posted on 2022-11-15, 12:11authored byMehmet Yavuz
Metal music has existed in one form or another for about half a century. While the musical
style and the culture started out in a relatively unified way, with the ‘extreme turn’ of late 80s
and 90s, metal culture stratified. Doom metal, being one of the oldest styles in this newly
formed structure, became even more fragmented. Through amalgamations with other music
styles or as further alterations on these amalgamations. I call these styles extreme doom.
Death/doom is such a style. These smaller styles in metal culture have so far been
investigated hierarchically. However, the implication that a hierarchy has is problematic in this
context. Metal music studies is a budding field, so, we need to think more critically about the
way we conceptualise the history of metal academically in these early years. Yet, so far, this
stratification, with its hierarchy, has not been challenged or even discussed in detail.
Scholarship often mentions these so-called ‘sub-genres’ uncritically. In order to challenge this
idea, there needs to be a new model. However, because of the size and breadth of metal
culture, one single work cannot come even close to covering the styles existing today. In this
thesis, I attempt to draw boundaries around only death/doom to propose a way of modelling a
new metal history. To achieve this, I define these newer and smaller styles as marginal styles
using marginality idea of Park. Following this idea, sociology of music comes to rescue with
Crossley’s music worlds. Music worlds, because of its emphasis put on the musical style -it is
central-, is an intriguing perspective to look at the fragmented nature of metal music. A metal
music world is a social construction performed by the participants, including musicians, fans,
engineers, managers, label executives, and the press, around a metal musical style. These
smaller styles, then, become ideal candidates for the application of this theory. This thesis
treats death/doom in such a way using ethnographic, historical, and musicological methods.