Analysis of Genre - Metal

Analysis of Genre: Metal

Metal is a very wide genre with many sub genres. The music is often very heavy, fast and thrashy. This has a major influence on the music videos which accompany songs in this genre, as in a music video, it can dictate the pace of the editing.
The narrative is often a major feature of metal videos, as a strong meaning can often be picked up by listening to the lyrics, of which have many recurring themes seen primarily in the metal genre. The quality of song in metal is much better, and generally isn’t produced by a large corporation with only money in mind, which can be said for most of today’s pop.

Themes often seen in metal videos include politics and government (such as what are seen in videos by Megadeth in particular), death, torture and suffering, aswell as addiction and mental breakdowns. While not being particularly diverse in content or subject, narratives often don't follow Todorov's diagram of equilibrium > Disruption > solution > re-equilibrium. Narratives often feel open ended, which could be said about a lot of different types of genre. Endings aren’t always ‘Cindarella’ style ending like with most types of genre. This lack of positivity is another thing that the lives of the metal band members have influenced.

These themes are all quite negative, and this reflects the style and lives of such metal bands. they have a very strong stereotype derived from the original punk rock architype, which has since branched off into many different tangents.
The videos themselves do one of two things: they either feature the artist for the majority of the video perofrming, or focus more on narrative with only a few shots showing the band. Regardless of which the video does, there are certain key features which they have which 'classify' them as metal.

Firstly, they incorporate fast cut editing to the beat of the song. this high pace fits in with the high speed music to give a high tempo feel to the video.
Because of this, effects like fading and dissolving are seldom seen, as they tend to accompany the more melodic tracks which have a slower pace.

From the metal videos I've researched, the lighting of the videos is always dingy and lowlight. This enhances the dark feel of the songs and contributes to the 'metalhead' image. The performers also have the same costumes and hair styles. The long unkept hair is a tradition with metal bands. Their clothes also often follow the dark theme and are all black. This is more often seen in the newer metal videos. In the old ones however, costumes looked very grungy; faded jeans and light tops.
Generally clothes are in poor condition with rips and tears, which signifies the rebellious nature of the band members of the metal bands. Their hair was often untreated, whilst many new bands tend to dye their hair.
I think this is a good indicator of how the metal subculture has evolved alongside the goth and new punk stereotype.

Overall, the diversity created by the different sub-genres within metal makes Metal a very wide genre with varying conventions and features. These features mostly derive from other genres and are brought together by the in-depth narrative structure and fast pace that metal music has.