This week’s topic was highly interesting to talk to about regarding metal around the world. I found it particularly interesting to look at metal in places such as Brazil (I am, after all, a Spanish major) where there has been a history of political and cultural prosecution and struggle within the nation. In nations such as these, where self-expression was highly repressed, metal became a new, magical, and highly cherished thing. It was quite a sight to see the number of people in concerts in Brazil.
It is also interesting to see the differences between metal bands in different nations. I am speaking to Indonesian metal bands here, where their gods and beliefs are very different than in western society where Christianity rules. It was very different to hear about their versions of the devil and evil versus our own, and it is certainly something that I would love to research more.
Furthermore, there are the Norwegian bands that seem to exist in a very calm and safe community where the genre of music seems to be quite exiled. This is probably due to the church burnings and extreme cases of violence that are in the short history of Norwegian metal.
Yet the most important and interesting fact of all of this comes in the comparison of all these cultures to come to a more generalized concept. In Extreme Metal by Kahn-Harris he says the following:
"While the scene has a high degree of autonomy and the total stock of capital within the scene is limited, global inequalities in the possession of capital can lead to inequalities in capital within the scene.”
In other words, the poorer people have far less access to capital (money, good instruments, resources) as other, richer countries. This gap causes some countries to possibly fall behind in the growth of metal, coming into the scene far later than other nations. It is almost common sense, as you can only buy what you can afford.
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