Metalheads: Heavy Metal Music And Adolescent Alienation [Paperback]

Jeffrey Arnett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1996

Heavy metal is a violent, head-bashing music complete, in its live performances, with its own arena of rage and celebration, the mosh pit. It is a music in the red corner of society, loud, angry, and, to a well-tuned ear, practically intolerable. And yet, the art form radiates a message about American adolescents well worth examining and comprehending: Its devotees, primarily adolescent boys, are alienated from their world and angry about its future. Heavy metal speaks throbbingly the message of rage, loneliness, and cynicism.In this sensitive book, Jeffrey Jensen Arnett synthesizes the stories and experiences of seventy male and thirty-eight female “metalheads” in a successful attempt to understand the often crippling results of a society and an image of the nuclear family steeped in conformity, self-denial, and obedience. The vacuum such an atmosphere creates in the individual can be temporarily obliterated by a heavy metal concert, which Arnett sees as a substitute manhood ritual. This conclusion is just one of the many striking hypotheses the author advances in this dynamic study of a music and its followers.Of the one hundred metalheads interviewed for this volume, ten have allowed themselves to be profiled in depth—the reader becomes fully acquainted with Jack, for instance, and with the multiple crosses decorating his body, his black rose tattoo, and his tumultuous family life; or with slim and well-groomed Jean dressed entirely in black, her favorite color, and wearing the temperament of withdrawal.This is a unique study filled with compassion for a disenfranchised subculture and the respect to want to understand it.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Heavy metal music's followers are detailed in nine in-depth profiles of heavy metal fans. This is a volume heavy metal enthusiasts are sure to follow: it explains the origins of the music, analyzes themes and songs, and studies its appeal to young audiences. -- Midwest Book Review

About the Author

Jeffrey Jensen Arnett is associate professor of human development and family studies at the University of Missouri at Columbia.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Westview Press (March 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813328136
• ISBN-13: 978-0813328133
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,887,683 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jeffrey Jensen Arnett is a Research Professor in the Department of Psychology at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. He has also taught at the University of Missouri. During 2005 he was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He is the editor of the Journal of Adolescent Research and author of the book Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road from the Late Teens Through the Twenties, published in 2004 by Oxford University Press. He is also author of one of the most widely-used textbooks on adolescent development, Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach (2009, Prentice Hall, 4th Edition). Arnett has two children, twins Miles and Paris, born in 1999, and his wife, Lene Jensen, is also a professor at Clark. He has appeared on television and frequently in print media, including a cover story in the New York Times Sunday magazine in August, 2010. For more information, see www.jeffreyarnett.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining, but poor from a scientific point of view., January 8, 2002

By 

Sven Århammar (Aalborg, Denmark) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Metalheads: Heavy Metal Music And Adolescent Alienation (Paperback)

Arnetts point in his book "metalheads" is that he sees metalfans as the vanguard of adolescent alienation, emotional isolation and hyperindividualism in western society. Even if he writes in an entertaining and eloquent way, and obviously is an expert on adolescence, he doesn't support his claims in a scientific way, even if he states that he does so. He compares the behaviour and views on life of "metalheads" and "non-metalheads", overlooking the fact that there is no homogenous social group called "non-metalheads". That group could include adolescents within jehovahs witnesses, hip-hopppers, among many others. Furthermore the group of "non-metalheads" is exclusively highschool and collegestudents only, excluding unemployed or working-class adolescents. These errors of course lead him to make several doubtfull conclusions. Another crucial error is his misjudgement of the music in heavy-metal, as his analysis is based on a primitve and completely outdated and unscientific german musictheory from the 17.century - the so called "Affekt-theorie", which is nearly as ridiculous as a theory that claims that the Earth is flat. However, his points about adolescent alienation in western society, and the potential dangers for the socialization of future societies, seem both enlightning and interesting. He just misses the fact that this is a general trend in Western society, and not specifically linked with heavy-metal.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Reinforces everything I hate about sociology, April 16, 2002

By 

"false_prophet77" (London, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Metalheads: Heavy Metal Music And Adolescent Alienation (Paperback)

I admit that I don't have much respect for the so-called "science" of sociology. I seriously doubt human behaviour can be so neatly quantified and explained with a couple of studies--especially as such studies tend to contradict each other. I've argued this many times with a friend of mine who aspired to graduate studies in sociology.

Even so, Arnett is a poor representative of this discipline. His study is based on personal interviews with less than 150 "metalheads" from two urban communities in the U.S., the definition of metalhead being someone who agreed to be interviewed in exchange for a free record album. They are compared with "non-metalheads" who are not interviewed, but asked to fill out anonymous questionnaires. From these sketchy data gathered through poorly-controlled methods, Arnett draws conclusions about all of American society.

Now, I was a heavy metal fan in my adolescence, and still listen to several metal bands, and I won't deny some of Arnett's discussion of metal as a means to escape isolation applied to me. But he doesn't acknowledge that isolated teens may seek other sub-cultures--goth, punk, electronica, video games, role-playing, comics, poetry, foreign film. Nor does he explain why some "normal" teenagers also like metal, or why some people continue to like metal well into their 50s. In addition, his definition of "normalcy" is disturbingly anachronistic: long-term heterosexual marriage with children.

I even found his anthropological analysis of "sensation-seeking behaviour" to be of interest, but not entirely satisfying. If the situation he describes is common among American teenagers, why aren't there more metal fans instead of the small minority Arnett claims?

I'd read this book for the interesting profiles of some of the survey subjects. But as a work of social research, "Metalheads" is a joke.

16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Worthless, March 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Metalheads: Heavy Metal Music And Adolescent Alienation (Paperback)

The study in this book came about with a set of assumptions and prejudices that the author was determined to prove. The study group was taken from high school and a few of his college students, as these "are the typical metalheads in age group." I am 40, female and professional, quite outside the supposed standard metalhead description. The people I personally know who are into heavy metal music are near my age, both male and female, and all are professionals. Seems that blows the stereotype that this study is based on. Ill-informed and judgmental, this is a book that could have been written without bothering doing any case profiles, without listening to the music and without attending any concerts. Could be considered utterly worthless except for the laugh gotten from how wrong the book is. If it was possible to do so, I would give this book "zero" stars.