‘[I] hate girls and emo[tion]s'
Negotiating masculinity in grindcore music
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.v6i1/2.198Keywords:
death metal, grindcore, heavy metal, misogynistic representationAbstract
The article confronts the construction of gender within metal, particularly the violent misogyny that can be found in some types of death metal and grindcore. Drawing on a case study of grindcore music in Melbourne, Australia, the author explores the nature of ‘brutality’ that is identified by scene members as the essence of its affect. Grindcore offers an affective ‘intensity’ that partially transcends representations of gender, opening up possibilities for female scene members. While misogynistic rhetoric and representation may suffuse metal scenes, it is undermined and ironized in various ways.
References
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Amico, S. 2002. '“I Want Muscles”: House Music, Homosexuality and Masculine Signification’. Popular Music 20(3): 359–78.
Apolloni, A. 2008. ‘Rebel Grrls in the Classroom: Vocality, Empowerment and Feminist Pedagogy at Rock and Roll School for Girls’. Thinking Gender Papers. http://escholarship. org/uc/item/0b18q8fb#page-1
Aric-Anti-Emo-RickrollKing! 2008. Brutal Song Names? Yahoo Answers: http://answers. yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080602013529AA4J2d9.
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Boycott The Birmingham. 2007. Boycott the Birmingham: Campaign to Boycott The Birmy, a Neo-Nazi Venue in Melbourne, Australia, 17 February. http://birmyboycott.wordpress.com/.
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CBS 47. 2007. ‘Emo’. Investigators, 11 July.
Christ, J. 2009. ‘Blood Duster on New Album and Obscene Extreme’. Terrorizer, 11 May. http://www.terrorizer.com/content/blood-duster-new-album-and-obsceneextreme (accessed 1 August 2009).
Clough, P. T. 2007. ‘Introduction’. In The Affective Turn: Theorising the Social, ed. P. T. Clough and J. Halley, 1–33. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Connell, R. W. 2000. The Men and the Boys. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Deleuze, G., and F. Guattari. 1987. A Thousand Plateaus, ed. B. Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Dolar, M. 2006. A Voice and Nothing More. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Draiman, D. 2006. ‘Who Hates Emo the Most?’ Rolling Stone (October): 67.
esclavodelgrind. 2008. GRINDCORE LIFESTYLE (anti-emo group), 20 May. last.fm: http:// www.last.fm/group/GRINDCORE+LIFESTYLE+(anti-emo+group).
Fox 11. 2007. ‘Emo’. Fox 11 News, May 10. California.
Garber, J., and A. McRobbie [1975] 1976. ‘Girls and Subcultures’. In Resistance Through Rituals, ed. Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson. London: Hutchinson.
Goreripper. 2007. The Sporadic Gazette: Blood Duster, 7 May. PyroMusic.net: http://www. pyromusic.net/index.php?p=interviews_interview&id=44 (accessed March 2009, no longer available).
Greenwald, A. 2003. Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers and Emo. New York: St Martin's Griffin.
jagodzinski, j. 2005. Music in Youth Culture: A Lacanian Approach. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Jensen, R. 2007. Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity. Cambridge, MA: South End Press.
Kahn-Harris, K. 2007. Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge. Oxford: Berg.
Krims, A. 2007. Music and Urban Geography. New York: Routledge.
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Mudrian, A. 2004. Choosing Death: The Improbable History of Death Metal and Grindcore. Los Angeles: Feral House.
ninemsn. 2008. ‘Mum's Brutal Murder: Suspect Named’. ninemsn, 29 April. http://news. ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=453779.
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O'Hara, C. 1999. The Philosophy of Punk: More Than Noise! London: AK Press.
Overell, R. 2010. ‘Brutal Belonging in Melbourne's Grindcore Scene’. Studies in Symbolic Interaction 35: 79–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/S0163-2396(2010)0000035009
Plumwood, V. 1994. Feminism and the Mastery of Nature. London: Routledge.
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Seltzer, M. 1998. Serial Killers: Death and Life in America's Wound Culture. New York: Routledge.
Simon, L., and T. Kelley. 2007. Everybody Hurts: An Essential Guide to Emo Culture. New York: HarperCollins.
Smith, S. J. 2000. ‘Music (2)’. In City A-Z, ed. S. Pile and N. Thrift, 156–58. London: Routledge.
TCN 7. 2007. ‘Death Pact’. Today Tonight, 23 April. Melbourne.
TCN 9. 2007. ‘Web of Darkness’. 60 Minutes, 20 May. Melbourne.
Terrorizer. n.d. ‘Terrorizer: Extreme Music No Boundaries’. http://www.terrorizer.com (accessed 30 July 2009).
Thornton, S. 1996. Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital. Hanover, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Thrift, N. 2004. ‘Summoning Life’. In Envisioning Human Geographies, ed. P. Cloke, P. Crang and M. Goodwin, 81–103. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
—2008. Non-Representational Theory: Space | Politics | Affect. Oxon: Routledge.
Walser, R. 1993. Running with the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music. Hanover, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Wang, B. 2007. ‘Blood Duster’. Beat: Melbourne's Biggest Streetpaper, 4 April.
Ward, N. n.d. ‘Bloody Crackheads’. Unbelievably Bad #1, 46–49.
WDAZ. 2007. ‘Emo’. WDAZ News at 10, 23 February. Grand Forks.
Weinstein, D. 2000. Heavy Metal: The Music and its Culture. New York: Da Capo Press.
Wood, N., and S. J. Smith. 2004. ‘Instrumental Routes to Emotional Geographies’. Social & Cultural Geography 5(4): 533–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1464936042000317686
Zappa, M. U. 1994. ‘Tool Rules’. Ray Gun (April): 15.
Discography
Blood Duster. 1996. Yeest. Dr. Jim’s.
—1998. Str8 Outta Northcote. Dr. Jim’s.
—2007. Lyden Na. Shock.
Hawthorne Heights. 2004. ‘Ohio is for Lovers’ [single]. Victory Records.
Filmography
Dunn, S., S. McFadyen and J. Wise (dir.). 2005. Metal: A Headbanger's Journey.
Fuller, Jason (dir.). 2005. Blood Duster: The Shape of Death to Come.
Hooper, T. (dir.). 1974. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Amico, S. 2002. '“I Want Muscles”: House Music, Homosexuality and Masculine Signification’. Popular Music 20(3): 359–78.
Apolloni, A. 2008. ‘Rebel Grrls in the Classroom: Vocality, Empowerment and Feminist Pedagogy at Rock and Roll School for Girls’. Thinking Gender Papers. http://escholarship. org/uc/item/0b18q8fb#page-1
Aric-Anti-Emo-RickrollKing! 2008. Brutal Song Names? Yahoo Answers: http://answers. yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080602013529AA4J2d9.
Arnett, J. J. 1996. Metalheads: Heavy Metal Music and Adolescent Alienation. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Blood Duster. 2010. Blood Duster: Photos, March 10. Reverb Nation: http://www.reverbnation.com/bloodduster#/page_object/page_object_photos/artist_698631?sel_ photo_id=2021110.
Boycott The Birmingham. 2007. Boycott the Birmingham: Campaign to Boycott The Birmy, a Neo-Nazi Venue in Melbourne, Australia, 17 February. http://birmyboycott.wordpress.com/.
Brennan, T. 2004. The Transmission of Affect. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
CBS 47. 2007. ‘Emo’. Investigators, 11 July.
Christ, J. 2009. ‘Blood Duster on New Album and Obscene Extreme’. Terrorizer, 11 May. http://www.terrorizer.com/content/blood-duster-new-album-and-obsceneextreme (accessed 1 August 2009).
Clough, P. T. 2007. ‘Introduction’. In The Affective Turn: Theorising the Social, ed. P. T. Clough and J. Halley, 1–33. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Connell, R. W. 2000. The Men and the Boys. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Deleuze, G., and F. Guattari. 1987. A Thousand Plateaus, ed. B. Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Dolar, M. 2006. A Voice and Nothing More. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Draiman, D. 2006. ‘Who Hates Emo the Most?’ Rolling Stone (October): 67.
esclavodelgrind. 2008. GRINDCORE LIFESTYLE (anti-emo group), 20 May. last.fm: http:// www.last.fm/group/GRINDCORE+LIFESTYLE+(anti-emo+group).
Fox 11. 2007. ‘Emo’. Fox 11 News, May 10. California.
Garber, J., and A. McRobbie [1975] 1976. ‘Girls and Subcultures’. In Resistance Through Rituals, ed. Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson. London: Hutchinson.
Goreripper. 2007. The Sporadic Gazette: Blood Duster, 7 May. PyroMusic.net: http://www. pyromusic.net/index.php?p=interviews_interview&id=44 (accessed March 2009, no longer available).
Greenwald, A. 2003. Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers and Emo. New York: St Martin's Griffin.
jagodzinski, j. 2005. Music in Youth Culture: A Lacanian Approach. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Jensen, R. 2007. Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity. Cambridge, MA: South End Press.
Kahn-Harris, K. 2007. Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge. Oxford: Berg.
Krims, A. 2007. Music and Urban Geography. New York: Routledge.
Lorimer, H. 2008. ‘Cultural Geography: Non-representational Conditions and Concerns’. Progress in Human Geography 32(4): 551–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/030913250 7086882
Massumi, B. 1998. ‘Requiem for Our Prospective Dead (Toward a Participatory Critique of Capitalist Power)’. In Deleuze and Guattari: New Mappings in Politics, Philosophy, and Culture, ed. E. Kaufman and K. J. Heller, 40–64. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
—2002. Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Mudrian, A. 2004. Choosing Death: The Improbable History of Death Metal and Grindcore. Los Angeles: Feral House.
ninemsn. 2008. ‘Mum's Brutal Murder: Suspect Named’. ninemsn, 29 April. http://news. ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=453779.
Oakes, D., and T. Arup. 2008. ‘Murder Charge over Wife's Fatal Bashing’. theage.com.au. 3 July. http://www.theage.com.au/national/murder-charge-over-wifes-fatal-bashing-20080702-306m.html.
O'Hara, C. 1999. The Philosophy of Punk: More Than Noise! London: AK Press.
Overell, R. 2010. ‘Brutal Belonging in Melbourne's Grindcore Scene’. Studies in Symbolic Interaction 35: 79–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/S0163-2396(2010)0000035009
Plumwood, V. 1994. Feminism and the Mastery of Nature. London: Routledge.
Raw Nerve Promotions. 2007. ‘Blood Duster—new album coming on Obscene Productions’. Raw Nerve Forums, 27 June. http://rawnervepromotions.co.uk/forum/viewtopic. php?f=66&t=32120 (accessed 25 July 2009, no longer available).
Ross, Norrie. 2011. 'Serial killer Peter Dupas given leave to appeal conviction over Mersina Halvagis murder'. News.com.au, 14 December 2011. http://www.news.com. au/breaking-news/dupas-given-leave-to-appeal-conviction-over-mersina-halvagismurder/story-e6frfku0-1226221943983.
Seltzer, M. 1998. Serial Killers: Death and Life in America's Wound Culture. New York: Routledge.
Simon, L., and T. Kelley. 2007. Everybody Hurts: An Essential Guide to Emo Culture. New York: HarperCollins.
Smith, S. J. 2000. ‘Music (2)’. In City A-Z, ed. S. Pile and N. Thrift, 156–58. London: Routledge.
TCN 7. 2007. ‘Death Pact’. Today Tonight, 23 April. Melbourne.
TCN 9. 2007. ‘Web of Darkness’. 60 Minutes, 20 May. Melbourne.
Terrorizer. n.d. ‘Terrorizer: Extreme Music No Boundaries’. http://www.terrorizer.com (accessed 30 July 2009).
Thornton, S. 1996. Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital. Hanover, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Thrift, N. 2004. ‘Summoning Life’. In Envisioning Human Geographies, ed. P. Cloke, P. Crang and M. Goodwin, 81–103. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
—2008. Non-Representational Theory: Space | Politics | Affect. Oxon: Routledge.
Walser, R. 1993. Running with the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music. Hanover, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Wang, B. 2007. ‘Blood Duster’. Beat: Melbourne's Biggest Streetpaper, 4 April.
Ward, N. n.d. ‘Bloody Crackheads’. Unbelievably Bad #1, 46–49.
WDAZ. 2007. ‘Emo’. WDAZ News at 10, 23 February. Grand Forks.
Weinstein, D. 2000. Heavy Metal: The Music and its Culture. New York: Da Capo Press.
Wood, N., and S. J. Smith. 2004. ‘Instrumental Routes to Emotional Geographies’. Social & Cultural Geography 5(4): 533–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1464936042000317686
Zappa, M. U. 1994. ‘Tool Rules’. Ray Gun (April): 15.
Discography
Blood Duster. 1996. Yeest. Dr. Jim’s.
—1998. Str8 Outta Northcote. Dr. Jim’s.
—2007. Lyden Na. Shock.
Hawthorne Heights. 2004. ‘Ohio is for Lovers’ [single]. Victory Records.
Filmography
Dunn, S., S. McFadyen and J. Wise (dir.). 2005. Metal: A Headbanger's Journey.
Fuller, Jason (dir.). 2005. Blood Duster: The Shape of Death to Come.
Hooper, T. (dir.). 1974. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Published
2012-05-14
Issue
Section
Countercultures
How to Cite
Overell, R. (2012). ‘[I] hate girls and emo[tion]s’: Negotiating masculinity in grindcore music. Popular Music History, 6(1-2), 198-223. https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.v6i1/2.198
