ABSTRACT
Death symbolism has been an enduring visible theme in the material and visual culture of heavy metal and its various related genres for several decades. Musicians and fans frequently wear jewelry incorporating the same long-established visual references to death, particularly skulls and skeletal imagery. This chapter explores how such items remain desirable and relevant within metal culture and questions what makes an item of skull jewelry ‘metal’ when similar items are also widely available in an increasing range of mainstream jewelry retailers or worn by people who do not fit the ‘metalhead’ image. Early metal musicians can be seen in contemporary photographs and film footage wearing jewelry that was available to them during that period. Several ranges of contemporary jewelry show a continuation of the previously cited biker examples in their use of symbols of death, particularly the skull.
