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What Makes Heavy Metal 'Heavy'?

Jay Miller
Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

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The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 2022, 80, 70–82
https://doi.org/10.1093/jaac/kpab065
Advance access publication 25 November 2021
Original Article

What Makes Heavy Metal ‘Heavy’?

Jason Miller

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ABSTR ACT
In this article, I raise a simple but surprisingly vexing question: What makes heavy metal heavy? We commonly
describe music as “heavy,” whether as criticism or praise. But what does “heavy” mean? How is it applied as
an aesthetic term? Drawing on sociological and musicological studies of heavy metal, as well as recent work
on the aesthetics of rock music, I discuss the relevant musical properties of heaviness. The modest aim of this
article, however, is to show the difficulty, if not impossibility, of this seemingly straightforward task. I first
address the difficulties of identifying the defining features, or “Gestalt,” of heavy metal that would allow us
to treat heaviness as a genre concept. Next, I discuss both the merits and the limits of analyzing heaviness
in terms of an aesthetics of “noise” in rock music developed in recent philosophy of music. In the remaining
sections, I consider other nonaesthetic features relevant to aesthetic judgments of heaviness and show that
the term ‘heavy’ is conceptually inarticulable, if not irreducible. This, I conclude, has partly to do with the rad-
ically different, sometimes incompatible, musical properties present in the perception of musical heaviness.

I. IN TRODUCTION
One of the great legends of heavy metal music history goes like this: In the early 1990s, Sleep, an
obscure three-piece band from San Jose, California, worked out a deal with London Records to prod-
uce their third album, Jerusalem, which included the rare luxury of maintaining full creative control.
Instead, they blew most of the $75,000 advance on custom guitars, high-end amplifiers—and legend
has it, lots of marijuana. Throughout the months-long recording process, the music (which the band
had played live for several years) began to evolve: it got slower, longer, and, in the words of guitarist
Matt Pike, “It got weird.”1 The finished product was a single, hour-long song filled with slow, churning
guitars and monotonic chants about a new race of “Weedians.” London Records dubbed the track “un-
listenable.” When the band refused to tidy up and master the original track, the deal fell apart, the band
broke up, and for years, Jerusalem circulated the metal underground in various bootleg forms until its
officially licensed release in 1998. Now, nearly two decades later, the album has been re-released as
Dopesmoker (the original, pre-recording track title) to much acclaim. As one reviewer put it, the album
“is now recognized as a masterpiece of the stoner-metal genre and one of the most formidable record-
ings of the past 20 years” (Rees 2016). Arguably, it is one of the most important albums of heavy metal
history. According to Sleep’s producer, the singular aim of Dopesmoker was to produce “the heaviest
thing ever recorded.”2
Whether one finds Dopesmoker “unlistenable” or “a masterpiece” will depend largely on one’s at-
titude toward heavy metal music more generally. For most musical tastes, the music will seem too
heavy. For fans of heavy metal (i.e., “metalheads”), however, heaviness is a primary aesthetic virtue, a
good-making property, of the music. The music is loved as much as it is loathed for its crushing guitars,
its loud and noisy auditory aesthetic. Like most differences in taste, such attitudes reflect the cultural,
generational, and stylistic contexts in which they are cultivated. But heavy metal stands out as a genre
defined in terms of a specific quality of the music—namely, its heaviness. Now a global phenomenon
several generations in the making, heavy metal is both a familiar fixture of the musical mainstream and

Received: September 5, 2020. Revised: June 7, 2021. Accepted: November 8, 2021

© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Society for Aesthetics. All rights reserved. For
permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com
 What Makes Heavy Metal ‘Heavy’? • 71

an always-expanding presence in the musical underground. An elaborate infrastructure is in place to

produce, market, and distribute “heavy” music, and a vast complex of websites, blogs, and music for-
ums sustain its widespread fandom.
Regardless of musical tastes, it is both common and natural to describe music as “heavy.” We say
things like “this music is too heavy,” or “this new album is heavier than the last one,” or even “the
heaviest thing ever recorded.” But what exactly is “heaviness” in music? What quality or qualities are
we referring to in making such judgments? In short, what makes heavy metal “heavy”? The modest
aim of this article is to show that it is surprisingly difficult, if not impossible, to articulate the concept

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of musical heaviness. This difficulty has partly to do with the sheer diversity of heavy metal music,
which as Theodore Gracyk (2016) points out, complicates even the assumption that heavy metal
constitutes a unified musical genre. But the difficulty in accounting for the heaviness in heavy metal
music runs much deeper. For unlike genre designations, we have at our disposal a wide variety of
tools for evaluating heaviness, from the intuitive to the sociological to the straightforwardly empirical,
each contributing substantially to a deeper understanding and appreciation of heaviness in music.
Moreover, much of the philosophical groundwork for approaching the question of heaviness has been
laid by recent discussions concerning the ontology and aesthetics of rock music. And yet, as I argue,
there is always something more to heaviness that resists analysis. And part of what makes the term
‘heavy’ conceptually inarticulable, if not irreducible, has to do with the radically different, sometimes
incompatible, musical properties present in perceptions of musical heaviness.
Frank Sibley famously argues in “Aesthetic Concepts” that even the most familiar aesthetic descrip-
tors turn out to be conceptually inarticulable. There can be, as he puts it, no “‘mechanical’ employ-
ment” of common aesthetic terms, no definitive rules or procedures to determine their correct usage (1959,
431). ‘Heavy’ is every bit as common as terns such as ‘beautiful,’ ‘graceful,’ ‘delicate,’ ‘dainty,’ ‘garish,’
and so on (if not more so), yet there seems relatively little controversy concerning the correctness of
its application. We can point to standard features, such as loud, heavily distorted guitars, as sufficient
basis for applying the term ‘heavy’ to music. Moreover, as Kendall Walton has argued, the features
deemed relevant to aesthetic judgments depend on our perceiving the work as belonging to a certain
category of art, that is, perceiving what Walton calls the “Gestalt” of that category (Walton 1970, 340).
This would seem to allow for ready application of the term ‘heavy,’ given the extent to which heavi-
ness—perhaps more than any aesthetic concept—is inscribed by the Gestalt of a category, namely,
heavy metal.
Both the general familiarity with the term ‘heavy’ as well as the genre of heavy metal would seem
to make for a relatively straightforward answer to the question: what makes heavy metal heavy? As
we will see, however, that is not the case. In the next section, we see that, even if we can identify a
perceptually distinguishable Gestalt of heavy metal, it remains unclear whether we can identify ne-
cessary and sufficient conditions of heaviness. Heaviness may not be unique among aesthetic terms in
its resistance to conceptual determinacy. But an analysis of heaviness does make clear, in a uniquely
poignant way, the profound discrepancy that can exist between the intuitive application of aesthetic
terms and the ability to articulate them.
An analysis of heaviness, however, raises a more specific and, I think, more interesting question
concerning differences in aesthetic judgments relative to aesthetic categories. In recent decades, there
has been an ongoing, albeit limited, discussion concerning the distinct ontology and aesthetics of rock
music. In Section III, I explain how such discussions provide a useful starting point for an account of
heaviness, specifically in terms of the aesthetically expressive character of so-called “noise” element
of rock music. And yet, as I go on to argue in Section IV, there is always something more to the qual-
ity of heaviness than just more volume, more distortion, more rhythm, and so forth. “Heaviness,” in
other words, is something more than just more rock music “noise.” Finally, in Section V, I consider
several other relevant factors (including structural elements and lyrical content) contributing to the
perception of heaviness in music. While these factors help clarify what is at stake in more fine-grained
judgments of musical heaviness, they also illustrate the highly contextualized and sometimes contra-
dictory application of evaluative standards in such judgments. The simple conclusion to be drawn
from this analysis is that, despite the distinctive know-it-when-I-hear-it character of heaviness, there
are no features or set of features that necessarily warrant the application of the term ‘heavy’ to works
of music. Certain features may disqualify works from being called “heavy,” and some features may
72 • The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 2022, Vol. 80, No. 1

contribute more to the perception of heaviness than others. But no such features logically “clinch the
matter” on heaviness, to adapt a phrase from Sibley (1959, 431).

II. THE “GESTALT” OF HE AV Y METAL

“To perceive a work in a certain category,” Walton explains, “is to perceive the ‘Gestalt’ of that category
in the work (1970, 340). When we apply an aesthetic term to a work of art, according to Walton we
are not only judging the work according to certain nonaesthetic features, but also judging those fea-

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tures to be “standard,” “variable,” or “non-standard” in relation to the category to which the work of
art is perceived to belong. Such categories “include media, genre, styles, forms, and so forth,” such as
Impressionist painting, Gothic architecture, and so on (338–9). Crucial for Walton is that the cat-
egory is “perceptually distinguishable” in terms of the features relevant to that category (339). The
work has a certain “Gestalt” that allows us to perceive it as belonging to a certain category of art (341).
Take, for example, Walton’s account of the term “Brahmsian.” If, as Walton maintains, we apply the
term because it is stylistically similar to a composition by Brahms—that is, it sounds like Brahms—
and not (necessarily) because it is a work composed by Brahms, then it seems we apply the term
‘heavy’ to musical works that sounds like heavy metal, even if we do not know their provenance. In fact,
we do this all the time. We make judgments about the heaviness of music in part because we perceive it
as belonging to the category of heavy metal. And we do so because for most of us the Gestalt of heavy
metal is arguably at least as “perceptually distinguishable” as Brahmsian music. It is in part because the
category of “heavy metal” is so familiar and readily available that we are able to apply aesthetic terms
such as “heavy” fairly easily to specific works of music. In making such judgments, in other words, we
take for granted a certain Gestalt of heavy metal.
But what is the Gestalt of heavy metal? It is surprisingly elusive, in part because it is so familiar.
Until recently, even the origin story of the term ‘heavy metal’ remained shrouded in mystery. Though
frequently traced back to Steppenwolf ’s 1968 hit song, “Born to Be Wild,” the phrase “heavy metal
thunder” heard in the song’s lyrics describe the rumbling sound of a motorcycle engine, not a style of
music. Similarly, though William S. Burroughs’s 1964 novel Nova Express features a character known
as “The Heavy Metal Kid,” the phrase appears with no relevant connection to music. According to
sociologist Deena Weinstein, the first reference to “heavy metal” as a musical category can be traced
back to two independent sources—writing in the same year, for the same magazine. Lester Bangs, the
famous rock critic, uses the phrase in his February 1970 Rolling Stone review of Guess Who. Only a
few months later, another critic, Mike Saunders, uses the term in his review of the British rock band,
Humble Pie (Weinstein 2014). Like the Leibniz and Newton of the rock world, Bangs and Saunders
seized on something in the musical zeitgeist that led to near simultaneous coinvention of the now ubi-
quitous term ‘heavy metal.’
Notably, however, in both reviews, the term ‘heavy metal’ is used pejoratively. Bangs praises Guess
Who as a refreshing alternative to “all the heavy metal robots of the year past” (44) and Saunders criti-
cizes Humble Pie as “a noisy, unmelodic, heavy metal-leaden shit-rock band” (41). At the very mo-
ment of its inception, heavy metal was rejected as noise even among prominent and progressive rock
critics. Of course, musical styles dismissed as “noise” are often vindicated by the historical evolution of
tastes. “Noise” is made a virtue. The “unlistenable” is made a “masterpiece.” In his “Heavy Metal” entry
for the Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll, Bangs writes: “As its detractors have always
claimed, heavy-metal rock is nothing more than a bunch of noise; it is not music, it’s distortion—and
that is precisely why its adherents find it appealing” (41).
In asking why fans value so-called “noise” of a certain musical genre, one should, as a matter of
principle, begin with the fans of that genre. Writing on the aesthetics of punk music, for example,
Jesse Prinz rightly notes that such an account “must identify features that are valued by punk rockers”
(2014, 583). So it is with heavy metal. Indeed, the emerging scholarly field known as “heavy metal
studies” is largely predicated on the social-empirical method of canvassing its fans. Weinstein, for ex-
ample, describes a shared “code” of heavy metal aesthetic and stylistic elements, culled largely from
extensive fieldwork among subcultural fan groups of metal (Weinstein 2000, 22–7).
There are no doubt significant points of consensus among metalheads about metal music.
But  there is also—perhaps more than any musical genre—widespread and intense disagreement.
 What Makes Heavy Metal ‘Heavy’? • 73

As Gracyk (2016) argues, radical variation of styles and intensely contested evaluative and classifica-
tory criteria among the fans of metal make this task difficult, if not impossible. The specific challenge
in designating music as “heavy metal,” as Gracyk notes, is to draw the boundaries broad enough to
account for the stylistic diversity of metal, but not so broad as to render them stylistically meaningless.
The way to do this, he argues, is to define heavy metal by reference “to continuities and innovations in
musical style” rather than relying solely on the divergent perceptions of its fans (776).
Yet, musicologists and sociologists seem to have little difficulty recognizing the radical stylistic di-
versity of heavy metal while nevertheless treating it as a coherent and perceptually distinguishable

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category of music. For these theorists, the Gestalt of heavy metal is treated as a kind of Lockean ab-
stract idea, a common denominator of the heavy metal sound consisting of stylistic features broadly
shared among a diverse set of musical exemplars. In Robert Walser’s extensive study of heavy metal
subcultures, for example, he characterizes the stylistic distinctiveness of heavy metal as the expression
of power. While fully acknowledging both the diversity of styles and differences in expressive forms,
he nevertheless maintains that “musical articulation of power is the most important single factor in
the experience of heavy metal” (Walser 1993, 2). For Walser, then, the heaviness of heavy metal just
is this expression of power, the feature that holds together the otherwise sprawling and stylistically
variegated genre of heavy metal.
This broadly held view3 has the advantage of capturing both the diversity and distinctness of metal.
It gathers under one umbrella the flashy spectacle of “glam metal,” the hypermasculinity of Motörhead,
the high-speed thrashing of Slayer and Metallica, the power ballads of New Wave of British Heavy
Metal, the sinister sounds of Black Metal, and so on. Defining the Gestalt of heavy metal as the ex-
pression of power, marked by louder guitars, more distortion, and greater intensity, seems to lend
coherence to a set of musical styles born in defiance of the cheery optimism of 1960s hippie culture,
developed into a globally recognizable form of popular music, even while it has since fractured into an
increasingly diverse and overlapping array of metal sub-genres.
The notion of “expressing power,” however, really only defers on the question of what properties
are entailed in the aesthetic concept of heaviness. If expressing power is a standard feature of the cat-
egory of heavy metal, then what exactly is “power”? What kind of power is expressed? This raises a
definitional problem of “heavy metal” similar to the one Gracyk identifies above. If “power” is defined
broadly to include the range of rather disparate meanings it can assume (e.g., electrical power; mechan-
ical power; political power; psychic power; etc.), the term would seem to lose its qualitative distinctive-
ness. If, on the other hand, “power” implies something specific, it would seem overly restrictive in its
exclusion from heavy metal any kind of music that failed to express this specific sense of power. Either
too much or too little counts as heavy metal music.
My sense is that conceptions of heavy metal, both popular and scholarly, tend to commit the lat-
ter error. Typically, when Walser and others speak of the power of heavy metal, it is clear that what
they have in mind is a specific conception of power, more or less synonymous with energy, intensity,
speed, vigor, and so on. So, if correct application of the term ‘heavy’ to a work of music depends on
the perception of that work belonging to the category of heavy metal, then heaviness will be gauged
in accordance with the Gestalt properties of that category—energy, intensity, speed, vigor, and so on.
Understood as a genre concept, “heaviness” is thus judged relative to a particular perception of heavy
metal as expressing a particular conception of power. And it is worth noting, moreover, that the
Gestalt of heavy metal is further defined by a heavily gendered notion of power expressed in heavy
metal, since, as Deena Weinstein observes, “Power, the essential inherent and delineated meaning of
heavy metal, is culturally coded as a masculine trait” (2000, 67).
Underwriting this conception of heavy metal is the standard “progressive” history of heavy metal,
according to which metal music has steadily developed into heavier and heavier styles. “Metal history,”
writes Harris Berger, “is most often summed up by metalheads as a progressive quest for ever-heavier
music” (1999, 58). Like most grand narratives, however, the history of metal is in fact much messier.
It is true that heavier styles have developed from the inception of metal in the late 1960s or early
1970s with the emergence of bands like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Black Sabbath. But as metal
began to develop into a distinct musical style, it also began to yield to the familiar influence of com-
mercial interests. Gracyk is right that entry into the musical mainstream does not by itself demerit the
aesthetic value of the music.4 Plenty of metal bands have balanced commercial success and aesthetic
74 • The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 2022, Vol. 80, No. 1

integrity: Black Sabbath, Motörhead, Slayer, Tool, Mastadon, and Metallica (up to a point). But any
history of heavy metal has to reckon with the industry’s efforts to squelch the heaviness from metal
music in the interest of broader consumption. The issue here is not so much about artistic freedom,
originality, or even of “selling out,” but rather about the devaluation of the heaviness in heavy metal,
the transformation of metal’s “power” into a steady production of cliched minstrels and saccharine
love ballads. It is not commercialization per se, but the sacrifice of sound to spectacle in metal music
that makes it difficult to frame heaviness as a genre concept. If heaviness is something more than just
the cultural and historical contingencies of heavy metal music, we have to look for it, not in the main-

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stream, but at the margins of the genre. Since, as Christopher Bartel rightly points out, “our theories
of rock need to account for hardcore too,” (2017, 150) so too must they also account for heavy metal.
I began with Sleep’s Dopesmoker, in part, because the aim to “make the heaviest thing ever recorded”
captures perfectly the creative ethos of a metal subculture that does not square with either the Gestalt
figure of “power” or the progressive history of metal more generally. Its lethargic, repetitive riffing,
and monotonic chants paying homage to the lulling effects of marijuana is more evocative of inertia
than energy, more expressive of stasis than power. If we do not account for this difference, we end up
with the counterintuitive conclusion that the kind of features employed in Sleep’s musical quest for
maximal heaviness are considered “contra-standard” features of heavy metal—features, that is, which
would tend to “disqualify works as members of the category” (Walton, 339).
Perhaps the difference is merely semantic. Perhaps there is a way to interpret “power” broadly
enough to accommodate this stylistic difference while preserving its explanatory distinctiveness. We
might say, for example, that Sleep’s music expresses the power of gravity, or the power of churning
ocean waters, or something to that effect. However, Sleep’s music is but one example of a growing
undercurrent of heavy metal that consciously employ such features toward an expressive end mark-
edly different from, if not perceptibly opposed to, the intensity, aggression, energy, speed, and so forth
that make up the familiar Gestalt of heavy metal. So even if we can stretch the meaning of “power” to
achieve expressive solidarity among the different strands heavy metal, it is nevertheless hard to ignore
significant qualitative differences between the sound of heaviness expressed as one kind of power and
the sound of heaviness expressed as another kind of power. Even within the more fringe elements of
underground metal, or “extreme metal” (Kahn-Harris 2007) that dispense with the glitter and glam
of mainstream metal, the stadiums and spinning drum kits, the love ballads, and the hyper technical
virtuosity of guitar heroes like Van Halen, and so on, the pursuit of heaviness takes radically different
musical forms. Some are predicated on power, and others are predicated on the manifestation of mu-
sical heaviness by way of simplicity, repetition, and slowness. Thus, if we are to answer the question of
what constitutes the heaviness of heavy metal, we have to look beyond the historical and sociological
accounts of heaviness. We have to account for the significant perceptual differences between the ag-
gressive, high-octane heaviness of, say, Slayer’s Reign in Blood and the thick, lumbering heaviness of
Sleep’s Dopesmoker. In short, we have to turn to an aesthetics of heaviness.

III. ROCK MUSIC AESTHETICS

In “Prolegomena to Any Aesthetics of Rock Music,” Bruce Baugh poses the question: “Can there be
an aesthetics of rock music?” (1993, 23). That is, does the nature of rock music warrant a distinct set
of criteria for aesthetic judgment? Motivating Baugh’s question is the conviction that aesthetic theory
leans too formalist on the philosophy side of things and too classical on the music side. The formal-
ism, as Baugh sees it, is rooted in Kant’s theory of taste, according to which judgments concerning
“the beautiful” attend only to the form of beauty. For Kant, judgments of taste are based on a feeling
of pleasure that is (in principle) universally communicable, thus affording subjective judgments the
kind of objective validity that allows us to expect (in principle) universal assent. For Kantian-inspired
formalists, ensuring that aesthetic judgments are not merely subjective, but rather based on a pleasure
that could be had by all, requires that they be disinterested, that is, made independently of extrinsic
considerations, such as sensuous, emotional, or other not-strictly-aesthetic interests.
Baugh is right that an influential strand of Kantian-styled formalism has prevailed in contem-
porary philosophy of music, and that this paradigm is heavily informed by the analysis of classical
music. When it comes to rock music, which aims to elicit the kinds of physical and emotional re-
 What Makes Heavy Metal ‘Heavy’? • 75

sponses typically regarded as marginal or irrelevant to the composition or evaluation of classical

music, he thinks Kantian formalism is inherently ill equipped. Instead, an aesthetics of rock, he
argues, requires “turning Kantian or formalist aesthetics on its head” (26). A theory suitably re-
sponsive to the aesthetically relevant features of rock music has to acknowledge the material (as
opposed to formal) elements of music—elements such as rhythm, notational expressivity, and loud-
ness—as the appropriate evaluative criteria. An aesthetics of rock music, on his view, requires a kind
of revaluation of values: trading contemplative for physiological pleasure as the aesthetic stand-
ard. Specifically, it requires a standard that “judges the beauty of [rock] music by its effects on the

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body” (26).
Critics of this view argue that the distinction is not so simple. James Young (1995), for example,
claims that any of the material, nonformal features that Baugh appeals to as distinct to rock music can
also be found in classical music. Similarly, Stephen Davies disputes the need for a distinct aesthetics
of rock music on the grounds that, on the one hand, the visceral expressions of rock music are a con-
stitutive feature of classical music as well, and on the other, the formal elements of classical music are
often also an expressive medium of rock.5
A clean separation between rock and classical music aesthetics seems complicated by the simple
fact that rock draws extensively on the structural elements of classical music. At the same time, rock
music emerges in large part as an explicit rejection of musical traditions (including the classical), so it
is equally difficult to dispense with the intuition that rock music should be evaluated by different aes-
thetic standards. Rock music integrates, appropriates, and reinterprets elements of classical music in a
way that suggests we need not abandon formalist aesthetics entirely for an aesthetics of rock. Perhaps
what is required is not an altogether different set of criteria for evaluating rock music, but a way of
evaluating common musical elements differently. Overlap between rock and classical music should
not foreclose on the need for new ontological and aesthetic categories specific to rock, and vice versa.
But is there perhaps some kind of gestalt switch between the evaluation of classical and rock music?
And if so, does this apply only to differences in classical and rock music, or is there a broad range of
listening modes to consider?
In Rhythm and Noise, Gracyk develops an account of rock music’s aesthetic distinctiveness along
these lines. The underlying claim is that rock musicians employ technological innovations in instru-
mentation and production in such a way that the recording, rather than the performance, becomes the
“primary medium” of rock music (Gracyk 1996, 13). Here I want to focus on the aesthetic implica-
tions of Gracyk’s ontology. For, according to Gracyk, the ability to manipulate musical sounds using
amplification, guitar effects, and the recording studio affords rock musicians a distinct set of tools for
musical expression and rock fans a distinct set of criteria for aesthetic evaluation. In this way, the so-
called “noise” of rock music is converted from “an epithet of disdain into one of achievement” (99).
Rock music, that is, gives us a way of appreciating music differently.
The thrust of Gracyk’s argument is that this “noise” is an aesthetically expressive quality of rock
music. For example, rock music is loud. But loudness is more than just volume, as amplification af-
fects the timbral quality of instruments, adding brightness and tonal variations to guitars, bass and
thickness to percussion, and so on. Thus loudness “is employed as a means to an expressive end”
(114). Similarly, the rhythm of rock music is not just a matter of keeping time; rhythm lends aesthetic
qualities. “Rock drummers,” Gracyk explains, “try to bring out the expressive character and drama of
the music” (147). Much the way screen size contributes to the visual experience of film, loudness and
rhythm contribute to the auditory experience of rock music. The sensuous and emotionally expressive
elements of music, though certainly present in classical music, are in rock music the primary aesthetic
ideals, and thus should be the primary basis on which rock music is evaluated aesthetically—as ex-
pressive “noise.”

IV. HE AVINESS: THE AESTHETICS OF NOISE

If aesthetic evaluation of rock music depends on features specific to rock, then Gracyk’s aesthetic re-
valuation of “noise” in rock music offers a down payment on an account of heaviness in heavy metal.
To the extent that heavy metal is, both historically and stylistically, an extension of rock music’s aes-
thetic prioritization of loudness and rhythm, it gives us a starting point for evaluating the aesthetic-
76 • The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 2022, Vol. 80, No. 1

ally relevant features of metal. Indeed, heavy metal is both loved and loathed for its emphasis on the
noisiness of rock, furnishing on the one hand the basis of a thriving, global subculture and on the
other (quite literally) an instrument of torture.6 Thus, it makes sense to conceive the heaviness of
heavy metal in terms of the value attached to this excess, or surplus, of noise central to the aesthetics
of rock music. I take it that this view—call it the “surplus noise” view—is the standard view of heavy
metal: that is the noisier, heavier version of rock.
First, heavy metal is loudness hyperbolized. Robert Duncan coins the term “loudestness” (1984,
47)  to characterize what for many metal fans is the defining feature of metal. Metal has always

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positioned itself as rock’s louder counterpart, and some scholars suggest that the expressive use of
loudness is the primary means that metal distinguishes itself as the grittier, more transgressive alterna-
tive to popular music (Wallach 2003, 47–8). More to the point, musicologist Robert Walser, though
firmly antiessentialist with respect to the genre, maintains that heavy metal is “necessarily loud,” and
indeed that loudness “is an important contributor to the heaviness of heavy metal” (1993, 44–5).
Recall that Sleep, in its quest for ultimate heaviness, placed a premium on loudness to the tune of tens
of thousands of dollars in high-end amplifiers.
More accurately, however, it is a specific kind of loudness that metal values, namely, the loudness
of heavily distorted guitars. Distortion happens when the electric guitar sends a signal to the amplifier
that is too powerful to process, thereby overdriving the amplifier and producing complex harmonic
overtones—in other words, surplus noise. The same effect can be achieved by distortion pedals, but
in either case, the overtones generated by distortion add to the timbral richness of the instrument,
thus contributing a distinct kind of expressive capacity to the music. Though the loudness of heavily
distorted electric guitars is a staple of rock and many other forms of music, it figures so distinctively
and emphatically in heavy metal music that some metal scholars consider it “the most important aural
sign of heavy metal,” so much so that “any performances that lacks it cannot be included in the genre”
(Walser 1993, 41).
Distortion, then, gives us at least one condition that negatively governs the concept of heaviness.
This is why, in fact, musicological analysis of heaviness focuses almost exclusively on the timbral
qualities of distortion. While the term “‘heavy’ refers to a variety of textural, structural, and affect-
ive aspects of musical sound,” writes Berger, “first and foremost, ‘heavy’ describes distorted guitar
timbres” (Berger 1999, 58). Another study links the perception of heaviness to distortion’s ability to
convert the guitar from an impulsive to a sustained or driven instrument,” thus flattening the dynamic
envelope of the guitar sound (194). On the one hand, these empirical studies confirm Gracyk’s thesis
that technology gives rock its distinctive “noise” sound. But they also confirm the common perception
that the heaviness of heavy metal is strictly a function of heavily distorted guitars. Distortion is cer-
tainly a primary means of gauging the heaviness of heavy metal. But, as musicologist Jan-Peter Herbst
argues, it “cannot be the one and only rule” (2018, 13). This is because heaviness is more than just
distortion and loudness, not just more of them.
We might try adding conditions. It is, after all, more precisely the sound of the loudly distorted
power chord that gives heavy metal music a distinctively heavy sound. According to Walser, “if there
is one feature that underpins the coherence of heavy metal as a genre, it is the power chord” (1993,
2). Comprised of a root and a fifth the power chord—as the name suggests—brings a sonic potency
that gives metal music its expressive distinctness. This is because, as Walser is right to suggest, “power
chords are manifestly more than these two notes” (1993, 43). Amplified and distorted, the power
chord produces “resultant tones,” typically heard in both lower and higher frequencies. Though heavy
metal is neither the originator nor the sole beneficiary of the full-bodied sound of the power chord
(e.g., punk music), the power chord “comprises the most common harmonic material used in metal”
(Berger and Fales 2005, 188).
If what we are interested in is the practical use of aesthetic concepts, the musical features just dis-
cussed—loudness, distortion, power chords—will work just fine for applying the term “heavy” to
music. It would not be difficult, of course, to complicate the surplus noise view of heaviness. In the first
place, it is not clear whether the term “heavy” properly applies to bands, albums, songs, or even parts
of songs. Perhaps more than loudness it is the contrast between loud and quiet that contributes to the
perception of heaviness. Perhaps there are distinctions to be made concerning the degree and kind of
distortion relevant to judgments about whether or to what extent music is heavy. And what should we
 What Makes Heavy Metal ‘Heavy’? • 77

say about sub-genres of metal that do not use guitars (e.g., synth metal), and thus, strictly speaking,
do not use power chords?
Such exercises readily demonstrate the ease of defeasibility. But they do not overcome the in-
tuitive appeal of the surplus noise view of heaviness. For even if no mechanical employment of the
term is available, there is a robustly pragmatic sense in which “heavy” is applied to music because the
music is extremely loud, heavily distorted, and driven by power chords. This is, to be sure, a weak
supervenience claim, but it is one that musicologists appeal to (at least tacitly) in measuring heaviness
as a timbral quality of heavy metal noise. It should not be overlooked, then, that the conception of

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heaviness as surplus noise provides a basic set of conditions that, at the very least, govern the concept
of heaviness negatively, and that give metal an auditory profile that allows us to distinguish it more or
less from rock and other similar styles of music. As such, it provides a reasonably intuitive basis for
making lots of category-appropriate aesthetic judgments about heaviness.
But if what we are interested in are the set of features that figure into more fine-grained judgments
of heaviness, particularly those of the comparative (“x is heavier than y”) or even the superlative (“the
heaviest”) variety, then something more is required. Put another way, once we move beyond the com-
mon application of the term “heavy” to the kinds of aesthetic judgments about heaviness that take
place among well-versed metalheads, a conception of heaviness as the surplus noise of rock no longer
serves its practical purpose. It is relatively easy to explain why Sleep’s music is heavier than the music
of, say, Buddy Holly—it is much noisier. But appealing to surplus noise does not offer much of a basis
for the judgment that, for example, Sleep’s Jerusalem is heavier than Slayer’s Reign in Blood. Both are
at least comparable in terms of using loudness, distortion, and power chords as expressive means. So,
there must be something more to heaviness that allows us to make such judgments in a nontrivial way.

V. THE “SOMETHING MORE” OF HE AVINESS

Imagine that an aspiring heavy metal band—call them “Creep”—decides to make a heavy metal ver-
sion of Buddy Holly’s “Peggy Sue” as a tribute to the sole rock legend to hail from their hometown of
Lubbock, Texas. It does this, first, by upping the noise factor: adding distortion, power chords, maybe
a double-bass drum for good measure. As with almost any heavy metal cover of a rock song (e.g.,
Motley Crue’s “Smokin’ In The Boys’ Room” by Brownsville Station), “Peggy Sue” is to this extent
made a heavier song.
But now imagine Creep wants to include the song on its next album, but the record label—call it
Heaviest Records—is skeptical about producing a Buddy Holly cover, given the label's reputation for
putting out only the heaviest of heavy metal bands. Creep proposes to give “Peggy Sue” an even heav-
ier sound. But how? They could try adding yet more noise. They run the guitars through megawatt
amplifiers, add the thickest distortion technology can offer, and maybe work in a few more power
chord progressions. Maybe the vocalist shifts from a yell to a full-throated scream. In studio, the band
layers and tweaks the tracks at the mixer for maximal noisiness. They soon discover, however, the
point at which an increase in expressive noise elements yields diminishing returns. They realize the
sense in which, as Walton puts it, “limitations are standard properties” (1970, 350). The threshold
at which loudness loses its expressive value, they find, is somewhere just below the level of ear dam-
age. They find that, if it is not technology that limits distortion levels, it is the point at which the
music loses audible intelligibility altogether (Herbst 2018). In short, they discover that quantitative
increase in decibel and distortion levels no longer tracks the qualitative increase in heaviness. This
is in part because, as musicological studies have shown, although heaviness can be measured by the
increase in acoustical noise (especially distortion), “an increase in that sensation is not simply more
noise or louder noise but—perhaps more prominently—noise that is different in location relative to
other elements” (Berger and Fales 2005, 193). These other elements may include vocal timbres, in-
tensive percussion, extremely fast or slow tempos, and more intense frequencies (Czedik-Eysenberg,
Kauf, and Reuter 2017). But it might also be that it is not just the addition but rather the interaction of
these elements that affect listeners’ perception of heaviness (Herbst 2018).
In any case, Creep is left with a far more difficult task in figuring out the “something more” of heavi-
ness that would make their music heavier. And, as we look beyond the familiar and intuitive markers
of musical heaviness, we too will discover that there is no set of features that allows for mechanical
78 • The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 2022, Vol. 80, No. 1

application of the term “heavy.” Instead, we find that additional elements thought to contribute to the
perception of heaviness actually complicate our understanding of heaviness considerably, as each is
governed by perceptually distinct, sometimes contradictory, features. We find, in other words, radic-
ally different perceptions of heaviness.

V.A. Lyrical Content
Like many other musical genres (e.g., rap and country), heavy metal cultivates its musical aesthetic
largely through lyrical content. There is an intuitive fit between style and substance that makes some

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themes more suitable to heavy music than others. Particularly in the heavier strands of heavy metal
there is a distinctive fixation on darker, more transgressive themes and emotions. It trucks in imagery
of war, apocalypse, and mental anguish popularized in Sabbath’s early recordings. “Death metal,” as
the name suggests, waxes macabre over death, dying, and corporeal decay, with its Scandinavian ver-
sions drawing extensively (and unironically) on a pagan mythology that occasionally leans into hyper
nationalism and xenophobia. Similarly, the neighboring sub-genre of “black metal” is known for its
emphatic, sometimes exaggerated, lyrical evocations of evil and occultism (though much of this publi-
city is due to the revelation that prominent Norwegian black metal bands were not just singing about,
but were, in fact, perpetrating church arson and murder).7 At the doom, sludge, and stoner end of the
extreme metal spectrum one finds the familiar expressions of melancholy, death, and despair, and the
regular invocation of witchcraft and paganism.
Metal’s preoccupation with transgressive themes might tempt us to think that Hanslick had it
wrong: that lyrics can contribute to certain musical qualities. Rather than being a dispensable or inter-
changeable element of music, it appears that lyrics figure centrally into metal’s pursuit of increasing
heaviness. This cuts against Hanslick’s thesis that lyrics “can never determine the essence of music”
(1986, 20) or that lyrical content can be interchangeable “but the purely musical expression would
suffer not in the least” (18).8 To use the example above, a compelling reason to think that “Peggy
Sue” is limited with respect to potential heaviness is that “pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty Peggy Sue” just
doesn't lend itself naturally to heaviness. The once popular heavy metal version of “Three Little Pigs”
by the satire metal band, Green Jelly, offers an even more poignant illustration of this. Lacking noth-
ing in terms of loudness, distortion, power chords, and so on, the heaviness of the music is signifi-
cantly diluted by the silliness of the lyrics. Indeed, it is the mismatch between the loud, distorted
music and the juvenile lyrics that make the song work as satire. Jeremy Wallace, Harris M. Berger, and
Paul D. Greene’s concept of “affective overdrive” captures the implicit presumption that metal music
is normatively suited to express darker, more transgressive themes and emotions. “Taken together,”
they write, “the musical qualities that characterized heavy metal offer listeners musical experiences
invested with serious, weighty, or powerful emotions” (Wallach, Berger, and Greene 2011, 10).
But here too, the best we can say is that the term “heavy” can be negatively governed by certain
conditions. It may well be that the lyrical levity of “Three Little Pigs” disqualifies the music as “heavy.”
But it does not follow from this that heavier lyrics necessarily make for heavier music. Serious and
somber lyrical content cannot be a necessary condition of heaviness since, in the first place, some of
the heaviest music is strictly instrumental (e.g., SunnO))), Earth, Clouds Taste Satanic, etc.). Further,
the lyrical content of metal is often unintelligible, or of secondary significance to, the melodic or in-
strumental quality of the vocals (e.g., screaming, growling, or grunting). But nor can it be a suffi-
cient condition. Indeed, a peculiarity of heavy metal music is that the intention to express heaviness
through lyrical seriousness all too frequently fail. And when it does fail, the effect is not neutral. Lyrics
are a wager on heaviness: if won, they advance the aim of the music; when lost, they set the music
behind. This phenomenon—call it the “Spinal Tap effect”—happens when the seriousness of lyrical
content gets expressed in particularly corny or cliched lyrics that in turn end up diminishing rather
than contributing to the perception of heaviness in music. Different listeners will of course have dif-
ferent tolerance thresholds, but the Spinal Tap effect is familiar to metalheads: the audible experience
of heaviness ruined by bad lyrics.
Finally, it is not even clear what particular kinds of lyrical content lend to the perception of heavi-
ness and which do not. Do death and mayhem make for ideal heaviness? Does the imagery of druids,
dragons, wizards, interstellar travel, Middle Earth fantasy, and science fiction in doom metal contrib-
ute to the perception of heaviness? Is there something inherently serious or weighty about bong hits
 What Makes Heavy Metal ‘Heavy’? • 79

that lends to the heaviness of stoner metal bands like Weedeater, Bongripper, and Dopelord? Or is
it rather the musical treatment of lyrical content that lends it gravity? After all, the seemingly blithe
preoccupation with marijuana in Sleep’s Dopesmoker is afforded the solemnity of a religious journey.
It seems more likely that it is the chanting itself, rather than the lyrical content of the chant, that gives
the talk of bong hits a seriousness that we don't find in, say, Snoop Dogg’s lyrics.
In sum, although there seems to be some normative fit between heavy music and weighty lyr-
ical content, articulating that fit in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions seems out of reach.
Without an elaborate account of the kinds of content that would count as weighty in the relevant

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sense, as well as a highly subjective account of the success conditions of lyrics contributing to musical
heaviness, it appears the most we can say about the heaviness of lyrics is that they typically, but not
necessarily enhance the perception of heaviness in heavy metal.

V.B. Structural Features

The concept of heaviness proves even harder to pin down when we look to structural or compositional
elements of the music. Given Berger’s observation that “extremes of tempo was part of the quest for
heaviness, and both slow dirges and frantic grindcore numbers can be heavy if performed well” (1999,
59), it makes sense to start with tempo. First, note the important qualification: if performed well. For
even if extreme tempos can contribute to the perception of heaviness, this contribution ends where
quality conditions are not met. Note further just how radical the perceptual difference is between ex-
tremely fast and extremely slow tempos. At one extreme, the fast, aggressive strumming and tremolo
picking of guitarists and the rapid “blast beats” of drummers give the music an intense and frenetic
energy. Metal, already known for its up-tempo rhythms, reaches unrivaled levels of abruptness and
intensity with thrash, hardcore, death and black metal, with songs ranging upward of 250 bpm. At the
other extreme is a low-and-slow brand of heaviness for which bands like Sleep are known. Dopesmoker,
for example, clocks in at a plodding 96 beats per minute. This contrast represents more than a minor
stylistic difference. It represents a different notion of heaviness altogether, one developed by a range
of metal bands who, instead of speed and energy, seize on the slower, darker sound of early metal
(Black Sabbath in particular), distilling it into a particular form of heaviness defined by simplicity and
restraint.
Accordingly, to say that tempo is a variable feature of heaviness just does not capture the profound
perceptual difference of heaviness heard at extreme tempos. The perceptual difference between ex-
treme speed and extreme slowness is rooted in the fact that tempo concerns, not just the timing of
the music, but the way time is experienced in and through the music. Ronald Bogue explains this phe-
nomenon by drawing on Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s distinction between the metrical measure
of time (Chronos) and the rhythmic perception of time (Aeon). Extreme forms of metal, he suggests,
exploit the difference between the quantitative and qualitative perception of extreme tempos to en-
hance the perception of heaviness in the music. Whereas the speed and changing time signatures
of death and black metal convey energy and movement, doom metal expresses, as he puts it, “the
qualitative speed of catatonia, the immobile speed of a paradoxically intense suspended animation”
(Bogue 2004, 106). More straightforwardly, the point is that “heaviness” seems to refer to very dif-
ferent, if not opposing, kinds of perception created by extreme differences in tempo: the perception
of speed, intensity, and power on the one hand, and on the other, the perception of slowness, stasis,
and resistance.
Such perceptual differences can also affect how we respond aesthetically to the music. For example,
if rhythm that inspires movement is taken as the basis for appreciating rock music, that standard will
be applied differently to different perceptions of musical heaviness. A  common physical response
to heavy metal music is, of course, headbanging—a kind of dance that looks very much what it
sounds like—as well as more aggressive forms of “slam dancing,” “hardcore dancing,” and “moshing.”
Extremely slow forms of heaviness, however, do not inspire much dancing or movement, and if they
do, they are at best of secondary significance. This is not to say that Dopesmoker would not elicit some
foot tapping or head bobbing. But full throttle headbanging and the more raucous crowd rituals that
attend more up-tempo varieties of metal, punk, and hardcore are, on the whole, far less common
responses to the lulling drone of doom and related sub-genres. And it is certainly not the case, as
80 • The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 2022, Vol. 80, No. 1

Baugh argues, that “a bad rock song is one that tries and fails to inspire the body to dance” (1993, 26).
Listeners appreciate Sleep’s music for its sonic slowness, and we would be wrong to judge this kind of
heaviness on its ability to whip the crowd into a frenzy. So again, it must be said that extreme tempos
contribute significantly to the perception of heaviness, the different extremes effect what are essen-
tially two very different perceptions of heaviness.
Pitch is another important structural feature of heaviness. Often, heaviness is achieved by sharp
variations in pitch, such as the contrast in tonal frequencies that we hear, for example, in Slayer’s
“Raining Blood.” Other times, however, heaviness is achieved by limiting the range to dense, low

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frequency sounds. This is typically achieved by down tuning guitars (a vestige of Black Sabbath9)
as well as layering recorded tracks, or “quad-tracking,” with minor tonal variations in each.10 Here
too, heaviness is heard in both a dynamic range of frequencies as well as low-pitch monophonic
textures.
Further, heaviness is found in both technically complex and strikingly minimalist compositions.
Atonality, chromatic chord progressions, variable time signatures and complex rhythmic structures
are all typical of metal, not to mention the enduring supremacy of the soaring guitar solo. But it is
wrong to claim, as Weinstein does, that “heavy metal guitarist are required to demonstrate technical
proficiency” (2000, 24). For heaviness is also manifested in simplicity and repetition.11 Most signifi-
cantly, the guitar riff—a succinct, iterated musical phrase or chord structure—is one of metal’s most
potent tools for achieving heaviness. It shapes the listening experience as a patterned, ritualistic prac-
tice in which depth of sound is valued over breadth. The riff, doubled in the bass line, creates a low-
frequency, densely textured and atmospheric form of heaviness. The percussion is also simplified,
typically lacking syncopation and polyrhythm, in order to emphasize and enhance the riff ’s melodic
structure. Above all, riff-driven metal places a premium on repeatability, with minor variations creat-
ing subtle nuances in pitch and timbre with each iteration. The entirety of Dopesmoker, for example,
consists of some 1800 loops of a single C-based pentatonic blues riff, each stylistically distinct from
the last.12 Sometimes, headbanging is the right response to the heaviness of heavy metal. At other
times, it is the kind of deep, attentive listening typically associated with the appreciation of classical
music. The reason for this is simple: as rock journalist J. Bennett puts it, “sometimes, the riff is just
so fucking good that you just want to hear it over and over and over again … sometimes for fifty-two
minutes.”13

VI. CONCLUSION
An answer to the question “What makes heavy metal heavy?,” though seemingly obvious, gets to the
heart of one of the most contentious contemporary debates in the philosophy of music. How do we
assign specific properties to works of music? Even a purist such as Hanslick, though doggedly skep-
tical of expressive properties in music, readily allows that “the aesthetical expression of a piece of
music may be called charming, soft, impetuous, powerful, delicate, sprightly,” and so on (1986, 10).
So, it is in describing music as “heavy.” It is easily and intuitively applicable to music, not only because
its use is governed by the genre category of heavy metal, but also because the relevant features are
already present (albeit to a lesser extent) in rock music. Conceiving the heaviness of heavy metal as
an extension of the “noise” aesthetically valued in rock gives us, at the very least, a pragmatic basis for
describing music as “heavy.” But the more nuanced judgments of heaviness familiar to metalheads
go well beyond the features of loudness, distortion, and the expression of power. And yet, analysis of
further conditions of heaviness, such as lyrical content or compositional elements, only confirms that
“heaviness” resists exhaustive conceptual articulation. Nor does this seem to be a matter of just refin-
ing definitions and qualifying necessary and sufficient conditions more precisely. Rather, the difficulty
seems to stem from there being different conceptions of heaviness, comprised of radically different,
sometimes incompatible, properties. Sometimes heaviness sounds like heavy metal music, sometimes
it does not. Sometimes heaviness is expressed as power, sometimes it is not. Heaviness is, in some
cases, the surplus “noise” of rock, in other cases it is much more than this. It is both extremely fast
and yet extremely slow; both simple and complex; both frantic and restrained. It is manifested in the
raucous stirrings of a mosh pit, but also in contemplative meditation. And even if it cannot be wholly
 What Makes Heavy Metal ‘Heavy’? • 81

understood through all these diverse and contrasting forms, the heaviness of heavy metal can certainly
be heard in any and all of them.14

JASON MILLER, Department of Philosophy, Warren Wilson College, Asheville, NC, USA.
Email: jay.miller@warren-wilson.edu

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END NOTES
1 Quoting from a video documentary film about the metal underground scene, Such Hawks Such Hounds, dir-
ected by Jessica Hundley and John Srebalus (Long Song Pictures and Draw Pictures 2008)
2 Quoting the record’s original producer, Billy Anderson, in Such Hawks Such Hounds.
82 • The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 2022, Vol. 80, No. 1

3 Weinstein writes: “the sound [of heavy metal] as such—its timbre, its volume, and its feel—is what matters,
what defines it as power, giving it inherent meaning” (2000, 27). Berger and Fales’s study claims to lend empir-
ical support to Walser’s observation that distortion contributes most significantly to the perception of power in
the music (2004, 193–4).
4 Here, Gracyk is responding specifically to Deena Weinstein’s Adornian narrative that heavy metal bands “sold
out” when record companies got involved (Gracyk 1996, 153–4). Even with the absorption of metal into the
mainstream, I can still value the music for various aesthetic qualities (Motley Crue, for example, can light up a
crowd). But the devaluation of heaviness in heavy metal is a direct and regrettable consequence of record labels
seeking broader audiences.

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5 As Davies rightly points out, “Baugh underestimates the extent to which the visceral response he describes
depends not only on the musical features he highlights, but also on a song’s melodic and harmonic shape, its
words, its overall structure, and so on” (1999, 197).
6 In the Guantanamo detention facility, for example (see Smith, 2008). Metal was also used extensively in Iraq
interrogations sessions. According to Sergeant Mark Hadsell of the Psychological Operations Company (Psy
Ops), “These people haven’t heard heavy metal. They can’t take it. If you play it for 24 hours, your brain and
body functions start to slide, your train of thought slows down and your will is broken. That’s when we come in
and talk to them” (BBC News 2017).
7 Between 1992 and 1995, some fifty to sixty churches were burned, each of which was connected to the
Norwegian black metal scene. During that time, a series of murders took place within that scene, most notably
the murder of Euronymous, guitarist of Mayhem, by Varg Vikernes of rival black metal band, Burzum. Both are
extensively documented in Moynihan and Søderlind (2003, 177).
8 As proof of this thesis, Hanslick refers us to the many cases in which he cites, for example, the secular origins of
Handel’s Messiah, or the performance of Verdi operas in Italian churches. It is, at the very least, I think, doubtful
to claim that a parody of Der Zauberflöte (to cite another of Hanslick’s examples) leaves Mozart’s music un-
altered even when the “seriousness of the music” is combined with “low-comedy words” (1986, 18).
9 According to legend, the low-frequency sound of early Sabbath came about because guitarist Tony Iommi, who
had damaged his fingertips in a work-related accident, found it easier to play on down-tuned strings.
10 According to producer and sound engineer, Mark Mynett, this yields “an even stronger, denser and heavier
guitar tone than would be the case with four rhythm performances using the same sound” (2012, n.p).
11 One study examining the relation between heaviness and chord structure finds that “metal music became less
complex while at the same time the riffs became more distorted” (Herbst, 2018, 96).
12 Music blogger Brand Cage (2013) has an impressively in-depth musical analysis of Sleep’s Dopesmoker in which
he makes exactly this case by breaking the song down into nine distinct riff sections and detailing variations in
pitch and rhythmic structure within and among each.
13 In the documentary film Such Hawks Such Hounds.
14 An early version of this article was originally presented at the 2017 Eastern Division meeting of the American
Society of Aesthetics and later reworked as a guest post on the Aesthetics for Birds blog. I am deeply thankful
to both venues, as well as to the many kind folks who helped shape the article along the way. Special thanks
to Jonathan Neufeld, Tom Mulherin for generously reading and commenting on earlier drafts, as well as to
the anonymous reviewers for this journal, whose thoughtful comments made for a much stronger finished
product. I am also incredibly thankful for all of the super helpful conversations about heavy metal with Matt
Strohl, Shelby Moser, Thi Nguyen, and Chris Grau. A special thanks to friends like Tommy Davis, Sam Morkal-
Williams, and Mike Simmons, who have all played a vital part in my education in quality metal.