Metal Music, Sonic Knowledge, and the Cultural Ear in Europe since 1970

Research on the process of European integration is usually restricted to the political, economic and legal aspects of Europeanisation. Still, we do not know enough about 'practiced Europeanisation' in terms of everyday life and popular culture. Here, Peter Pichler explores a new area of research. He links the latest insights into the cultural history of the European Union with interdisciplinary research on heavy metal as a subculture throughout Europe. He presents the first historiographic exploration of European integration in this subculture since 1970.

In general, subcultural Europeanisation predates even political Europeanisation, as evidenced by networks of the metal scene breaking through the Iron Curtain in the beginning of the 1980s. The European metal scene constituted a borderless space. Today, the shared knowledge of rituals, codes, clothes, history and values of metal are present across the continent. Pichler interprets this from a cultural-historical perspective against the background of Europeanisation after 1945.

Peter Pichler is a postdoc researcher at University of Graz, where he leads the research project 'Breaking the Law...?! Norm-Related Sonic Knowledge in Heavy Metal Culture. Graz and Styria since 1980'. His fields of expertise are European Union cultural history, metal music studies, and historical theory.