Winner of the 1994 Irving Lowens Book Award from the Society for American Music
Dismissed by critics and academics, condemned by parents and politicians, and fervently embraced by legions of fans, heavy metal music continues to attract and embody cultural conflicts that are central to society. In Running with the Devil, Robert Walser explores how and why heavy metal works, both musically and socially, and at the same time uses metal to investigate contemporary formations of identity, community, gender, and power. This edition includes a new foreword by Harris M. Berger contextualizing the work and a new afterword by the author.
Table of Content
Acknowledgements
Foreword, by Harris M. Berger
Introduction
METALLURGIES: GENRE, HISTORY, AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF HEAVY METAL
Genre and Commercial Meditation
Casting Heavy Metal
Heavy Metal in the 80’s
Headbangers
‘Nasty, Brutish, and Short?’ Rock Critics and Academics Evaluate Metal
BEYOND THE VOCALS: TOWARD THE ANALYSIS OF POPULAR MUSIC DISCOURSES
Genre and Discourse
Musicological Analysis
Writing about Music
Metal as Discourse
‘Runnin’ with the Devil’
Negotiation and Pleasure
ERUPTIONS: HEAVY METAL APPROPRIATIONS OF CLASSICAL VIRTUOSITY
Classical Prestiger and Popular Meanings
Ritchie Blackmore and the Classical Roots of Metal
Edward Van Halen and the New Virtuosity
Randy Rhoads: Metal Gets Serious
Yngwie Malmsteen: Metal Augmented and Diminished
Popular Music as Cultural Dialogue
FORGING MUSCULINITY: HEAVY METAL SOUNDS AND IMAGES OF GENDER
Behind the Screen: Listening to Gender
No Girls Allowed: Exscription in Heavy Metal
The Kiss of Death: Misogyny and the Male Victim
Living on a Prayer: Romance
Nothing but a Good Time? Androgyny as a Political Party
‘Real Men Don’t Wear Makeup’
CAN I PLAY WITH MADNESS? MYSTICISM, HORROR, AND POSTMODERN POLITICS
Professing Censorship: The PMRC and Its Academic Allies Attack
Suicide Solutions
Mysticism and Postmodernism in Heavy Metal
Horror and History
Guns N’ Roses N’ Marx N’ Engels
AFTERWORD to the 2014 Edition
Appendix I: Heavy Metal Canons
Appendix 2: Heavy Metal Questionnaire
Notes
Select Discography
Select Bibliography
Index
About the author
Robert Walser is a professor of music at Case Western Reserve University, author of Running with the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music, editor of ‘Keeping Time: Readings in Jazz History, ‘ and The Christopher Small Reader.
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