Year: 2018
Type: article
Abstract: When In 1987 a cultural functionary of the "Central Working Group on Dance Music" described heavy metal as the "current magic formula in popular music" of the 1980s socialist East Germany, the German Democratic Republic (GDR), it may be surprising that cultural politics is at all concerned with this musical phenomenon.The official further stated that heavy metal is a "legitimate part of the socialist music culture".This positive attitude towards metal is in general rather surprising in the 1980s, since the debate about heavy metal in Western countries was dominated by the so-called moral panics (NACHWEIS).Unquestionably, in socialist East Germany heavy metal was a popular youth culture in the 1980s.At the same time, however, as an originally Western youth culture it was quite problematic.The quoted expression therefore reflects a general change of heart in the second half of the 1980s and the attempt to accept and integrate the popular youth culture with the aim to not lose the connection to youth completely.However, this did not mean that heavy metal and its fans could develop freely in the GDR. Heavy Metal in the 1970s and 1980sHeavy metal is a form of music that has developed since the late 1960s, first in the Anglo-American area from blues rock and hard rock (Walser 1993, Weinstein 2000).The musical language differentiated during the 1970s, especially in Britain (Elflein, 2010: 97-172), but quickly spread beyond.The youth culture was characterized by an enormous dynamic.In the 1980s, an intensive and rapid differentiation into other sub genres such as thrash metal or death metal took place.Parts of this evolution of heavy metal can be described as extreme metal, as it marked a prolonged transgression not only in musical terms (Kahn-Harris 2007).Today, the 1980s are considered the golden era in the world of heavyEtnomüzikoloji Dergisi
Source: DergiPark (Istanbul University)
Author: Wolf-Georg Zaddach
Institution: University of Music FRANZ LISZT Weimar
Language: English
Topic: Music History and Culture
Subfield: Music
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3000507339