll have some research news to share soon too! And, maybe, I’ll get around to writing a normal blog post again some day. 😎

Book Review: Making Sense of Recordings by Mads Walther-Hansen (2020)

I’m thrilled to share my latest publication, a review of the book Making Sense of Recordings: How Cognitive Processing of Recorded Sound Works by Mads Walther-Hansen (Oxford University Press, 2020). This review appears in the open-access music theory journal Intégral vol. 35 (2022).

https://www.esm.rochester.edu/integral/35-2022/hudson/

Below is an excerpt from the review that is especially relevant to metal and heavy rock music. Please click the link above to view my review in full (for free!).

For example, the cognitive metaphor for “ Heavy ” overlaps considerably with “ Dark ,” “ Hard ,” and “ Rough .” While these are not identical metaphors, most instances of “ Heavy ” arguably also draw on one or more of the other three metaphors. Additionally, in Walther-Hansen’s definitions, these four cognitive metaphors share many overlapping entailments, as I’ve mapped out in Figure 1. For example, “ Heavy ,” “ Hard ,” and “ Rough ” sounds all entail apparent force or effort; “ Heavy ” and “ Dark ” sounds are both low in pitch; etc.

Figure 1.  Four cognitive metaphors with their overlapping entailments. Top row: cognitive metaphors for sound quality; Bottom row: entailments / characteristics from other domains of experience. Based on Walther-Hansen’s encyclopedia definitions (Chapter 4). Dotted lines represent two additional entailments I added: rough sounds are often literally loud or imply loudness, and heaviness is often associated with badness or evil.

Additionally, a single metaphor like HEAVY operates in the background for a large network of related sound qualities with distinct connotations and associations, which often are not entirely represented within a single definition or term. Figure 2 takes a few of the large number of senses for HEAVY used within the metal genre, grouped into two categories by speed. The  Heavy & Fast  category is also closely related to another background metaphor, HARD. The broad metaphor of HEAVY could be described as a kind of schema which passes on many entailments (like size, weight, impact, etc.) to each of the more specific senses (such as  brutal ,  thunderous ,  adrenalized , etc.). But many of these individual senses resonate with other metaphors as well, and those other metaphors could be viewed as schematic for these individual terms. For example, “ funereal ” could be described as a finer sense of both HEAVY and DARK. This network represents a diverse and multidimensional space of interrelated senses, which cannot be reduced to a single definition for HEAVY; for example, “ funereal ” and “ adrenalized ” are practically opposite in meaning, but both are senses of HEAVY which apply this metaphor in divergent ways to create their distinct qualities of physical impact.

…for the rest of the review, please navigate to Integral’s website at the link above.

Here’s this article on my Academia.edu page.

Bang your Head: Construing Beat through Familiar Drum Patterns in Metal Music

I’m thrilled to announce that my article about headbanging has just been published in the journal Music Theory Spectrum ! Here are the details. You can access the article for free at the link at the end of this post.

Stephen S. Hudson

Music Theory Spectrum , Volume 44, Issue 1, Spring 2022, Pages 121–140, https://doi.org/10.1093/mts/mtab014

Published: 28 November 2021

This article presents a theoretical framework for understanding headbanging to metal music as an embodied practice of perception and offers several analyses to demonstrate how specific patterns serve as a common core of rhythmic patterning in the genre. Listeners express metal’s flexible rhythmic style through headbanging, creating experiences of heaviness and community. This motion brings felt beats into existence, guided by what I call “metering constructions,” familiar rhythmic/motional patterns that are both schematic knowledge of music and embodied practices of perception. I define metering constructions through theories of embodied meter and cognitive linguistics. Two constructions, the backbeat and the phrase-ending 332, are used throughout rock, but distinguished in metal by characteristic drum patterns and motional qualities. Headbangers thus create and perform their own beat interpretation, what I call a “patchwork quilt of recognized rhythms” stitched together in various orders and combinations—sometimes resembling regular isochronous meter, sometimes not.

Here’s a link to this article on my Academia.edu page.

Standard access link: https://academic.oup.com/mts/article-abstract/44/1/121/6445145

Access for free, for personal research use only: https://academic.oup.com/mts/article/44/1/121/6445145?guestAccessKey=b9871065-0ca4-455e-b8cd-fcfa70c04222

If you are part of a university or other research institution, please consider asking your institution to subscribe to Music Theory Spectrum to support their continuing publication of cutting-edge music theory research, instead of using the free link! 🙂

Thirty-one years later: A review of Metallica’s ‘Black Album’ and its legacy on alternative metal and alt-right politics

My latest metal-related research is a short review article about Metallica’s 1991 self-titled album (aka. the “Black Album”) which has been published in the latest issue of the journal Metal Music Studies , vol. 7 no. 3.

This piece examines the impact that the Black Album has had over the last 31 years. Specifically, I look at how the Black Album inspired and influenced alternative metal music, and how images and ideas from the Black Album made their way into American alt-right politics/culture after the millennium.

Click the link below to read more about it and get a link to the article:

https://link.growkudos.com/1rzir0c8su8

“Hackers, Headbangers, Vampires, and Goths: the Subversive Origins of the Pop b2 ‘Hotness’ Topic” (American Musicological Society 2021)

My latest conference paper traces the use of the b2 scale degree (like Db in the key of C) through 1980s extreme metal and industrial music, 1990s nu metal, and millennial blockbuster films like Queen of the Damned and The Matrix , before this line of influence finally crossed into mainstream pop music through songs like Benny Benassi’s “Satisfaction” and Justin Timberlake’s “SexyBack.” This paper was presented at the American Musicological Society national conference. You can watch the video version here, in full and for free: https://www.academia.edu/video/k7BNYl

Topic theory has evolved as a framework for studying communication and meaning in European classical music. Some scholarship has extended beyond this repertoire (ex. Echard 2017), but many conventional topics in popular music remain understudied. The music theorist Eron Smith has identified a b2-1 “hotness” topic in post-millenial pop, and traced the topic to long-standing orientalist stereotypes associating b2 with non-Western music. Some of Smith’s examples clearly resonate with orientalism, by combining the b2 with sitars or other timbral markers of foreignness. But many examples of the b2 “hotness” topic do not contain orientalist timbral markers.

I argue for another source: the ubiquitous use of b2 in extreme metal, gothic/industrial/EBM, and other pre-millennial underground music subcultures. Some post-millenial pop examples of the hotness topic, such as Justin Timberlake’s “Sexyback” (2006), imitate the distorted timbres of EBM exactly, rather than the orientalist “foreign” timbres. I trace the transmission of b2 into mainstream pop through millennial films that romanticized these subcultures and brought them to mainstream attention, like Queen of the Damned (2002) and The Matrix (1999), as well as late-90s moments when these underground styles crossed over into the mainstream, like electro house (ex. Benny Benassi “Satisfaction,” 2003) and nu metal (ex. Korn, whose singer Jonathan Davis composed songs for Queen of the Damned). What began as a pre-millennial performative icon of transgressive anti-mainstream aesthetics and ideology was sublimated into an indexical sign for edgy cool, then coopted and commodified as post-millennial sexiness.

This trajectory certainly does not replace the b2’s orientalist resonances, nor is it the only route of transmission to post-millennial pop (b2 is also common in trap music, for example). b2 “hotness,” like all topics, is not a static analytical symbol, but carries contingent, plural meanings that evolve over time as the topic is used by different communities and for different purposes. This demonstrates a crucial role for historical research as topic theory expands to popular genres, to understand how pop topics change, what they have signified, and for whom.

How Much Math is in Math Rock? Part II: The Evolution of Meshuggah’s (not so) Radical Style

As promised, this is the sequel to my paper at SMT 2020 ! This second half is part of the Progect 2021 conference organized by Lori Burns at the University of Ottawa, which will be happening online May 18-29, 2021.

In this paper I show how Meshuggah’s style evolved gradually from more mainstream thrash metal and groove metal from the 1980s and early 1990s. Their famously complex rhythms are not a completely radical new thing in metal, but are a recursive recombination of existing riff techniques including overlay, syncopation, 332 rhythms, and camoflauged alterations. I also argue that part of why their rhythms have such a powerful effect is that most of us hear their music with ears trained on mainstream metal’s riff techniques.

Here’s the video:

Here’s the handout: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-KA8FHqIXOrr8THEBwjXoXwEGP0dSHCP/view?usp=sharing

Interesting Research about Heavy Metal Music Impact on Students Performance

by Metal Insider | Dec 29, 2020 | News Around the World | 0 comments

Heavy metal music has been long seen as a genre associated with ideas of violence, suicide and death and even mass shootings. Recent research shows that heavy metal music can have positive effects as well, with the genre being a source of catharsis and even motivation.  So, can metal music be useful in boosting the academic performance of students? This article is all about answering this question.

Change in Outlook through Metal Music

Heavy Metal Music came at an age where people developed a negative attitude towards the systems of the world and started having outlooks opposite to those that divide different behaviors into the categories of good and bad.  This retaliation against norms and beliefs, along with the coarseness of the music, make metal music a genre not appreciated by everyone. Those that listen to this music are seen as people spiraling into chaos.  But research considers how this outlook changing genre could lead to new ideas in terms of logical reasoning and even scientific thinking, bringing new ideas to compete with the existing ones. 

A Cathartic Genre 

There’s always a lot of pent up stress and frustration among students. Metal music, with its loud music and distinct sound, helps people relieve themselves of frustration.  As students, stress and anxiety can come from a variety of sources, be it a big bunch of notes gathered in the last class or the huge number of assignments to finish in the next two days.  Not only that, we all struggle with our personal lives, with heartbreaks and unrequited love, bad decisions and an almost empty bank account. There are options in the form of EduBirdie though, a renowned  term paper writing service  that can help with academic assignments at affordable prices. Also when you fail to write essays while studying something more important, you can take help from this academic writing service.  Metal music can help channelize the anger and frustration that might be build up inside. While meditation works for some, metal music works for others. 

Metal Music Can Pump You Up

Studying can get boring and tiring. But metal music can help bring back energy in your mind and body to get back to your chair and start studying again.  Metal music includes many distinct and sharp notes, something your brain picks up as an alerting signal. As your brain focuses on these notes, it’s pumped up and more vigil, thus taking in every piece of information it is fed with more interest than it did before.  Consider this as a brain exercise or even a shot of caffeine, waking your brain up from its nap and pushing it to learn the information it is being fed. So if you’re a student wanting to wake up early and sitting down to study, try listening to Guns and Roses in the morning and you’ll see yourself sitting down with enthusiasm you’ve never even imagined!

Improvement in Cognitive Functioning

Talking about brain exercise, metal music and its rhythmic music can help exercise those brain muscles that are constantly tracking every beat and note in the song, which is quite a rigorous exercise for your brain when it’s listening to heavy metal music.  Research  shows that students who listen to heavy metal music end up developing better focus, faster reaction times, and greater memory power. Metal music can further motivate students to work on exercising the brain constantly, thereby improving the effect it has on their academic performance and  physical health .

Memorizing With Music

Metal music cannot directly help you with greater memory power, but it can be a medium to  remember more effectively . How?  When it comes to memorizing, one of the most efficient ways is music. You can fit a sheet of notes or a definition into a rhythm that exists and sing it back to yourself whenever you need it. We all remember the rhythms of songs, don’t we? So why not use it to memorize the most boring of concepts?  Metal music can help you remember these concepts by embedding them into the songs. Another way is to learn a concept while listening to a song. This way, if you remember the song, you can remember the concept as your brain had made an association between the two when you were studying before.

Visualizing Pictures

Metal music can help you visualize and while this may not help in every subject, you can listen to a song and imagine a scene that includes the concept. This can be used for pictorial representations in your book. Embed them in your brain along with your songs and you’ll be able to retrieve the image when you listen to the music.  While this may not work for everyone and might be a cause of distraction to many, you can try and see if this method can work for you. Do not go to an exam with blind faith, as it might not work for you. 

Metal music may not be as bad and negative as it has been termed for all this while. It can be of huge benefit to students while dealing with stress, emotions and demotivation and even provide some innovative ways of memorizing. So try it out and see if it works for you. 

Author Bio:

Paul Calderon works for a website as the lead blogger, article writer and editor and heads its lifestyle, politics and business sections. He’s also a part-time academic writer and is known for delivering winning essays in the same niches. In his free time, he loves watching live sports, reading novels and walking his dogs.

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• v.14(2); 2017 May

Music and the brain: the neuroscience of music and musical appreciation

Michael trimble.

1 Institute of Neurology, University College London, UK, email ku.ca.lcu.noi@elbmirtm

Dale Hesdorffer

2 Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center and Department of Epidemilogy, Columbia University, New York City, USA

Through music we can learn much about our human origins and the human brain. Music is a potential method of therapy and a means of accessing and stimulating specific cerebral circuits. There is also an association between musical creativity and psychopathology. This paper provides a brief review.

Art history is the unfolding of subjectivity…. (T. Adorno)

An evolutionary perspective

There have been many attempts to identify behaviours which reliably distinguish our species, Homo sapiens , from our closest living cousins. Ascribed activities, from tool-making to having a theory of mind and empathy, have been rejected, as observations of anthropologists and ethnologists continue to emphasise similarities rather than differences placing us within the great chain of beings. There can be no doubt about the greater development of our cognitive attributes, linked closely with the evolutionary developments of our brain, in terms of both size and structure. Bipedalism, the use of fire, the development of effective working memory and our vocal language efficient communication have all emerged from these genetic–environmental adaptations over several million years (Pasternak, 2007 ).

Two features of our world which are universal and arguably have been a feature of an earlier evolutionary development are our ability to create and respond to music, and to dance to the beat of time.

Somewhere along the evolutionary way, our ancestors, with very limited language but with considerable emotional expression, began to articulate and gesticulate feelings: denotation before connotation. But, as the philosopher Susanne Langer noted, ‘The most highly developed type of such purely connotational semantic is music’ (Langer, 1951 , p. 93). In other words, meaning in music came to us before meaning given by words.

The mammalian middle ear developed from the jaw bones of earlier reptiles and carries sound at only specific frequencies. It is naturally attuned to the sound of the human voice, although has a range greater than that required for speech. Further, the frequency band which mothers use to sing to their babies, and so-called motherese or child-directed speech, with exaggerated intonation and rhythm, corresponds to that which composers have traditionally used in their melodies. In the same way that there is a limited sensitive period in which the infant can learn language and learn to respond to spoken language, there must be a similar phase of brain development for the incorporation of music.

One of the differences between the developed brains of Homo sapiens and those of the great apes is the increase in area allocated to processing auditory information. Thus, in other primates the size of the visual cortex correlates well with brain size, but in Homo sapiens it is smaller. In contrast, increases in size elsewhere in the human brain have occurred, notably in the temporal lobes, especially the dorsal area that relates to the auditory reception of speech. The expansion of primary and association auditory cortices and their connections, associated with the increased size of the cerebellum and areas of prefrontal and premotor cortex linked through basal ganglia structures, heralded a shift to an aesthetics based on sound, and to abilities to entrain to external rhythmic inputs. The first musical instrument used by our ancestors was the voice. The ear is always open and, unlike vision and the eyes or the gaze, sound cannot readily be averted. From the rhythmic beating within and with the mother’s body for the fetus and young infant, to the primitive drum-like beating of sticks on wood and hand clapping of our adolescent and adult proto-speaking ancestors, the growing infant is surrounded by and responds to rhythm. But, as Langer ( 1951 , p. 93) put it, ‘being more variable than the drum, voices soon made patterns and the long endearing melodies of primitive song became a part of communal celebration’. Some support for these ideas comes from the work of Mithen, who has argued that spoken language and music evolved from a proto-language, a musi-language which stemmed from primate calls and was used by the Neanderthals; it was emotional but without words as we know them (Mithen, 2005 ).

The suggestion is that our language of today emerged via a proto-language, driven by gesture, framed by musicality and performed by the flexibility which accrued with expanded anatomical developments, not only of the brain, but also of the coordination of our facial, pharyngeal and laryngeal muscles. Around the same time (with a precision of many thousands of years), the bicameral brain, although remaining bipartite, with the two cooperating cerebral hemispheres coordinating life for the individual in cohesion with the surrounding environment, became differently balanced with regard to the functions of the two sides: pointing and proposition (left) as opposed to urging and yearning (right) (Trimble, 2012 ).

The experience of music

A highly significant finding to emerge from the studies of the effects in the brain of listening to music is the emphasis on the importance of the right (non-dominant) hemisphere. Thus, lesions following cerebral damage lead to impairments of appreciation of pitch, timbre and rhythm (Stewart et al , 2006 ) and studies using brain imaging have shown that the right hemisphere is preferentially activated when listening to music in relation to the emotional experience, and that even imagining music activates areas on this side of the brain (Blood et al , 1999 ). This should not be taken to imply that there is a simple left–right dichotomy of functions in the human brain. However, it is the case that traditional neurology has to a large extent ignored the talents of the non-dominant hemisphere, much in favour of the dominant (normally left) hemisphere. In part this stems from an overemphasis on the role of the latter in propositional language and a lack of interest in the emotional intonations of speech (prosody) that give so much meaning to expression.

The link between music and emotion seems to have been accepted for all time. Plato considered that music played in different modes would arouse different emotions, and as a generality most of us would agree on the emotional significance of any particular piece of music, whether it be happy or sad; for example, major chords are perceived to be cheerful, minor ones sad. The tempo or movement in time is another component of this, slower music seeming less joyful than faster rhythms. This reminds us that even the word motion is a significant part of e motion , and that in the dance we are moving – as we are moved emotionally by music.

Until recently, musical theorists had largely concerned themselves with the grammar and syntax of music rather than with the affective experiences that arise in response to music. Music, if it does anything, arouses feelings and associated physiological responses, and these can now be measured. For the ordinary listener, however, there may be no necessary relationship of the emotion to the form and content of the musical work, since ‘the real stimulus is not the progressive unfolding of the musical structure but the subjective content of the listener’s mind’ (Langer, 1951 , p. 258). Such a phenomenological approach directly contradicts the empirical techniques of so much current neuroscience in this area, yet is of direct concern to psychiatry, and topics such as compositional creativity.

If it is a language, music is a language of feeling. Musical rhythms are life rhythms, and music with tensions, resolutions, crescendos and diminuendos, major and minor keys, delays and silent interludes, with a temporal unfolding of events, does not present us with a logical language, but, to quote Langer again, it ‘ reveals the nature of feelings with a detail and truth that language cannot approach’ (Langer, 1951 , p. 199, original emphasis).

This idea seems difficult for a philosophical mind to follow, namely that there can be knowledge without words. Indeed, the problem of describing a ‘language’ of feeling permeates the whole area of philosophy and neuroscience research, and highlights the relative futility of trying to classify our emotions – ‘Music is revealing, where words are obscuring’ (Langer, 1951 , p. 206).

Musical ability and psychiatric disorder

There is an extensive literature attesting to some associations between creativity and psychopathology (Trimble, 2007 ). The links seem to vary with different kinds of high achievement, and mood disorders are over-represented. Although samples of creative people have a significant excess of cyclothymia and bipolarity, florid manic–depressive illness is relatively uncommon. Biographies of famous musicians are of considerable interest in exploring brain–behaviour associations. Attempts to transform descriptions of people from biographies into specific DSM diagnoses cannot achieve high levels of validity and reliability, since lack of autobiographical materials and reliable contemporary medical accounts makes any diagnostic formulation necessarily tentative. However, with regard to classical composers within the Western canon, it must be of considerable significance that there are so many who seem to have suffered from affective disorders, the incidence of mood disorders ranging between 35% and 40% (Mula & Trimble, 2009 ). It is possible that similar associations occur in non-Western composers, although studies have not been published. In contrast, none seems to have had schizophrenia. These results have importance in understanding the structure and function of the human brain, and suggest avenues for therapeutic investigation which will vary with diagnosis.

Music therapy

Music provides and provokes a response, which is universal, ingrained into our evolutionary development, and leads to marked changes in emotions and movement. The anatomical associations noted above suggest that music must be viewed as one way to stimulate the brain. Music provides a non-invasive technique, which has attracted much interest but little empirical exploration to date. The therapeutic value of music can be in part explained by its cultural role in facilitating social learning and emotional well-being. However, a number of studies have shown that rhythmic entrainment of motor function can actively facilitate the recovery of movement in patients with stroke, Parkinson’s disease, cerebral palsy and traumatic brain injury (Thaut, 2005 ). Studies of people with memory disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease, suggest that neuronal memory traces built through music are deeply ingrained and more resilient to neurodegenerative influences. Findings from individual randomised trials suggest that music therapy is accepted by people with depression and is associated with improvements in mood disorders (Maratos et al , 2008 ). Further, the potential applications of music therapy in patients with neuropsychiatric disorders, including autism spectrum disorders, albeit intuitive, have led to psychotherapeutic uses aimed at directly evoking emotions.

Evidence suggests that music can decrease seizure frequency, stop refractory status epilepticus and decrease electroencephalographic spike frequency in children with epilepsy in awake and sleep states. We know that many people with epilepsy have electroencephalographic abnormalities and, in some people, these can be ‘normalised’ by music. In addition to the need for trials of musical interventions in epilepsy, we should also consider whether the results of sonification of an electroencephalogram, which directly reflects the time course of cerebral rhythms, may be used to entrain ‘normal’ brain rhythms in people with seizure disorders. Alteration of the electroencephalogram via biofeedback of different components of sonified electroencephalography, or modulation of the musical input to a stimulus that affects the emotional state of the patient and hence cerebral and limbic activity and cerebral rhythms, are therapeutic possibilities which are currently being investigated (Bodner et al , 2012 ).

These data suggest that the effects and cost-effectiveness of music therapy in patients with neuropsychiatric disorders should be further explored. To date, most work has been done with Western-style compositions, and the well structured music of Mozart and Bach has been a popular basis for interventions. The following paper by Shantala Hegde notes the potential of other musical styles as therapy. Through music we learn much about our human origins and the human brain, and have a potential method of therapy by accessing and stimulating specific cerebral circuits.

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