This book explores the enigma of class in heavy metal, challenging existing accounts that have dismissed the genre for its classed cultural limitations. It engages with the key ways in which heavy metal is often seen as a profane expression of a-political and anti-religious feelings. While others have argued that heavy metal’s embrace of chaos, biblical doom, and the triumph of evil, this book is the first that examines the genre’s musical and lyrical expressions, arguing that the genre can be translated to express a language of class that is coded for the voice of the historically oppressed and marginalized.
1. Where the Cows Drink Industrial Sewage: Classification and Class Disgust in the Critical Reception of Heavy Metal
2. Nary a Plaque or a Tea Towel: Or How Wrong We Were About Black Sabbath
3. Denim and Leather: The Proud Pariah as Folk Devil
4. Born To Lose: The Paradox of the Politics of No Class
5. Six-Ton Budgie: An Interpretative Analysis of Class in Music and Lyrics
6. Between Heaven and Hell: The Politics and the Poetics of Biblical Allusion
7. Victim of Changes or Never Say Die? Charting Metal’s Global Class Profile
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