Death Metal and Music Criticism

Analysis at the Limits

By (author) Michelle Phillipov

Publication date:

15 March 2012

Length of book:

172 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

Dimensions:

240x161mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9780739164594

Death metal is one of popular music's most extreme variants, and is typically viewed as almost monolithically nihilistic, misogynistic, and reactionary. Michelle Phillipov's Death Metal and Music Criticism: Analysis at the Limits offers an account of listening pleasure on its own terms. Through an analysis of death metal's sonic and lyrical extremity, Phillipov shows how violence and aggression can be configured as sites for pleasure and play in death metal music, with little relation to the "real" lives of listeners. In some cases, gruesome lyrical themes and fractured song forms invite listeners to imagine new experiences of the body and of the self. In others, the speed and complexity of the music foster a "technical" or distanced appreciation akin to the viewing experiences of graphic horror film fans. These aspects of death metal listening are often neglected by scholarly accounts concerned with evaluating music as either 'progressive' or "reactionary."

By contextualizing the discussion of death metal via substantial overviews of popular music studies as a field, Phillipov's Death Metal and Music Criticism highlights how the premium placed on political engagement in popular music studies not only circumscribes our understanding of the complexity and specificity of death metal, but of other musical styles as well. Exploring death metal at the limits of conventional music criticism helps not only to develop a more nuanced account of death metal listening—it also offers some important starting points for rethinking popular music scholarship as a whole.

Introduction. A "Nihilistic Dreamboat to Negation?"
Part 1. The Limits of Music Criticism
Chapter 1. The Rise of Political Criticism
Chapter 2. The Politics of Popular Music Studies: The Case of Punk
Chapter 3. The Search for the "New Punk": Hip Hop and Electronic Dance Music
Chapter 4. A "Promise Unfulfilled": The Problem of Metal
Part 2. The Pleasures of Death Metal
Chapter 5. Death Metal and the Reorientation of Listening
Chapter 6. The Pleasures of Horror
Chapter 7. "Becoming Death": Pleasure and Play in Death Metal
Chapter 8. "Bodies Prepared for Slaughter": Death Metal's "Technical" Appreciation
Conclusion. Death Metal at the Limits

Phillipov suggests that we have become, through, our political interest, overly interested in hip-hop and electronic dance music- as we were with their music antecedent Punk- which dominate our reading lists and shape what it is acceptable to study both now and (her concern) in the future. We have done Metal an academic disservice by examining it only within the limiting parameters of nihilism....The content matter is helpful both for students learning how to utilize a literature review, and for those in the field who are less familiar with the strands of research which can helpfully unpack this area....As a book, this is a welcome and refreshing addition...both in terms of the writing style and the argument itself.