Metalheads: Heavy Metal Music and Adolescent Alienation

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crucial error is his misjudgement of the music in heavy-metal, as his analysis is based on a primitve and completely outdated and unscientific german musictheory from the 17.century - the so called "Affekt-theorie", which is nearly as ridiculous as a theory that claims that the Earth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

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining, but poor from a scientific point of view.
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Reinforces everything I hate about sociology
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Reinforces everything I hate about sociology
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Well-written, fascinating, and in-depth book on metalheads
Review: This is an extremely well-written book on fans of heavy metal music. Jeffrey Arnett provides an in-depth and fascinating account of the psychology of the fans of the music and their culture. As a psychologist, I found his description of the metal heads to support what I already knew as well as to provide me with new and very helpful insights. The book told me something about the fans in general and it also provided a good sense of how each fan is unique. There were no easy overgeneralizations. I would very highly recommend this book to other psychologists and to parents or anyone else who would like to learn more about both the positives and negatives of what it means to be a metalhead.

Rating:
Summary: Where was this book when I was 15?
Review: Wow! What a revelation to hear so many ideas that I thought were mine alone repeated over and over by the participants of Mr. Arnett's study. I must admit that I'm only a lowly marketing researcher, but I don't see any glaring errors in his methodology. He never said metalheads were a unique group or the only adolescents with problems OR that there weren't outliers in the real world.

I enjoyed the book immensely, especially the profiles. As I was reading it I just kept saying, "Hey that's exactly what I used to say!" I am/was a metalhead, I played in countless bands in my teens and early 20s and now I'm 34 and just received my Iron Maiden Powerslave enhanced CD in the mail a week ago. I lived for music, Heavy Metal and Punk. I slamdanced all the time, went to endless concerts, played endless concerts, had hair down to my arse, owned a collection of concert t-shirts and ripped jeans, and even wore spandex at some point. But unlike most of the people in the study, I was straight edge, got good grades and had many friends (including girl friends). To clash with another of Arnett's theories, my household was the model for hyper individualism but my parents added to that a spark of integrity that made all the difference. I did whatever I wanted to, but always kept in mind the effect it would have on others.

This book covered all the major points I would have made if I had written it when I was 15.

1) Hair bands and bands that write about sex and partying are not Heavy Metal.
2) Many heavy metal musicians are extremely talented.
3) The world sucks and everyone has their heads up their bums.
4) Listening to loud music and slamdancing are great ways to burn off steam.

Thanks Mr. Arnett, I wish I would have found this book when it first came out.