On the social empowerment of music, Lawrence Grossberg provides a detailed analysis. His key concepts include “affect”, “affective plane”, “formation” and
“affective empowerment.” These are all complicated ideas and this author thinks they demand further examination to identify what they mean in his context. At first, affect is a plane of effects, a matter of “actualization”, “effectuation” practices. It’s an ability to affect and to be affected. It is closely tied to the “feeling” of life. Such “feeling” is a socially constructed domain of cultural effects. The “affect” that Grossberg uses comes from Freud. To Freud, affect refers to psychic energy. Such a psychic energy could be either bound to a specific data or unbound; hence there is the possibility of affect without and idea and ideas without affects (Grossberg 1997). Also, such psychic energy has a dynamic quality as well as an economic perspective that constructs a battleground of conflicting forces and which constructs a machine or space defined by the circulation and distribution of energy--an economy of carthexis (158). Moreover, psychic conflict is never original; it arises anaclitically, leaning upon other instincts or drives. Affect or psychic energy is the existence of tension, of a relationship that is always a difference marked upon larger contradictory field. He wants to demonstrate that there is a history of attempts to theorize economics other than those of value, ideology and libid. (159). Most importantly, affect has the power to make difference.
The affective economies empower difference while libidinal economies do not. Hence affects like pleasure and desire operate within a structure, in which it is their own satisfactions that define the operation of the system. Affect is also contentless: it is precisely aimed at constituting not only the possibility of difference, but the terms within which such differences are possible in a particular economy (159). Grossberg then puts the economy of affect into its relation with everyday life. Since affect produces differences, only when we recognize the different economies operating in everyday life can we deal with the specificity of various social practices and the contradictory terrains in it. What affect describes is the historically specific processes in which subject is defined by the intensive qualities through which it passes. Then its movement constitutes the subject nomadically across the fields of affective difference.
And, the form of empowerment operates at the affective level that would involve something other than control or meaning. And the possibility of struggle depends on such an affective empowerment (160).
Grossberg finally associates Rock to the specificity of affect because the Rock
formation--audience, music, history and relation with society--has the ability to empower people, and may transform everyday life into a possible site of struggle.
He says Rock has a more ambiguous and ambivalent relation to everyday life given its power and popularity. It can make a powerful ally if it can be “appropriated and controlled,” inflected into its own project and being articulated into a new vector of effectivity. It can become a site of struggle. It must, however, be constantly policed and able to ensure that it will continue to move within the lines of the disciplined mobilization of everyday life. The struggle over Rock, hence, is an ongoing but specific contestation within a larger field (Grossberg 1997). Rock and roll for him structures the space within which desire and pleasures are produced. It is in relations of power and politics of pleasure (31). Ultimately, popular culture is a force in political struggles; it is the arena of consent and resistance (7). To Grossberg, Rock is mainly a weapon for struggle. It may be used to counter the ideological domination in the culture industry, and may alter the rhythm and routine that are ordained under capitalism of everyday life. In fact, what Grossberg follows is the reasoning of Adorno who thinks that the culture industry is ideologically problematic, and the possibility of resistance lies in practical and symbolic struggles in popular culture.
From Grossberg’s point of view, both the lives of Disaster and Death have been altered a bit by the activity of listening to Rock. First of all, they become more sensitive to political matters by absorbing the critiques implied in lyrics. When this author first met members of Disaster, they had already been outspoken and articulate.
The guitarist Sector can talk about many social issues. Death is even more forthright.
She is very strong and reflexive. She dares to challenge anything she considers unfair, from personal chores to community affairs. Her speech is usually logical and persuasive. Both of them claim the influence of Rock spirit--uncompromising, critical and non-conformism. About their everyday life, this author has showed that the studio of Disaster is the center of their activities. Their daily plans are generally scheduled around the studio. For Death, music becomes her most important recreation.
She may forget to throw out garbage or feed cats, but it’s impossible for her to forget music. Yet, with the social aspect of empowerment so powerful, this author finds it’s insufficient to cover all the phenomena he observed. This author thinks music means something for them other than social effects. In fact, such a reasoning of Rock like Grossberg’s might be somewhat problematic because it excludes the everyday listening experience of music since we have may have different ideas toward the same song under different moods and situations. Moreover, even though Rock is marked by anger and dissatisfaction, it does not meant that there is only anger in Rock, and people may like Rock not just because they are angry. There are different kinds of moods in Rock, and the listening experience varies from one person to the other .
As Adam Krims (2000) says, although Grossberg’s reasoning emphasizes the liberatory force in expressive culture, such logic may blind us from seeing how the mode of production “sets possibilities and limitations for such discursive practices and may even interact with them in ways that are not often considered” (140).
Moreover, the exact everyday listening experience is untouched by such analytical theories. Because for music, even if it is Rock music, melody and sound are the
“primary text” upon which we organize our experience and memory. Hence, the aesthetic aspect of Rock music--as both Adam Krims and Allan Moore have noticed--should also be our concern. As Allan Moore argues, our concern has to begin from the sounds. Because we must cognize sounds before we have musical entity to care about and to give value to (Moore 1992). Then, how do we understand the aesthetic level of musical experience? Will it be done by the analysis of melody and composition? Personally, this author thinks he is not eligible to do this because it needs a meticulous analysis of Rock in order to define its musical beauty, like what Allan Moore does in his “Rock: The primary Text”. However, this author may offer his observation as a reference to see how my interviewees regard the significance of music.
2.6 Pathways: The individual practice
For Disaster, the most important thing for them is the weekly practice. Whenever there is performance, they need to practice 3-4 times a week to maintain integration among members. At times they would record demos to monitor the progress and to improve the next time. Every now and then they would join a contest like Spring Scream, and they would stay up to practice in order to be perfect. If they are professional artists, this author can understand why they take music seriously. Or, if there are lots of people watching them perform, this author can understand why they spend so much time on it. However, since they are not professional artists, the first assumption is not valid. Furthermore, the average number of people who go to a Metal performance usually would not exceed 100. The energy they spend does not get a proportionate applaud from performance. Most importantly, they would practice even when there is no performance scheduled. It seems to this author that the reason that drives them to practice is not something practical. This author thinks the need to voice dissatisfaction is not enough to endure the constant enactment. There may be something more delicate in the relationship between them and music. In her research on Milton-Keynes, Ruth Finnegan finds that the significance of music to the local people is the “pathway” by the music-making activities. Such a pathway is a kind of lifestyle and schedule; people attend music activities because of the profound rewards they get. They engage in all kinds of music genres--choirs, Jazz or Rock--which they
full-heartedly enact.
The established musical practice thus makes a reordering of social space and time, which involves people into a set of overlapping and crisscrossing social relationship. This habitual route fulfills people’s desire for social intercourse with hundreds of people and provides a channel to a socially recognized position in a relatively intimate setting (Finnegan 1989). As a result, by the reality and value the musical practice endows, people identify themselves as worthwhile members of society (306). Finally, Finnegan addresses the importance of music. Because it is the appreciation of music rather than the social or economic benefit that brings people together. She argues that the experience of music is unique to people of Milton Keynes. What makes the unmistakable dedication is the shared assumption among the participants of local music that there is something unparallel in music that has an inimitable meaning (332). There are other rewards that people may get from music, such as leisure, “the effect of habit” or family pressure. Yet the real reward of music that might be sought only in the aesthetic domain is something akin to the spiritual meaning in religion. Hence, the unique aesthetic basis of music is not just a fabrication by the theorists or for social analysis; it is part of its essence that is experienced as music by active creators (332).
This author quotes Finnegan because he found the attitude to music is similar between Disaster, Death and the people of Milton Keynes. As has been previously mentioned, Disaster would practice even when there is no performance scheduled.
They would practice in the studio even if it is 2 o’clock in the morning. Sometimes the thesis author would watch them practice and it seems to him that the reason they come to practice is just to play together, not for performance or anything else. The experience of jamming together is surely gratifying enough that is even worth a short (or long) drop out from school or work. Such a pleasure, more of aesthetic level than socioeconomic one, is very important to them. Like the people of Milton Keynes, the pursuit for musical pleasure reorders their time-space configuration and forms a particular habitual route in their life. For music, they would dedicate much money to defend their autonomous taste/appreciation of a specific genre. In this author’s eyes, he thinks it is this difference that is really captured in Grossberg’s terms. And he thinks it is the musical pleasure, not the anti-establishment sentiment, that transforms the everyday life of people and which moves them out of the lines of the disciplined mobilization. Since it is not intended to enter the details of musical analysis, what this author offers is just a simple elaboration of the pleasure that music brings. Music, as John Blacking says, “is the ordinary daily experience taking place in a world of actual time. The essential quality of music is its power to create another world of virtual time” (Blacking 1973). Such experience of virtual time is done by the change of
rhythm and the progression of sound. With the variation on the theme and the relaxation of the tension in harmony, music evokes imaginations, thoughts and experiences of persons that are either individual or collective. Thus, we are aware of the associations while we listen to music.
Our emotion and mood change with the organic movements in music and are stimulated affectively. For people of Milton Keynes, music provides them with another way of experiencing time. Thus, they may jump out from the clock-dominated time but enter a world in which time and each individual govern the perception of it.
They have the freedom to experience and construct a world at their will, and it makes their continual commitment because the musical perception varies from time to time.
Involvement in music then has wider significance, being far from a marginal and unstructured activity. It has both psychological and social significance to people’s life.
Since Extreme Metal has strong temp, time and pace changes, the emotion aroused by the change of melody and the relief of tension is also strong. It thus gives listeners much stronger experience and excitement. Hence, the case in Milton Keynes that musical excitement leads to certain social pathways may also stand true in Extreme Metal’s case. For Anthelion, Disaster and Death, the musical content is the most essential part. While it is true that rock is marked by anger, the music is the first element that touches people regardless of what it wishes to convey.. And hence, it is the musical appreciation that initiates the empowerment. As Finnegan has showed, it is music that causes the change in daily routine, and it is the love for music that has the power to make a difference. Interestingly, music itself has the initial force of the
“affective empowerment” in Grossberg’s context.
Brief summary:
In this chapter, this author discusses the aspects of how visual performance of Heavy Metal could be the potential interest of cross-dressing, visual performance and gender studies. Since the visual performance of transvestism has broader significance as Marjorie Garber argues, the visual presentation of Metal could have diverse interpretations other than a rigid decipherment as a mere display of masculinity. In the second part of the chapter, this author employs the idea of social drama from Victor Turner and Richard Schechner to offer another analytical perspective on their musical practice. He presumes that the entire processes of their musical practice, whether on stage or off-stage, is the integral part of their career, and it is equally important for their musical pursuit. Hence, the “mundane logic” of the world, as Keith Harris argues, is also influential to their practice, ideal and psychology. Finally, this author contrasts Lawrence Grossberg on the idea of musical empowerment. This author does not negate the efficacy of such a terminology; however, the reality of musical
empowerment should focus only on the social movement sense of resistance while eclipsing other aspects of musical pleasure such as the fun in playing instrument, the joy in listening to music or sharing with friends a communal kind of pleasure. In this author’s opinion, the empowerment is the combination of all these activities. The argument of empowerment of Rock should cover these aspects.
Chapter Three: Attitude and Behavior-An Inquiry into Deviance
3.0 Interviews
From the very beginning, Extreme Metal had incurred incessant attacks on its sociopathy of anti-Christian and Pagan ideologies. From the suicide of Euronymous of Mayhem to the neo-NAZI Nocturnal Mortum, Extreme Metal had astounded the society. For some people, Extreme Metal, especially Black Metal’s anti-religious and racists’ manifestation are not just “aesthetics” used for mere shock value; instead, people may regard Black Metal as the real threat to the society, for the behavior of burning churches has gone too far from the ostentatious rebellion of Rock. Therefore, Black Metal would sometimes be faced with abominations and inhibitions both from the authority and society, which lead to a more inflammatory struggle between the two sides. Likewise, the death and gory contents of Death Metal raged the religious figures and politicians in the U.S. In the name of child protection, American politicians launched a large-scale campaign in policing violent contents in media and especially in music. Specifically targeting on Death Metal band Cannibal Corpse, U.S senator Joseph Liberman argues:
These songs...are helping to create a culture of violence that is increasingly developing our children, desentizing them to consequences and ultimately cheapening the value of human life. 8
And in a more blatant manner, Carl Rascke attributes the juvenile violence to the influence of Heavy Metal in his book “Painted Black: from Drug Killings to Heavy Metal- the Alarming True Story of How Satanism is Gerrorizing Our Communities”, stating that Heavy Metal bands like Slayer, is the direct cause of juvenile suicide and murder, for the criminals of this kind are die-hard fans of these bands. From what has been stated above, it seems that Black/Death Metal members are either killers or criminals, having a special weakness for destruction in some people's eyes. And owing to the obscurity of the genre, it's hard for people to get a panorama of the culture. Hence, some may generalize them into the anti-social, anti-religion and anti-establishment category. However, as such generalizations gradually become consolidated, certain group of people would become the focus of moral crusade that their outlooks, socio-political background or other traits could become the target of attack. Hence, juvenile delinquency, killings and crimes are designated onto specific social group, and anyone who is related to this group is potentially labeled as deviant.
Following this line of reasoning, we may ask: do people listen to Black Metal just
8 Purcell, Natalie. Death Metal Music, p45.
because they are anti-social? Do people like Cannibal Corpse just because they are more likely to kill? What if there are people who are completely normal and rational?
What are the motivation and politics behind it?9
It is based on this doubt that this part of the study is conducted. Yet, getting access into the circle aside, the bigger problem is that the definition of deviance
9 Both Howard Becker and Rene Girard have elucidated on how particular social status and traits in appearance may be more likely to incur deviance impression and even moral accusation. It is said in Becker’s “Outsiders” (1966) that:
The simplest view of deviance is essentially statistical, defining as deviant anything that varies too widely from the average…so stated, the statistical view seems simple –minded, even trivial.
Yet it simplifies the problem by doing away with many questions of value that ordinarily arise in discussions of the nature of deviance. A less simple but much more common view of deviance identifies it as something essentially pathological, revealing the presence of “disease”. This view rests, obviously, on a medical analogy…the medical metaphor limits what we can see much as the statistical view does. It accepts the lay judgment of something as deviant and, by use of
Yet it simplifies the problem by doing away with many questions of value that ordinarily arise in discussions of the nature of deviance. A less simple but much more common view of deviance identifies it as something essentially pathological, revealing the presence of “disease”. This view rests, obviously, on a medical analogy…the medical metaphor limits what we can see much as the statistical view does. It accepts the lay judgment of something as deviant and, by use of