A Cockroach Preserved in Amber
The Significance of Class in Critics' Representations of Heavy Metal Music and its Fans
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3226147 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sandy Brown (0000-0003-0148-6981, University of Bath), Andy R Brown (Bath Spa University University of Bath), Christine Griffin (0000-0001-8157-4492, Bath Spa University University of Bath) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 62 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 719-741 |
| Publication date | 2014-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Sociological Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0038-0261 • E-ISSN: 1467-954X |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-954x.12181 |
| OpenAlex | W1935787092 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 8 |
| References cited | 32 |
In this paper we engage with new cultural theories of class that have identified media representations of 'excessive' white heterosexual working-class femininity as a 'constitutive limit' of incorporation into dominant (middle-class) modes of neoliberal subjectivity and Bourdieu's thesis that classification is a form of symbolic violence that constitutes both the classifier and the classified. However, what we explore are the implications of such arguments for those modes of white heterosexual working-class masculinity that continue to reproduce themselves in forms of overtly masculinist popular culture. We do so through a critical examination of the symbolic representation of the genre of heavy metal music within contemporary music journalism. Employing a version of critical discourse analysis, we offer an analysis of representative reviews, derived from a qualitative sample of the UK music magazine, New Musical Express (1999-2008). This weekly title, historically associated with the ideals of the 'counter culture', now offers leadership of musical tastes in an increasingly segmented, niche-oriented marketplace. Deploying a refined model of the inscription process outlined by Skeggs, our analysis demonstrates how contemporary music criticism symbolically attaches negative attributes and forms of personhood to the working-class male bodies identified with heavy metal culture and its audience, allowing dominant middle-class modes of cultural authority to be inscribed within matters of musical taste and distinction
Aesthetics · Art · Criticism · Epistemology · Literature · Masculinity · Musical · Sociology · Subjectivity · Taste · The Symbolic · Diverse Music Education Insights · Gender Studies · Music History and Culture · Philosophy · Psychology · Social and Cultural Dynamics
Get In The Ring
The place of class
Heavy metal justice
Heavy metal justice? Calibrating the economic and aesthetic accreditation of the heavy metal genre in the pages of Rolling Stone 1980–91
“I’m a Little Black Boy and I Don’t Know My Place”
Why doesn’t anyone write anything about Slade? Reassessing glam
On white-collar boxing and social class
Introduction
Teenage wasteland
Property Bureaucracy and Culture
Urban Rhythms
Distinction
Club cultures
The Media and Social Theory
Subculture
Formations of Class and Gender
Consumer Culture and Postmodernism
Feminism and Youth Culture
A stairway to heaven or a highway to hell
Pop music and peer groups
Everything Louder Than Everything Else”
The musical field
Reclassifying Upward Mobility
Notes on ‘What Not to Wear’ and Post-Feminist Symbolic Violence
Anything But Heavy Metal
Mobs and monsters
What about the univores? Musical dislikes and group-based identity construction among Americans with low levels of education
Policing Bohemia, pinning up grunge
Sells Like Teen Spirit
Disgusted Subjects
Metal, Rock, and Jazz
Governing the Soul - a Quarter of a Century On
Sound Effects
Mass Media and the Secondary School
The Making of Class and Gender through Visualizing Moral Subject Formation
| Unique citing works | 8 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,73 |
| Citation span | 2015 - 2022 (8) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |