ABSTRACT
Historically, heavy metal music has generally been met with skepticism, disdain, or even disregard by the typical music lover, Parent Music Resource Center (PMRC) member, or anyone who does not enjoy loud, obnoxious, screaming music about death, anger, suppressed rage, sadness, and satanism (Gross 1990, Binder 1993). For the non-metal music fan, there is not much logic to banging your head to loud music, throwing fists in the air, and body slamming as a form of dance or as a period of relaxation following a long workday. The notion that fans actually enjoy this music and attend live concerts because it is fun seems to be
lost on others as they attempt more psychoanalytic understanding. This makes it easier for these individuals to label or perceive of heavy metal music as extremely aggressive and representative of antiestablishment, antireligious, potentially satanic, and unconventional values that have immoral implications (Gross 1990, Binder 1993). Images of these fans include an angry “white trash” teenager who primarily wears black and concert T-shirts; a trouble maker; and a misfit of low intelligence with suicidal ideation and some mental issues, who engages in fighting, drug and alcohol abuse, or other destructive behavior. Individuals that continue to enjoy this music in their late twenties, thirties, forties, and beyond are seen as immature, unintelligent, peculiar adults, who also have mental issues and trouble leaving their younger years behind. In other words, many non-metal music fans consider this genre to be part of a youth culture phenomenon (Gross 1990), especially as it pertains to the louder, faster, and angrier styles of metal-such as death metal and black metal-with indecipherable lyrics.
