I have chosen to examine the Collection of Heavy Metal Music Material. This is a comprehensive finding aid composed of collections related to the heavy metal music genre from 1964 to the present day. There are a total of six series within this collection, including books and DVDs, show fliers, photographs and memorabilia, fanzines, magazines, and recordings.
Historical narratives you are able to tell include memoirs; the books in the collection range from autobiographies such as Peter Criss from KISS’s Makeup to Breakup: My Life In And Out of Kiss to informational texts such as Deena Weinstein’s Heavy Metal: A Cultural Sociology. The scope of texts documents human perspectives ranging from a celebrities’ personal experiences of heavy metal cultural immersion to that of a woman in the 60s (as shown in Wicked Woman: Women in Metal from the 1960s to Now). The memorabilia ranges from the 70s to the present day, and a majority include concert programs and show fliers. From knowing where the bands toured, we can perceive the scope of heavy metal’s geographic influence. Furthermore, we are provided a sense of the nightlife for the culture, and we can deduce that it was centered mostly around Los Angeles during the 80s. Fan-made battle vests and signed shirts tell us what these metal bands wore and their sense of fashion. From the recordings from vinyls and CDs, we can listen to the music, analyze the production and lyrics, and deduce how the music influenced the generation and was influenced by past generations.
If we were to base the entire heavy metal culture narrative from the records on this collection, we would miss perspectives of outsiders. The organization of this archive is comprised mostly of memoirs as well as fan-made ephemerals of those immersed in the culture. This archive may not document the experience of someone, let’s say, a politicians’ distaste of the culture impacting the younger generation. This ties to constructivism, as individual experiences and narratives may be misconstrued due to personal tendencies and those with have authority have priorities in what to say. It is from my understanding that the archivists deliberately chose what to document from those who are immersed in the culture itself.
If we were to question this archive, we must ask what made them particularly select this arrangement and whether this is an accurate representation of heavy metal culture. On the contrary, we also have to put ourselves in the perspective of the archivists and figure out what should be left behind and what should be insignificant. Going back, we have to ask ourselves why was that above mentioned politician’s perspective was not included which comes to my conclusion: sources which would fill these gaps should be from those of outsiders to the culture.
I completely agree with your analysis of this archive. I throughly enjoyed how you highlighted specific portions of the collection to highlight the key insights that viewers can gain from it. I am specifically intrigued as to what these fan-made battle vests look like.
You did a really good job of breaking down the content of this collection, and capturing its subject matter with specific examples. When I looked at this finding aide, I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of material it contains. I felt like a needed a finding aide to navigate this finding aide!
I also think it’s interesting to consider the decision-making process of archivists–I don’t think I would feel comfortable deciding what historical materials are (or aren’t) valuable enough to be saved.
This blog post is interesting to read. I am impressed by your analysis about details of the project, and it is very informative. Moreover, I agree with you that perspective from outsiders play an important role in these historical projects. (I have suggested it in my project too.):)