Metalheads: Heavy Metal Music And Adolescent Alienation (Paperback)

by Jeffrey Arnett (Author)

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

Product Description
This book helps us gain insight into a segment of the youth culture that most adults find strange, if not bizarre. This extremely will-written book provides the reader with insight into the psychology of metalheads and is sprinkled with many case examples.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Westview Press (February 29, 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 (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,149,466 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 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

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crucial error is his misjudgement of the music in heavy-metal, as his analysis is based on a primitve and completely outdated and unscientific german musictheory from the 17.century - the so called "Affekt-theorie", which is nearly as ridiculous as a theory that claims that the Earth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.

12 of 14 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

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.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars the trouble with sociology, March 2, 2008

By	Alexander Kemestrios Ben "A.K." (Allendale, Mi. USA) - See all my reviews

If sociology is ever going to become a respectable science works such as this will need to be burned. Arnett writes well- lucid, avoids POMO jargon- but the book fails as a serious explanation of so-called adolescent alienation. Other reviewers have pointed out Arnetts myriad methodological problems.. so I shan't dwell on that; rather I will adress general theoretical issues.
First) Arnett assumes, based on little statistical evidence, that there is a youth crisis in the United States. This is problematic for many reasons. For one thing, Stats show that youth and adult behavior are almost completely correlated. This means, ipso facto, that there is an adult crisis in America as well. More problematically, youth 'crisis' are recorded through out history, from Greece, to early France, to the Post-Industrial Societies of today. If the problematics of adolescent behavior (lacking meaning, angst, depression, etc.) are historically invariant, it does no good to explain them with socially changing variables. You cannot explain a constant with a variable, nor a variable with a constant.
Second) Arnett does not seriously consider a biological approach to human behavior. This is very limiting. Instead of analyzing humans as you would any organic entity, Arnett assumes we are malleable balls of clay. This is a very dubious assumption, belied by evidence. Humans, like all animals, are products of millions of years of natural selection. The fact that humans everywhere have adolescent angst (vide supra), may tell us something about human evolution. Indeed, chimps seem to suffer similar problems when they hit the 'adolescent' stage. Remember, the point of natural selection is the maximize inclusive fitness. In order to do this, males need to compete, gain status, and show their ability to procure resources. Those who did not, are not our ancestors. Males who are just hitting puberty have low status (as all societies are, too some extent, gerontocracies). They also have alot to lose by not competing. These facts alone suggest a parsimonious solution to adolescent angst. Males start to desire status. They do not have it, adults do. They rebel against adults, act idiotic, and feel worthless (in general). This is just what an evolutionary psychologist would predict. And, by the way, this same explanation works to explain the age-crime curve in males. In fact, it can be generalized to explain why young males produce almost all 'costly signals' in society: from music, to sports prowess.
third) Arnett does not focus on the peer-group structure of school at all. Those who are most 'alienated' are usually on the lower rung of the high-school hierarchy(again low status). Is it preps and jocks that are shooting up schools?
fourth) Arnett does not even mention inequality or the incredibly high rate of youth poverty in the United States. Once we factor out inequality and poverty, almost all youth stats in the U.S. match those of Europe and Scandinavia.
fifth) Arnett thinks "hyperindividualism" is the ultimate explanation of alienation, yet does not provide the needed evidence or empirical analysis. This is like saying Capitalism causes recession, or the weather causes it to snow. Well, maybe, but the real question is why. The concept is so vague and ambiguous that its hard to fathom just what it denotes. Is it a real social phenomena or a reified concept?? If "hyperindividualism" is real, how would one go about operationalizing it? What indicators could we use? Arnett attempts to use a few indicators, but they are methodologically weak. This is too bad. It would be interesting to see if the massive changes of modernity have exacerbated adolescent strife. Even if it is empirically true that they have, we would still need to ask why. What is it about humnas that makes these changes detrimental. This assumes an innate nature. Squirrels obviously have not felt the strife of modernization, nor have dogs. What is it about the evolved motivational complex of humans that makes certain changes affect them psychologically? Arnett will not give you an answer to this question.

All in all, a fun read, but not a serious contribution to scientific sociology (is this an oxymoron?). I read it as a work of sociological philosophy.. kind of like Marx, Fromm, or Sartre. Interesting, but too abstract and metaphysical to be of much use for the more positivistic amongst us. I would suggest reading a novel if you want to learn the stuff Arnett tells you. The novel will have two advantages: 1) higher quality writing, 2) no pretense to science.