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Colin Parks

Professor Thomas

UWRT 1104

16 April 2017

Metal Music: A Positive or Negative Influence on Youth?

Metal music has been around since the late 1960s. Bands such as Deep Purple, Black

Sabbath, and Led Zeppelin were pioneers of the newly emerged genre. It was similar to the rock

and roll music in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, but soon branched out to develop its own style. The new

style changed drastically over the next few decades, eventually developing subgenres of metal

with different characteristics. A few popular examples are heavy metal, thrash metal, death metal,

nu-metal, and metalcore. One of the most notorious metal bands, Metallica, began as a thrash

metal band, bringing attention to the new subgenre. This band alone is responsible for the

adaptation and creation of several metal subgenres around today.

Today, metal music is regarded as harmful to its listeners and youth, which has brought

attention to parents and others concerned with the safety of today's youth. Most people would

consider metal listeners as delinquents, outcasts, and anti-social individuals. The music is

considered nothing but noise and the vocals are just mindless screaming, most people are just

not used to the unusual vocals. Some metal songs dont include the screaming vocals, but it is

what a lot of metal artists are recognized by. This is not the case for most metal songs. Most

songs in the metal genre are characterized by heavy drum beats, distorted guitar riffs, and the

growling/screaming for the vocals. This genre is actually considered one of the hardest to play.

The drumming is incredibly fast and the vocals take a lot of practice to even get a grasp on, since

it is so much different from normal vocals. The main factor that makes metal so frowned upon
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is the imagery in the lyrics of violence, death, suicide, etc. The lyrics of many metal songs

contain themes that are disturbing to most people.

I'd give anything just to cut you free

I'd give blood,

just to watch you, just to watch you bleed. 1

Some are even offensive to regular metal listeners, such as myself, containing themes

such as rape, death, and murder. One example is the band Cannibal Corpse, whose songs all fit

this description of disturbing. The bands name is representative of the content their songs

contain. Many listeners use this music as an outlet for their anger, so they are calmer after

hearing these lyrics, the opposite of what most believe.

Journalist for The Smart Set, Christine Ro claims mainstream media has played a huge part in

creating fear about this unrespectable genre, although their accounts are definitely tainted with

bias. She addresses that a story about a young girl's suicide with attention drawn to the teens

love of singer-songwriter, Enya, wouldn't be an easy one to write, even if true. Ro questions are

individuals troubled because they listen to a certain kind of music, or do they listen to a certain

kind of music because they are troubled. This logical issue is almost never addressed (Ro).

I do agree that the mainstream media has portrayed metal as evil, and that they are mainly

to blame for linking metal music to aggression, depression, suicide, etc. Stories about a popular

artist driving a young person to kill themselves are not written, because they would be hated by

the general public and pop culture. Instead, journalists and news outlets report on stories of

metalheads on a killing spree, because more people would agree with their claims that the music

caused them to do it.

1 Watch you Bleed by Five Finger Death Punch (2015)

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In the 1990s, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and other

similar organizations, advised psychiatric evaluations for young fans of certain kinds of metal

music. Also in the same time period, music preferences were considered when determining the

hospitalization of suicidal teens (Ro). This shows that even in the late 1900s, metal was regarded

as harmful and a signal that the listener may be a danger to themselves or others, solely based on

the fact that they listen to a particular music style.

In a 2016 issue of the Journal of Medical Humanities, Charley Baker and Brian Brown

review trends in the music, and analyze the songs of a popular metal band called Slipknot.

Baker claims to be a long-time metal fan who attends many metal concerts. Baker states Ive

never felt more protected than in a mosh pit2. The mainstream media accounts she reviewed,

which demonized the music, didnt relate to her own experiences listening to the music and

going to concerts (Ro).

Baker shares her experience with the concerts she's been to. Theyre the most positive places

Ive ever been. From the outside they look quite violent and scary, and my family find it

horrifying that I go to lots of gigs. But when youre there, its amazing. And thats what drove me

to want to do research in the area. The clinical research coming out didnt match my experience

in any way. Everybody I spoke to was saying, No, the metal is what keeps me alive. Its the

metal that stops me from being depressed. Its the metal that gives me an outlet for negative

emotion (Ro). I have personally never been to a metal concert, but from what I have heard

from friends, they are a great place to let loose and forget all the built up stress from life for just

a bit, just as Baker states here.

2 Mosh Pit - a style of dance in which participants push or slam into each other, typically performed to "aggressive"
live music
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Many studies have been done to attempt to find a link between listeners of metal music

and delinquent/aggressive behavior. This is what I will be using as evidence to prove or disprove

the hypothesis I believe: Metal music has more positive influences on its listeners than

negative. A study was conducted by Simon Singer, a professor of criminology at Northeastern

University. His credibility is built by his position as a professor in the field of interest, as well as

his Ph.D in Sociology. Singers study was done on attempting to find a correlation between

preference of heavy metal music and delinquency in youth. It is a study from 1987, but the style

of the music in the study has remained today, modern metal and classic metal have few

differences. 705 high school students were asked to participate in the study. 7% of the

participants chose heavy metal as their preferred music genre.

The results showed that heavy metal listeners are significantly more delinquent than other

music listeners. Simon claims low parental control led to more delinquent behavior, and low

intelligence also had the same effect. The multivariate analysis3 shows that the effects of heavy

metal preference are small, and it is more important to consider interaction with the measures of

social control (Singer). Singer refers to social control as the societal impacts on the youth,

such as peers, family, school, etc.

I agree with his analysis; I believe societal factors are a more likely cause of delinquency

than music listened to. If the person has an unsupportive family and associate themselves with

other delinquents they have a far greater chance of displaying delinquent behavior than someone

with a supportive family and who is around well behaved peers. This is still the case even if both

people listen to metal music.

3 Multivariate Analysis - refers to any statistical technique used to analyze data that arises from more than one
variable.
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Another study was conducted by Dr. Genevieve Dingle, a professor at the University of

Queensland, the Australian public research institution in Brisbane, in 2015. Along with one of his

students, Leah Sharman, Dr. Dingle studied 39 listeners of extreme music between ages 18 and

34. Sharman stated we found the music regulated sadness and enhances positive emotions. He

explains when experiencing anger, extreme-music fans liked to listen to music that could match

their anger. The results showed a decrease in the participants levels of hostility, irritability, and

stress after the music was introduced. An additional part of the study was to see what kind of

music angry participants select from their playlist. Half of the songs consisted of themes and

aggression, with the other half involving themes of isolation and sadness.

Although these themes were present in the music selected, participants reported the music

enhanced their happiness, provide feelings of love and enhance their general wellbeing. The

experiment was conducted in a laboratory under controlled conditions, therefore provides

evidence against the notion that extreme music causes anger (Guardian music). This study goes

along with the first study by Singer, although more recent. Both studies support my hypothesis. I

personally agree and relate to the study well. I use metal music as an outlet for my built up stress

and anxiety, as it is shown in this study it does reduce stress.

One study opposing my hypothesis is a study done by Francis McAndrew and John Mast,

professors of psychology at Knox College. The study aims to find a link between violent lyrics in

music and aggression, just as Singer and Dingle had hoped to find. Thirty-five male college

students age eighteen to twenty-two were picked to participate in a study they were told was to

examine the relationship between auditory stimulation and taste sensitivity. They were randomly

assigned to one of three experimental groups: a group that listened to heavy metal with violent

lyrics, a group that listened to heavy metal with no violent lyrics, and a control group that
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listened to no music. The songs with non-violent lyrics were Bounce, Old School

Hollywood, and I-E-A-I-A-I-O by System of a Down. The songs determined to have violent

lyrics were Bloodmeat and Limb from Limb by Protest the Hero (Mast).

After the listening period, each participant was given a cup filled with 115 mg of water

and a bottle of hot sauce. They were told to add hot sauce to the water as a taste sample for the

next subject. The dependent variable was the weight of the hot sauce the subject added to the cup

of water. The group that listened to violent lyrics added significantly more hot sauce to the water

than the other two groups, who had negligible difference. The study shows that there is clear

evidence that exposure to violent lyrics was linked to aggressive behavior. Since the volume,

tempo, and other qualities of the music were similar between the two groups that listened, the

lyrics seemed to be the primary agent acting on the behavior (Mast).

Assuming that the 35 college students are not active metal-listeners, they most likely do

not understand the lyrics of the songs by Protest the Hero. This is due to the nature of the vocals,

they are almost impossible to understand if not an experienced metal listener. Even I, who listens

to almost exclusively metal, had a difficult time understanding the lyrics, even when focusing

just on the lyrics. Therefore, I disagree with the conclusion that the violent lyrics were the cause

of the aggressive behavior. As for the songs by System of a Down, they have reasonably easy

to understand lyrics with no violent lyrics, albeit explicit.

In addition to that, the use of hot sauce as an indicator of aggression is flawed. The

listeners were most likely just more energetic after listening to the music. The instrumentals are

heavy and fast, releasing dopamine and making the listener happier and more energetic. So, I

believe the vocals are not the cause, but the instrumentals. Even if there was a difference in

results between the two groups, the non-violent lyric songs didn't have as fast of a tempo, so the
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listeners were calmer than the listeners of the violent lyric songs. The listeners of the violent

lyrics were more energized and excited, so they put more hot sauce in the cup of water. Because

of this, there cannot be a link to aggression. Finally, the participants were instructed to put the

hot sauce in the water, and not given an amount. So a more energetic person will put more hot

sauce in the cup, with aggression having negligible effect.

Another study producing findings countering my hypothesis is one done by Maarten H.

W. Selfhout, who a Doctorate of Philosophy and is an educator at Utrecht University,

Netherlands. This study examines the stability of adolescents preference for heavy metal and hip-

hop youth culture styles and longitudinal associations between preferences and problematic

behavior. The sample was 931 adolescents, 52.3% boys and the rest girls, between the age of 11

and 18. A questionnaire of cultural preferences was given at the beginning, and only participants

displaying interest in hip-hop and metal were analyzed. Externalizing behavior was analyzed by

determining the level of direct and indirect aggression and delinquency. On a 4-point scale, the

participants were asked how often they displayed behavior described in the categories (Maarten).

The results were that the initial wave indicated a strong link between aggression and

preference for the cultural styles in question. After the 2 year period, the study indicates that both

styles significantly predicted externalizing problems, such as delinquency and antisocial

tendencies (Maarten).

Selfhout concludes These findings suggest that, as proposed by other authors (Bennett,

2001; Christenson & Roberts, 1998; ter Bogt, 2000), adolescents do not change their youth

culture affiliation regularly and that their preferences are relatively stable over time. These

results also imply that youth cultures may be serious risk factors, if adolescents youth culture
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preferences really do have an effect on their behavior, because these affiliations persist over

time (Maarten).

This study explains that a person listening to metal, and displaying aggressive behavior,

will continue to listen to that music style and display the same problematic behaviors in the

future. The problem with this study is that since the majority of those listening to metal already

display aggressive behavior at the beginning of the study would most likely display the same

behaviors after the two year period. The reason for the initial aggressive behaviors in the

participants could be explained by other factors, such as social influences, as Singer would

suggest.

The four studies and personal experiences observed have led to the conclusion that metal

music doesnt lead to a significant increase in aggressive behavior. Societal factors, such as

parental influence, peers, and school, and intelligence have a greater effect on aggression in

adolescents. Dr. Singer and Dr. Dingle both conducted studies supporting this conclusion. Dr.

Masts study was against this, but my analysis shows that his findings were inaccurate. Dr.

Selfhouts longitudinal study is conducted under the assumption that aggressive behaviors in the

beginning are caused by the metal music, not producing evidence that this is the case. Finally,

Christine Ro gives personal accounts by Charley Baker. Baker shares that metal music helps her

get through tough situations and reduces her stress. Furthermore, she states that the community

of metal listeners at concerts is tight net, and supportive. In conclusion, metal music has more

positive than negative effects on its listeners, given that they have positive societal influences,

such as supportive parents, overall good friends, positive influences at school.

The reason this is so important is because metal listeners are frequently thought to be all

delinquents, rebels, and outcasts. Of course, some are, but it is not representative of the majority.
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This information I found gives evidence that there are positive effects of metal on its listeners. In

addition, societal influences affect adolescents significantly more than the music they listen to.

Certain social situations will increase aggressive behaviors much more than a preference to the

metal genre. If I had an opportunity to look closer into this, I would research the neurological

effect of the metal music on the brain, and what leads to the listeners increased energy and stress

relief. Besides the release of dopamine4 while listening to the music, the rest is unknown to me. I

believe this would provide much more support to my hypothesis and offer many more

explanations to the questions Ive been attempting to answer.

4 Dopamine - a neurotransmitter that helps control the brain's reward and pleasure centers. Dopamine also helps
regulate movement and emotional responses, and it enables us not only to see rewards, but to take action to move
toward them.
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Works Cited

Guardian Music. "Listening to 'extreme' Music Makes You Calmer, Not Angrier, According to

Study." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 22 June 2015. Web. 26 Mar. 2017.

Mast, J. F., & McAndrew, F. T. (2011). Violent lyrics in heavy metal music can increase

aggression in males. North American Journal of Psychology, 13(1), 63-64.

Maarten H. W. Selfhout Marc J. M. H. Delsing Tom F. M. ter Bogt Wim H. J. Meeus. Heavy

Metal and Hip-Hop Style Preferences and Externalizing Problem Behavior. Youth &

Society. Vol 39, Issue 4, pp. 435 - 452. First published date: August 9, 2007.

Ro, Christine. "The Positive Psychology of Metal Music." The Smart Set. Pennoni Honors

College at Drexel University, 13 June 2016. Web. 06 Apr. 2017.

Singer, Simon I., et al. "Heavy Metal Music Preference, Delinquent Friends, Social Control, and

Delinquency." Journal of Research in Crime & Delinquency, vol. 30, no. 3, Aug. 1993,

pp. 317-329.