ABSTRACT
The issue of defining metal has preoccupied metal studies; what it is as a genre of popular music and as culture. One of the philosophical problems that rears its head with regard to defining metal concerns the question of what the necessary conditions are for its existence. This essay argues that Metallica’s Some Kind of Monster (2004), Anvil! The story of Anvil (2008) and Sam Dunn’s depicting of Rush in Beyond the Lighted Stage (2010) provide a visual narrative approach to a thorough understanding of what metal is. Reading the films as a medieval triptych art form, such as that offered by Hieronymus Bosch, and its associated aesthetic theory gives an opportunity for insight through revelation, shedding light on the meaning of metal and its culture. The three documentaries cover the perspectives on the commercial, personal and tumultuous world of metal including its virtues and vices, authenticity, capacity for self-parody The documentaries distill a perspective on metal culture down to its core meaning, analogous to the opening door of the triptych in art that functions as a moment of revelation. Like the triptych, the documentaries are illuminating, presenting us with a total image; they represent and reveal what metal is.
