Observations on the Chinese metal scene (1990-2013): history, identity, industry, and social interpretation

H Social Sciences (General);M Music;MT Musical instruction and study

Wang, Yuan ; Cloonan, Martin

University:University of Glasgow

Department:School of Culture and Creative Arts

关键词: Metal studies, popular music studies, Chinese metal, history, industry, identity, social meaning.;   

Others  :  http://theses.gla.ac.uk/8172/1/2016wangphd.pdf

来源: University of Glasgow

【 摘 要 】

This thesis examines Chinese metal of the mainland China as a contemporary cultural phenomenon, which consists of seven chapters. It begins with three premise chaptersproviding the necessary definitions and terminology about Chinese metal, reviewingthe relevant literature, and explaining the multiple methodologies applied,respectively. Based on that, the following chapters explore Chinese metal from fourperspectives, including the history, identity, industry, and social meaning. Morespecifically, Chapter 4 defines the history of Chinese metal as two waves, the heavyrock era (1990-1996) and extreme metal era (2000-2013). This overall trajectory hadbeen moving forward with the country’s economic growth, technological progress,and cultural liberalism, showing a unique U-shape curve: starting in the mainstreamfield in the early 1990s, declining in the late 1990s, booming underground in the early2000s, and rising again in the 2010s. Chapter 5 illustrates that the development ofChinese metal underwent a tension between globalisation and localisation, whichwere reflected in the texts of the music, MV, cover art, and folk metal subgenre.Particularly, this tension resulted in an identity struggle of the current Chinese metalmusicians, which was realised by a mechanism of original identity suspension, textualdeconstruction, and identity reconstruction. Chapter 6 proposes that the Chinese metalindustries made great progress driven by the country’s rapid economic growth andcultural diversity, and a relatively maturely industrial system with different capitalsand fields had been established by the 2000s, including the sections of labels,recordings, lives, media, merchandise, and a few peripheral activities. Chapter 7argues that because of its essence of symbolic transgression, Chinese metal providedthe musicians and audiences with a quasi-ritual catharsis to temporarily escape fromthe pressures of the reality. Meanwhile, Chinese metal presented a unique attribute of“pseudo-evil” as an intentional reaction against the general hypocrisy which is themost severe social pathology in the contemporary Chinese society.