Running with the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music.

Although it has existed for a quarter of a century, heavy metal remains one of the popular music genres most flagrantly ignored by both critics and academics. As Robert Walser points out, this state of affairs is quite astounding in view of the present cultural and economic significance of the genre; in so far as speaking of a 'rock main-stream' is at all meaningful today, heavy metal is probably the genre for which this designation is most justified. Walser proposes as the reasons for this neglect the music's simultaneous lack of street 'authenticity' (to the critics) and of art 'authenticity' (to the academics). Speaking from the point of view of popular-music musicology, I would say that the views of many academics today tend to approach those of the critics, as preconceptions about the proper musical coding of (street) 'authenticity' prevent their paying attention to the musical specificities of metal. Be that as it may, Running with the Devil constitutes a thorough attempt at filling this gap of ignorance by way of a comprehensive analysis of the genre, combining musicological textual analysis, cultural theory and ethnography.

Tracing its history, Walser shows that heavy metal does …