I viewed the Collection of Heavy Metal Music Material from 1964-2016. Based on the materials in the collection, I might be able to tell narratives regarding only the bands that were considered popular and well known. As I looked through the entire collection guide, especially the series one that contains books and DVDs, I saw a trend of which rock bands were mentioned frequently. The only specific bands I saw mentioned were Guns ‘N Roses and KISS. Guns ‘N Roses and KISS are considered some of the most popular rock bands of all time. However, as I realized this, maybe a central reason attributing to their popularity was the ubiquity of their publicity methods.
comment: one can see the repetition of the same popular rock bands mentioned.
Another trend I saw in the collection was the connection between rock music and things such as “devil worship,” “Satanism,” and “cult.” I seldom, if not at all, saw anything positive be related to rock music in this archive. Therefore, from this, I could probably be able to tell a narrative connecting heavy metal and rock music to things such as devil worship. Ultimately, I saw an extremely apparent trend in the archives within this collection that would cause anything optimistic regarding all different types of heavy metal bands to be missing from my narrative if I based it entirely on records in this collection.
comment: I found many sources relating rock music to satanism in the collection.
Other sources I would need to find in order to address these “gaps” in the archive could be sources that are more broad. For example, I would like to see memorabilia or books about heavy metal bands that were not as popular. I would like to see content on heavy metal bands that were not correlated to Satanism or hell. Lastly, I would like to see how different countries reacted to this heavy metal. I was under the impression that countries in Europe had a different opinion about rock bands and actually embraced metal. Overall through this archival collection, I can see how history can be told solely from those with power and be one-sided as told by Michel-Rolph Trouillot in his book Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. I learned that silence occurs in the making of sources, archives, narratives, and ultimately, in the making of history. The making of history is all about power because according to Trouillot, power relations have a way to distort understandings of the world so deeply that we can watch things happen in front of us but not understand what is happening. This is what causes history to be one-sided and I can definitely see this notion in the Collection of Heavy Metal Music Material from 1964-2016.
I like this blog post, because it covers many of the stereotypes generally held about heavy metal and those who listen to the genre. As shown in the finding aid, most of the descriptions attached to this music made heavy metal seem satanic or devilish. In this way, the view of the musician’s themselves is silenced from expressing how they feel about their own music.
Hello! I like how you conceived your narratives from the collection based on trends you saw in the content of the archive; I think it’s a very effective and useful way to draw meaning from a set of data and records. Also, I agree with you in that this archive focused very heavily on popular heavy metal bands and stereotypes, which gives a very narrowed perspective on the genre in general.
Your analysis of metal is interesting. However, I think your implicit conflation of satanism with harm-doing is misguided. Though not necessarily analogous, satanism can be compared to witchcraft or paganism in the sense that they are religions/philosophies that are falsely perceived as malevolent due to their differences with Judeo-Christian institutions. That being said, many of the metal bands are not true satanists, but rather opportunistic appropriators of an aesthetic that proved to be subversive – and thus appealing to teen boys – in the Christian eyes of America.