Ea renowned sociologist comes out as a metal fan. The suspicion is obvious that the scholar wants to simulate contemporary pop culture competence. When listening to Hartmut Rosa’s “little sociology of heavy metal” it quickly becomes clear that his explanations are as honest and authentic as the riffs of the bands he loves, above all Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, to whom the 1965-born boy owes his youthful awakening experiences and to which he has remained loyal to this day.
The author dedicated the audio book read by Axel Wostry to the members of all the bands in which he was allowed to touch the keys himself as a hobby musician, although the keyboard player on the metal stage is per se a marginal phenomenon.
Dark forces are summoned
Historically, Hartmut Rosa locates heavy metal in the tradition of Black Romanticism. Dark forces are summoned and a gloomy iconography full of skulls, grim reapers and demons is cultivated: flowers of evil from the Black Sabbath nursery, which are considered the inventors of the genre.
But no matter how pathetic the poses and how thickly applied the symbolism – black romanticism also includes an irony that boils down to taking something very seriously and at the same time not taking it seriously. The fundamentalist moral guardians who are incapable of irony and still want to discover satanic messages in metal today didn’t understand that.
Rosa doesn’t take it as seriously with the definition of the genre as the relevant metal magazines, which have long since committed themselves to a tolerant preservation of the tradition of all sustainable rock music. The actual demarcation runs against the rapidly changing fashions of pop music, as they flourish above all in urban culture. Heavy metal, on the other hand, is today associated with rural areas, even though it originated half a century ago as the music of industrial cities.
It is no coincidence that one of the most important festivals takes place on the muddy fields of Wacken. In a rural or small-town milieu, that consistency is a high value, which also characterizes the relationship with her favorite band, which for Rosa has something of a bond of life that goes through ups and downs. Where relationships, jobs or places of residence change, the bands become a reliable constant in life. The fans don’t just want to be enthusiastic, but also quarrel with weaker albums, which are therefore hardly less important.
One looks in vain for the passion and culture of memory with which the individual albums are repeatedly discussed and evaluated in the scene in the current literary debates, whose time horizon has mostly shrunk to the season.
Against the suspicion of being provincially dumb, Hartmut Rosa can present studies according to which metal listeners have an above-average intelligence quotient and similar personality traits as classical music fans. In both cultures, music has a high importance of its own, it is not heard for entertainment. The arbitrariness of playlist listening is rejected; instead, the encounter with the work is sought.
It’s about the whole, ultimate things
The album is still the valid form for this. For both metal and classical listeners, music is about the whole thing – about the “ultimate things”, about experiences of a quasi-religious nature, about drama and spirituality. Death, violence, hate, despair and damnation are obsessively addressed in the imagery of the metal lyrics – with an apparently cathartic effect. The literary affinities are astounding: there are repeated references to the biblical apocalypse, and concept albums are dedicated to Edgar Allan Poe, John Milton or Dante.
#Hartmut #Rosas #sociology #heavy #metal #audio #book