Introduction
In the last chapter I discussed how my interviewees negotiated the representation of women fans as it is articulated in Kerrang!’s letters pages. The magazine’s dominant representation of women fans as groupies exerts considerable pressure upon the fans I interviewed. I found that they discussed the figure of the groupie in a number of ways, but they always rejected the title for themselves. In their descriptions, women placed the emphasis of their fandom upon the music. If this were a study of male fans, this would not be an extraordinary statement, but to think of women fans as interested in music, rather than the persons of the musicians, is to counter the common sense understanding of women fans. In this chapter I analyse the ways in which women metal fans describe the music they love. In doing so I diverge from much of the existing work on women fans, which tends to stay within the limits of subcultural studies, exploring women’s
relationships with other fans in the public spaces of the gig, concert and club. Hence it constitutes one of my original contributions to the field of research of women as popular music fans, specifically as fans of hard rock and metal. I note, however, that in this discussion of music I am not aiming to elevate my interviewees’ reputations to ‘authentic fans’: I am taking their engagement with the music seriously, but with the aim of showing how notions of the ‘authentic fan’ are inadequate in understanding women’s fandom.
Leblanc’s study of punk girls is one example of a study of fans that omits the music (Leblanc 1999). She focuses on the ways in which young women punk fans construct femininity, deal with sexual harassment from within and outside of the punk subculture, and negotiate their public performance of punk. The fans’ pleasure in the music is absent.
This is the case, too, in Vasan’s article (2011) that hints at the pleasures that women derive from their engagement with the music, but does not explore them in depth. Her focus is on the ways in which women engage in ‘cost reduction’ mechanisms in order to reduce the personal impact of the misogyny at gigs. Whilst this is of course important work, the emphasis on sexisms results in it being difficult to understand why women would enjoy death metal. The allusion to pleasure serves as a tantalising glimpse of some other story, but this is not told. Kahn-Harris’ work is exceptional on this point; however, his discussion of pleasure in music is brief and focuses on how fans are, perhaps purposefully, inarticulate about what they like (Kahn-Harris 2007, 51-4). In the main, Kahn-Harris’ discussion of women death and black metal fans focuses on their marginal status. He describes the way in which black metal’s ideological prioritising of the music eschews discussions of politics, and so prohibits challenges to sexism in the scene (Kahn-Harris 2007, 155). However, I argue that focussing solely on problems of access that
women fans face does an injustice to those fans. Vasan and Kahn-Harris’ theses sell women fans short by not considering how women too love the music ‘for its own sake’, because female fans are always positioned by their gender. Thus loving the music whilst taking their gender for granted becomes a position that is only open to male fans and such a fandom is presented as ‘normal’. This is reminiscent of Monique Wittig’s argument that the only gender is the feminine; masculinity is assumed to be the normal state and so it is not understood as a gender:
[…] there are not two genders. There is only one: the feminine, the “masculine”
not being a gender. For the masculine is not the masculine but the general. The result is that there are the general and the feminine, or rather, the general and the mark of the feminine. (Wittig 1992, 60)
I posit that Vasan and Kahn-Harris’ theses are both underpinned by an assumption of the male hard rock and metal fan as the norm, and this assumption produces women as extraordinary so that the ways in which they are different becomes the focus of study, rather than any potential similarities. Women’s engagement with the music is therefore forgotten or treated as if of lesser importance. Perhaps those authors think it is more valuable to sort out the practical matters of women’s marginalisation before we can discuss musical pleasure. I do not. I think the problems of access are part of the way in which women are positioned as second class fans. Therefore considering how women enjoy the music of hard rock and metal is a necessary aspect of challenging women’s marginalisation.
In this chapter I aim to prioritise women’s experiences of the music and examine how they discuss the pleasure they derive from their favourite bands. I continue to employ
discourse analysis in order to consider the language that women use to describe hard rock and metal music, alongside my understanding of the myths of the warrior and of authenticity. This chapter, then, primarily focuses on the musical pleasures of hard rock and metal fandom. When the women fans’ language is considered, a complex picture of women’s pleasure in hard rock and metal emerges. I argue that although women do use language that echoes the ideas underlying the myths of the warrior and authenticity, they also use unexpected and creative language that challenges understandings of the genre as only enjoyed as a masculine pleasure. In paying attention to women’s linguistic
constructions of the music a fresh picture of hard rock and metal emerges that challenges its common perception as ‘masculine’ and suggests that this particular gendering is reductive and limiting.
In the first part of this chapter I address my interviewees’ descriptive terms that resonate with the myths that assert hard rock and metal’s masculinity. Adjectives such as ‘fierce’
and ‘loud’ that are applied to the genre ‘heavy metal’, and references to electric guitars echo the aesthetic inherent in myth of the warrior. The reliance on a conceptual rock/pop divide, in which hard rock and metal is seen as ‘authentic’ and pop is seen as
‘manufactured’ is firmly in line with the myth of authenticity. In the second part of the chapter I draw attention to the ways in which the genre is considered as masculine with the result that women’s pleasure in rock music has been the subject of criticism. I discuss why this viewpoint is a problem and assert the need to move away from thinking of women’s rock fandom as ‘false consciousness’. Finally I examine my interviewees’
descriptive language that diverged from those characteristics usually considered masculine, and I consider how this broadens our understanding of women’s passionate engagement with hard rock and metal music.
Hard rock and metal as a ‘masculine’ genre
Kahn-Harris’ brief examination of the pleasure extreme metal fans find in the music focuses on their preference for aggression and energy (Kahn-Harris 2007, 52-3). He describes the energy in the music as having the power to ‘“stir[…] up” the body’ (Kahn-Harris 2007, 52), but he does not explore how this is achieved. Like Arnett (Arnett 1991) he positions aggression as having a cathartic effect, allowing fans and musicians to cope with their own anger at their experiences in daily life (Kahn-Harris 2007, 53). Ultimately Kahn-Harris concludes that fans are ‘inarticulate’ (Kahn-Harris 2007, 54) when it comes to describing their feelings about extreme metal. He argues that they have limited language available to them, and that the lexicon they do use is bounded by the extreme metal scene which values ‘aggression, brutality, energy, etc.’ (Kahn-Harris 2007, 53). The fans that Kahn-Harris spoke to struggled to explain their listening pleasure, relying upon the descriptive constructions available within the scene. The brevity with which he considers their words suggests that he does not feel it is very important to reach a greater
understanding of that pleasure, and he moves on to consider other aspects of extreme metal fandom. I do not think, however, that we should leave our understanding of musical pleasure to rest with such fans’ words as ‘I just liked it’ (interviewee quoted in Kahn-Harris 2007, 54). The opaqueness of this speech proves an obstacle to greater understanding and ‘just’ works to foreclose any follow-up questions. But, when considering women fans, we cannot afford to allow such a wall to remain in place. To do so leaves open the
potential for relying upon stereotypes of the woman as rock fan, stereotypes which, as I have already discussed, are damaging. It is therefore very important to try to reach a deeper understanding of women fans’ pleasure in hard rock and metal.
In my interviews with women fans I began by asking them to describe heavy metal, then enquired about their favourite band that featured in Kerrang!, and followed this with: “what do you like about them?” Far from being inarticulate, I demonstrate that the women were
able to describe both heavy metal and their reasons for favouring a particular band in quite eloquent terms; and I assess the ways in which some of their descriptions shed light upon how fandom intersects with the ideology of hard rock and metal and with gender, and some do not. Like Kahn-Harris, I found that the ideology of the genre did in some ways mean that the women described their pleasure in ways that echoed notions of warrior masculinity and ideas of authenticity. However, I also ascertained that where Kahn-Harris found that the discursive limits curtailed fans’ descriptions, my interviewees were not so restricted.
Defining heavy metal: using the language of the warrior myth
On the whole the responses to the question ‘what do you think heavy metal means’
differed from what I had expected, which was a list of instruments and band names. Some women did give such a description, but others depicted sounds or atmospheres. Still others talked of how the music made them feel. Karen’s response was particularly excited and in her enthusiasm she encapsulated one or two of the main ideas that most of my interviewees described:
Oh! That’s really difficult isn’t it! Erm it’s loud – life is loud, Kerrang! – no it’s, it’s loud, I wouldn’t say it’s aggressive, how would you describe it? It’s just great!
Lively! It’s not boring! R’n’b is so dull! God, heavy metal’s got, it’s got oomph about it! And to be fair there’s the odd band that doesn’t and the odd song that doesn’t, but generally it’s got oomph. There. That’s how I’d describe it: it’s got oomph. (Karen)
Karen used a number of exclamations (‘oh!’, ‘that’s really difficult isn’t it!’, ‘it’s just great!’,
‘lively!’, ‘it’s not boring!’) which demonstrated her passion for the genre in general. Her
‘isn’t it’ in her second exclamation asked me to agree with her, as she sought words to define the genre. Her thoughtfulness was evident in her comment clauses (‘no’, ‘I wouldn’t say’), her stop after the opening of the statement ‘heavy metal’s got’, and in her rhetorical question ‘how would you describe it?’. Karen did not have an immediate answer in mind and as she spoke thought over what it was that defined heavy metal. In order to come up with an answer she first used ‘loud’ and realised in doing so that she was echoing the tagline on the cover of Kerrang!: ‘Life is Loud’. She then hunted for a more original
response and moved next to counter sometime descriptions of metal as ‘aggressive’. She then made a value judgement (‘It’s just great! Lively! It’s not boring!’) and compared the genre to a more mainstream one (r’n’b). With these exclamations Karen drew closer to what she wanted to say and used ‘god’ to express her exasperation at not being able to find the precise words. Finally she turned to the onomatopoeic ‘oomph’, which described the feel of the music and the impact it had on her. Using procatalepsis (‘to be fair’) to
admit a counter point to her argument, she clarified that not all bands and not all songs have the quality of ‘oomph’, but the finality of her last comment clause, ‘that’s how I’d describe it’ established that ‘oomph’ for her was the determining factor in heavy metal.
Karen was the only woman to use the word ‘oomph’ (although Susan’s description of the vivacity of Led Zeppelin had a similar feel, as I discuss below) and most women were more measured in their tones. However, in comparing the genre to a more mainstream one (r’n’b), in emphasising the volume of the genre (‘loud’) and determining that it was ‘not boring’ Karen drew on the same sort of language as a large proportion of my other
interviewees. Most women used some of the words in the following list, or associated terms: ‘loud’, ‘heavy’, ‘hard’ ‘severe’, ‘raw’, ‘power’, ‘grunty’, ‘strong’, ‘faster’, and expressions related to anger or aggression such as ‘fiercer’ and ‘angry’ were also
employed. These were by far the most frequent adjectives in descriptions of metal. Kahn-Harris found that his interviewees used the language that was available within the scene to describe the music (Kahn-Harris 2007, 53), and the terms I heard do indeed fall within the discursive framework of hard rock and metal. These are all qualities that can be associated with the myth of the warrior as they connote masculinity in its furthest position from femininity: high volume and fast speed were evident in the designs of the letters pages; ‘severe’ and ‘hard’ have a part to play in developing fearsomeness, and they were indicated in the photographs of musicians; ‘strong’ and ‘power’ describe physical prowess and endurance and are reminiscent of the stances of musicians that emphasised their physical strength. ‘Heavy’ refers to the low sound of the music and is complicit in the strength and power as something difficult to move. ‘Raw’ signifies an open wound and suggests cries of pain and anger, such as might be heard on a battlefield. ‘Grunty’ is an animalistic quality and its use here is a reference to the death growl vocals, which are a low roaring sound and perhaps not dissimilar to a battle cry. These descriptors are consonant with Kerrang!’s warrior imagery, in which glaring faces and intimidating poses are de rigueur for metal musicians, and can be described as gendered as masculine. This language therefore echoed the visual and audible qualities of the music and emphasised the symbolic masculinity of heavy metal.
Eleven women referred particularly to guitars in their descriptions of heavy metal and what they liked. For some women it was the guitar solos, for others the riffs, and for some their simple presence. For example, Hazel said, ‘I like anything that has an electric guitar in it, I like the sound, I like the noise. The noise is pleasing to my ears’ (Hazel). For Hazel the importance of the music lay in its ‘sound’ and ‘noise’. The unspecified ‘sound’ implied that there was not a particular style of playing that she liked, and ‘noise’ suggested that the sound she valued was neither beautiful nor especially melodic. It did not particularly exclude those qualities, but it also included the kinds of sounds that some people may
call, in a derogatory sense, ‘noise’ rather than ‘music’.61 Hazel’s anaphora as she repeated ‘I like…’ built up to the last short sentence to give a feeling of distance which was in marked contrast to Karen’s obvious delight. Hazel’s ‘pleasing to my ears’ was an archaic sort of phrasing and, despite describing the music as ‘pleasing’, there was little sense of the music moving her any further. As the interview progressed she also used more emotive language, and later it became apparent that Hazel did not like just anything with an electric guitar in it, but the presence of the guitar caught her attention and allowed her to discriminate between bands who used the instrument and those who did not.
That the women describe electric guitars and not acoustic guitars is significant. The electric guitar is iconic and popularly romanticised and personified – both as a woman’s body to be made love to, and as a man’s penis to be masturbated through the guitar solo to orgasm. Queer readings are possible, but dominant readings of the symbolism of the guitar announce the guitarist as male. Drawing on Ruth Oldenziel’s historical work on technology, race and gender, Monique Bourdage considers the way in which technology has been masculinised, and in particular, how the electric guitar has been masculinised (Bourdage 2010, 2). She argues that through the electrification of the guitar women musicians have become alienated from the instrument. Bringing forward Steve
Waksman’s analysis of the electric guitar as ‘technophallus’, she argues that of the use of electric guitar as a phallic symbol by such genre-defining musicians as Jimi Hendrix has resulted in the dominant cultural understanding of the instrument as one which is
intrinsically wrapped up with maleness:
In terms of rock ‘n’ roll performance, the electric guitar takes on a role that Steve Waksman (1999) has termed ‘technophallus’. Through body positioning and flamboyant physical displays, players like Jimi Hendrix fortified male dominance over the electric guitar with a large dose of phallic symbolism. Male electric guitarists often handle their instruments in ways that recall sexual acts or emphasize the phallic symbolism of their guitars. Although the guitar is most easily and comfortably played when held somewhere between the player’s chest and waist, many rock guitarists play low-slung guitars held below the waist. Such positioning of the guitar makes it a much more obvious phallic symbol. Many fans and players have come to regard low-slung guitars as the only positioning that looks right. Therefore, even on women, the instrument appears as an extension of the male body, reinforcing the idea that the guitar should be left to male hands.
(Bourdage 2010, 3)
61 This may include atonal or distorted sounds.
The symbolism of the electric guitar distinctly connotes masculinity in its association with aggressive, phallus-waving sexuality. Acoustic guitars, on the other hand, are ‘feminine-coded’ (Bourdage 2010, 7) and they are associated with singer-songwriters such as Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell (Bayton 1997, 38). Women guitarists are expected to play acoustic rather than electric guitars (Bayton 1997, 39). The use of acoustic guitars in rock usually occurs in ballads or slower sections: songs about love and romance that are introduced in the concert setting as ‘this one’s for the ladies’. Acoustic guitars are feminised
instruments.
The electric guitar, then, is a musical instrument that has been constructed as masculine and symbolises the penis. In its masculinity the symbolic use of the electric guitar works alongside the myth of the warrior to reinforce the masculinity of the hard rock and metal musician. Moreover, the guitar is also linked intimately with the myth through its nickname.
As noted earlier, the colloquial term for a guitar within hard rock and metal is ‘axe’;
As noted earlier, the colloquial term for a guitar within hard rock and metal is ‘axe’;