The Colour of Metal: ‘Whiteness’, ‘Blackness’
and the Roots of Heavy Metal in 1960s Rock
Dr Keith Kahn-Harris
Goldsmiths College,
London
www.kahn-harris.org
Rock n roll as revolution
• Association with youth:
– ‘If it's too loud, then you're too old.’ Ozzy
Osbourne
• Music press constantly focus on new artists
and genres
• Necessity of novelty in music industry
marketing
• Diversity of rock n roll genres since 1950s
• Technical developments since 1950s
So what about history?
• What are the continuities in rock history?
• Lecture will aim to highlight the enduring
aspects of rock music and culture through
tracing the trajectory of heavy metal music
and culture since the 1960s.
Or in other words...
How did we get from this:
To this:
...And what stayed the same.
What is metal?
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Distortion
Riffs
Guitar solos
Dramatic vocals
High volumes
Grand gestures
Denim and leather
Long hair
Types of metal
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Heavy metal
New Wave of British Heavy Metal
Thrash metal
Extreme metal
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Death metal
Doom metal
Black metal
Grindcore
• Nu Metal
The roots of metal in 50s and 60s rock
n roll
• Basic vocals-guitar-bass- • The Kinks ‘You Really
drums format
Got Me’ (1964)
• Technical developments
– Distortion
– Volume
Pivotal importance of the blues
• Blues rock provided the
generic framework
through which the new
guitar sounds were
filtered.
•
•
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Yardbirds
Cream
Deep Purple
Led Zeppelin ‘Whole
Lotta Love’ (1969)
Influence of psychedelic rock
• The ‘dark side’ of
psychedelia
• Emphasis on lengthy
songs and musical
virtuosity
• 1968:
– Blue Cheer ‘Summertime
Blues’
– Iron Butterfly ‘In-AGadda-Da-Vida’
– Steppenwolf ’Born to be
Wild’
• ‘Heavy metal thunder’
Black Sabbath
• Crystallisation of a new
genre
• ‘Black Sabbath’ (1970)
• The tritone –
augmented fourth –
diabolus in musica
1960s metal is part of the process in
which ‘white’ artists appropriate
previously ‘black’ forms.
But what about Jimi Hendrix?
• Pivotal influence of
metal guitar playing
• Pivotal to spectacular
metal performance
styles
• Rooted in the blues
Effacement of the legacy of Hendrix
• ‘Given heavy metal’s debt to the visible Hendrix –
a debt so profound it can be detected in the way
metal music has been written and produced – the
Hendrix that survives in heavy metal as a
principally audible, principally deracinated figure
proves unacceptable’
Wells, Jeremy. 1997. ‘Blackness 'Scuzed: Jimi Hendrix's (In)visible
Legacy in Heavy Metal.’ In J. Jackson Fossett and J. A. Tucker (eds)
Race Consciousness: African-American Studies for the New Century
pp. 50-63. New York: New York University Press: 61
Heavy metal developed in late 1960s
• A time when ‘black’ music was developing its
own autonomy
– Motown, Stax etc
– ‘Say it loud, I’m black and I’m proud’ James Brown
1968
– Strains on civil rights coalition
Metal: the ultimate white music?
Metal: the ultimate white music?
• Blues legacy largely buried
• Classical influence on metal guitar solos
(Walser 1993)
• Commercial hegemony in 1970s and 1980s
Metal: the ultimate white music?
• Black metal:
– Aestheticisation of
whiteness
– Celebration of ‘the
north’
White power metal
• ‘...I mean just look at
nature, the strong are
surviving, you know, like
the strong eats the
weak, and that’s just
the way it is, you know.
So you can’t really go
against that.’
• Yet overt racism is still
rare and marginal
Exceptions to the rule...
Living Colour and the Black Rock
Coalition:
But these are rare exceptions...
Moreover: the exceptions that prove
the rule
Funk metal
Nu metal
Many metal fans hate these
developments:
• ‘…we haven’t got some kind of ego or image or nothing like that do you
know what I mean? Well we don’t give a fuck what we look like yeah? We
ain’t gonna go, I dunno, ‘yeah yeah let’s go and all get our nose pierced
and fucking get some eyebrow rings and wear some baggy shit’ and you
know what I mean? [….] We’re trying to stay totally clear from the fucking
Korn, Limp Bizkit, new wave or er, arse metal that has been introduced […]
just don’t want to be associated with trendy metal man.’
...and while they have been
successful in the short term they
have had a limited impact on metal
in the long term.
Diversity in 90s and 00s metal: metal
rules the globe...
...except for most of sub-Saharan
Africa and the Caribbean
‘Local’ acts often ‘go global’
Folk metal
But where is the black folk
metal?
• Metal may not be black...
• But it isn’t white either...
• Metal is ‘everything but black’
Where is the black metal?
• Ironic that the one of the few musical
difference you cannot find in contemporary
metal is that which is foundational to the
genre
• Why is there every difference but black
difference?
Perhaps metal’s ‘whiteness’ has made
it easier to be appropriated globally?
• White = universal = neutral
• Black = particular = other
• An ironically pluralist consequence of racist
discourses?
Comparison to the globalisation of rap
Rap rules the globe
But American artists are globally
dominant
• Rap is as if not more globalised than metal...
• But metal is much more open to the global
success of local acts...
• Perhaps this is because rap’s ‘blackness’
makes it much more particularist than metal?
The roots of this black-white separation lie in
the racial politics of rock n roll in the 50s and 60s
• Early rock n roll both subverted and drew on
wider discourses of race
– Both racially hybrid...
– ...and reliant on racial stereotypes
– ...and effacement of blackness
• Late 60s black radicalism and separatism
revaluated blackness but also essentialised it...
• ...leaving whiteness more open to hybridity
Does this matter?
• Does metal ‘need’ black difference?
• And do black people need metal?
And don’t forget gender
• Metal retains 50s and 60s gender relations.
• A notoriously sexist genre (with many female
fans)
Again, exceptions that prove the rule:
Glam metal
Nu metal / Emo metal
Exploring gender or vulnerability is
resisted by many metallers
• [Talking about Korn]…I don’t like their, the way
they portray themselves and the way they are
and the way their music is it’s just too, weak
[…] it’s like I don’t get any feeling to it.
Women’s place in metal:
As groupies:
As ‘voice’
Conclusion: Metal has developed
into a multi-faceted and artistically
rich genre ...
...but it remains faithful to the
limitations and legacy of 1950s and
1960s rock n roll
• And these limitations and legacies tell us
much about race and gender relations in
modern western societies.
Or to put it another way...
• Rock history matters
The last word: Motörhead ‘We play
rock and toll’
The Colour of Metal: ‘Whiteness’, ‘Blackness’
and the Roots of Heavy Metal in 1960s Rock
Dr Keith Kahn-Harris
Goldsmiths College,
London
www.kahn-harris.org