Review

Reviewed Work(s): Running with the Devil: Power, Gender and Madness in Heavy Metal
Music by Robert Walser
Review by: Charles Keil
Source: Popular Music, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Jan., 1995), pp. 131-135
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/853350
Accessed: 14-11-2016 16:23 UTC

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms

Cambridge University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Popular Music

This content downloaded from 143.239.102.1 on Mon, 14 Nov 2016 16:23:03 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Popular Music (1995) Volume 14/1. Copyright ( 1995 Cambridge University Press

Reviews

Running with the Devil: Power, Gender and Madness in Heavy Metal
Robert Walser. Hanover & London: Wesleyan University Press, 1993,
pages of photographs, bibliographical references, discography and index

I have been delighted and enlightened by Rob Walser's papers at confere

the past four or five years and, anticipating this book as a summation o
analytic skills concentrated on a single big style, I am not disappointed.
much to criticise, but chapter by chapter Walser is always perceptive an
very clearly about the musical details and their articulation with major is
readers of Popular Music will want to study this book as an all-too-rare
how to bring analysis of musical structures, processes and textures into
centre of a cultural studies discussion. This book sets a standard.
But to what purpose? Sex, drugs, rock and roll. Was it ever revolutionary
Did it ever make much of a difference? Some big stars died young and youth
kept buying warmed over Led Zep and Hendrix every year for twenty-five ye
By the radical praxis test - the ethos of the music shaping character and actio
rock is by now a proven failure. If young people dance at all to the Burundi b
it doesn't make anyone care more or less what happens there or in Rwanda
there Bruce Springsteen fans at the dwindling number of labour union picket li
The Madonna wannabees are not yet visible in feminist demos and there seem
be fewer of those lately too. In 1970, even if I couldn't stomach Bob Dylan or
music, I could like the people who liked Bob while disliking his music because
gave me comrades in active search of solutions. In those days the music see
to matter as a motivator or as solace after a day of dare-to-struggle-dare-to-jug
Walser 'offers some explanations of how heavy metal works and why people ca
about it' (p. xviii). But why should non-headbangers care in 1995? Walser's
answer is that unlike a lot of stuck, warmed-over, late 1960s rock, heavy meta
'perhaps the single most successful and enduring genre of the past thirty year
(p. x), evolved rapidly and inexorably into a virtuosic, gigantic, spectacular, tr
gressive, transcendent, louder and noisier version of Western classical music. T
history of bourgeois romantic individualist excesses repeated as ear-damag
farce. But if, like Tolstoy (1898/1962) at the end of the nineteenth century, you
Wagner and most other concert music pretentious, repulsive, a big lie, false ar
why would you care about an electric guitar version of it a century later? At
end of Running what the Devil I am left feeling that the spirited young who m
actually rebel against all the hypocrisy, bureaucracy, injustice, militarism and b
ness-as-usual of this world are being given bolshoi show-biz rites of passage, s
transitory 'transgressions' to get them through their 'difficult' years before TV
consumerism zap them into total submission.
A dose of old-fashioned Adorno scepticism or a little bit of Marcuse
'repressive desublimation' theory could go a long way to deconstruct this w
131

This content downloaded from 143.239.102.1 on Mon, 14 Nov 2016 16:23:03 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
132 Reviews

mess. A grounding in the ethnographies of classless societies

future vision of a smaller scale, less mediated, culturally divers
a more rigorous ethnographic approach might have given Walse
critical bite. As it is, the flow of the mediated status quo, the in
archy and capitalist social relations, are never seriously question
that open and close Walser's introductory description (p. xvi
indicative: 'Since the social contexts within which heavy metal ci
Western societies in the late twentieth century) are highly patr
surprising to find that an important concern of metal is to rep
and female subordination'. 'This chapter, more than the others,
music videos because of the connections that exist in contempor
tures among music, gender, and spectacularity'. Here 'since
naturalise patriarchal oppressions and capitalist alienations a
patterns that can be engaged, played with, transgressed symbol
really overthrown. Walser claims to be following the examples
(1984) and Steven Feld (1982/1990) in finding out 'what real list
they think about their activities' (p. xiii), stating his goal as
through a kind of cultural triangulation, using ethnography as a
interpretation and developing ethnographic strategies out of m
cultural analyses' (p. xiii) but, in fact, local listeners, fans, n
Walser are very rarely heard from directly (the results of a
questionnaire are reported on pages 18 and 19 and in a single fo
some fans finally surface in Ch. 4, footnotes 45 and 48, and Ch
53, 75 but a few footnotes do not an ethnography make); hi
observations in heavy metal bands are not reported in any detai
nothing actually checks the 'textural interpretation' for very lon
In Chapter 1, Walser positions his 'Metal as Discourse' very s
of various genre criteria and those origin myths that tend to b
rip-offs of African-American blues that, in fact, launched the
clusters of bands and waves of popularity over time leading to
of pop or lite metal in the late 1980s and a fragmentation of the
metal, commercial metal, lite metal, power metal, American me
metal, white (Christian) metal, death metal, speed metal, gl
Walser is at his best explaining why both rock critics and acade
ignore or scorn metal for fifteen years and then failed to analy
another five. Reviewing the other metal books he dismisses
sociological Heavy Metal (1991) too quickly, missing her articula
sian and the Chaotic in metal as the basis of whatever claims th
music's value in helping its fans to resist the dominant culture
darker side of daily life under capitalism. Chuck Eddy's Stairwa
Best Heavy Metal Albums in the Universe (1991) rates only a pass
for 'virtuosic style analysis' (which it is, 500 record reviews bei
many) but there might be a coherent worldview tucked inside Ch
Bangsian-gonzobabble and Walser might have ferreted it out if
a hurry to prove that Yngwie Malmsteen has out-Paganinied Pag
That's what Chapter 3 is about. 'Heavy Metal Appropria
Virtuosity' says it all. Awesome transcriptions and tablature exp
musical analysis, important questions directed back to the m
Vivaldi if they can be fused so successfully with Deep Purple.

This content downloaded from 143.239.102.1 on Mon, 14 Nov 2016 16:23:03 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 Reviews 133

In Chapter 2, 'Beyond the Vocals', Walser summarises the

debates very succinctly and intelligently, comes to some very s
music can 'only be said to have meaning in particular, sociall
'all signification as provisional', 'all meanings as produced throug
of texts and readers' (p. 29) 'for ultimately music doesn't hav
do' (p. 31) - only to ignore them in his interpretations of metal
sequent chapters where no specific people are consulted in their
and the minor third is always mournful, the Aeolian mode is co
ive, chord progression X does this and progression Y does tha
supposedly fixed or essentialised conventions of Western civilisa
lyses work very well because Great White Western Music is inde
bundle of clich6s that metal and classical share, but they are no
completely people-in-context-determined meanings that Wals
quently in Chapter 2. Walser practices more of what he preache
importance of sound, timbre, volume (pp. 41-5) and these pag
the price of the book. On matters of pulse, beat or what he c
48-50) Walser pinpoints the deficiencies of mainstream music
have a very developed groovology (Keil and Feld 1994; Keil,
articles in Ethnomusicology, Spring 1995) of his own to offer.
Chapter 4, 'Forging Masculinity' is fascinating for the range
ies of masculine virtuosity and control' (p. 108), the themes of '
tion, androgyny and romance' (p. 110) whose variations have
half the metal audience to become female in recent years. W
as subtle as the metallic gender representations are gross an
that music in general and this genre in particular are where
deep seated sexuality and gender problems are being displayed in
give us access and understanding. The analytic rewards for fo
on the cultural level are considerable, but I am still troubled by
lack of concern for the social and psychological consequences
negative, of all these cultural representations. The minute you r
question, 'cultural studies' people wonder whether you are tip
the right and censorship, or towards an old left elitism that dem
raise consciousness rather than explore it, but all I am insisting
more checks - classless baseline, utopian vision, genuine ethn
sociology, etc. - on all these cultural/textual interpretations. For
ating cultural reality from the rest of reality, a project that has
the pathbreaking work of Florian Znaniecki (Cultural Reality
anthropology of David M. Schneider and Clifford Geertz, that c
aesthetic sexism can be praised or celebrated as 'transgression', p
tural solution to a cultural problem. While the problem of viole
is increasing year by year all over the world as capitalism de
family, class and community, we have to ask whether met
pseudo-communities (no children, no elders, no shared place
based upon endless corporate sales of spectacular sexism are i
the social solution.
Walser's 'alternative explanations of the significance of mysticism, horror,
and violence in heavy metal' in Chapter 5, 'Can I Play with Madness?', are more
convincing than the 'can I play with patriarchy?' manoeuvres of Chapter 4. He
has fun teasing the concerned citizens and crackpot scholars who take the satanism

This content downloaded from 143.239.102.1 on Mon, 14 Nov 2016 16:23:03 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
134 Reviews

and 'backwards' messages seriously, then carefully reviews the

ving Judas Priest in 1990 and Ozzy Osborne in 1985 to show wh
their music can not be held accountable for the negative behavi
Conversely, the interviews from the Music in Daily Life Projec
et al., 1993) confirm Walser's point that a great many young
way through bad moods by matching them with 'bad mood', got
of all kinds, Eddie Vedder's Oedipal grunge moanings being
point. Who knows how many lives are saved with this easily av
ary version of Aristotelian catharsis? Walser and Weinstein, with
ent approaches to the subject, can nevertheless agree that explo
is subversive in relation to a dominant culture that requires chee
an entire world being turned into property for profit.
This need for 'endarkenment' seems to be a powerful and lo
as Rogan Taylor's The Death and Resurrection Show: From Shama
Michael Ventura's passionate essays, Letters at 3AM: Reports on E
attest in their very different ways, there is much more at stake
of cheerfulness at the mall.
In his concluding paragraphs (pp. 170-1) Walser suddenly makes social claims
for metal fans (who 'create for themselves a social world of greater depth and
intensity') and for metal music ('creates communal attachments, enacts collective
empowerment') that are not well demonstrated in the preceding pages of cultural
analysis and text interpretation. Have I missed the metal communes and collectives
that are springing up? Did I miss Walser's discussion of them? Maybe twenty-five
years of metallic cultural exploration has or will have some cumulative, purgative
effect, maybe it presages new forms of family and community, the sudden emer-
gence of a liberating praxis or a more intense social world, but I don't see or hear it
now, on the ground, beneath the superstructure; I didn't expect rock to roll the
system over in the 1960s either; my doubts about ever witnessing a basically mass
mediated rebirth of musical ethos were deep then and get deeper each year.
I have been passing over strengths and highlighting weaknesses in Walser's
book believing that criticism is what moves all our enquiries along. Let me say
again in closing that this is one of the very best books on musical style as a cultural
system I've ever read and I agree with the superlatives from Dave Marsh, Simon
Frith, Sherry Ortner and Charles Hamm on the back cover. It is the whole cultural
studies acceptance of the mediated status quo and its texts as an ultimate or suffi-
cient reality that I question; Walser's fine book just happens to be a leading
example at hand.

Charles Keil
SUNY, Buffalo

References

Aln, O. In press. 'Rhythm as duration of sounds in Tumba Francesa', Ethnomusicology, Spring, 1995
Crafts, S., Cavicchi, D. and Keil, C. 1993. My Music (Hanover & London)
Eddy, C. 1991. Stairway to Hell: The 500 Best Heavy Metal Albums in the Universe (New York)
Feld, S. 1982/1990. Sound and Sentiment: Birds, Weeping, Poetics, and Song in Kaluli Expression
(Philadelphia)
Keil, C. and Feld, S. 1994. Music Grooves (Chicago)

This content downloaded from 143.239.102.1 on Mon, 14 Nov 2016 16:23:03 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 Reviews 135

Keil, C. In press. 'The theory of participatory discrepancies: a progress report', Eth

1995

Pr6gler, J. In press. 'Searching for swing: participatory discrepancies in the jazz rhythm section',
Ethnomusicology, Spring 1995
Radway, J. 1984. Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature (Chapel Hill)
Taylor, R. 1985. The Death and Resurrection Show: From Shaman to Superstar (London)
Tolstoy, L. 1898/1962. What is Art? (London)
Ventura, M. 1993. Letters at 3AM: Reports on Endarkenment (Dallas)
Weinstein, D. 1991. Heavy Metal: A Cultural Sociology (New York)
Znaniecki, F. 1919. Cultural Reality (Chicago)

Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. By Tricia
Rose. Hanover & London. Wesleyan University Press, 1994. xvi + 241 pp.

Since its emergence more than fifteen years ago in New York's South Bronx, rap
music has articulated the pleasures and problems of black urban life in America.
Relatively unnoticed by the mainstream culture industries at its outset, rap today
has survived numerous death knells to become enormously popular: its musical
and visual style is evident everywhere. But like most forms of popular music that
have origins in the African-American community - ragtime and jazz, for instance -
rap has been under nearly constant attack, nourished by the media's obsession
with rap and violence. Most recently (and concurrent with the publication of Black
Noise), congressional hearings were held in Washington, DC on the 'music, lyrics,
and interstate commerce' of gangsta rap. In her widely reported testimony, Dr.
C. DeLores Tucker, Chair of the Democratic Black Caucus, introduced in support
of state-sponsored action against gangsta rap the following evidence: cardboard
blow-ups of lyrics by NWA, the Geto Boys, the Cypress Hill; the comic that comes
with Snoop Doggy Dogg's album Doggystyle. Invoking the familiar discourse of
censorship and control, Dr. Tucker spoke about gangsta rap's 'corrupting influ-
ence' on 'young people' by those who 'abuse and misuse the freedom of speech'.
While white forms of musical expression like punk, which emerged about
the same time as rap, are now passing into history as 'musical vaudeville' (John
Lydon's recent characterisation), rap remains at the forefront of ongoing cultural
and political skirmishes in this country. While grunge - heir to punk's confronta-
tional sound - has been reconstructed in the wake of Kurt Cobain's suicide as
merely a confessional text for today's 'lost' generation, rap remains resis
explosive. Why rap remains vital, and what its vitality says about contempor
black-white social relations are among the subjects Tricia Rose takes up i
ambitious book - a book that also explores, theorises about, and sometime
tiques rap culture's internal tensions and contradictions.
Although there are a few published histories of rap, and essays colle
here and there, Black Noise is the first full-length study of rap and hip hop cu
that draws extensively on cultural theory. Rose situates herself early in her
story as someone who has found herself 'on both sides of a contentious and r
divide': a biracial, ex-working-class, New York-based feminist and critic who
up during the years in which hip hop materialised. It's from these particular
tions that she develops her arguments, proceeding from the assumption that
critical force grows out of the cultural potency that racially segrated conditi
foster - the same conditions that have been instrumental in confining
oppressing African-Americans.

This content downloaded from 143.239.102.1 on Mon, 14 Nov 2016 16:23:03 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms