This is an interdisciplinary study of Argentina’s heavy metal subculture between 1983 and 2002, a period in which metal music withstood the onslaught of military dictatorship and survived the neoliberal policies of bourgeois democracy.
Edited by leading researchers in the field, this collection addresses the music’s rituals, circulations, cultural products, lyrics, and intertexts, allowing readers to rethink the genre’s place within Argentinean politics and economics. Exclusively written by members of the Group for Interdisciplinary Research on Argentinian Heavy Metal (GIIHMA) in a communal approach to scholarship, the book echoes the working-class voices that marked early post-dictatorship metal music in Argentina, exploring heavy metal music as a catalyst for social change and a site for engaging political reflection. This is a fascinating work of scholarship and a groundbreaking contribution to the emerging field of global metal studies.
Table of Contents
Preface to the Second Edition vii
Group for Interdisciplinary Research on Argentinian Heavy Metal (GIIHMA)
Foreword ix
Emiliano Scaricaciottoli
Translator’s Note xiii
Juan Manuel López Baio
Introduction: A Window into Heavy Metal Scholarship in the Global South xv
Nelson Varas-Díaz, Daniel Nevárez Araújo, and Emiliano Scaricaciottoli
1. Heavy Metal as a Subculture in Argentina: Identity and Resistance 2
Gustavo Torreiro
2. Genre Violence: Argentinean Heavy Metal in the Music Market 16
Luciano Scarrone
3. Heavenly Hosts and Other Demons: Reflections Concerning a
Difficult and Transversal Relationship in the History of Our Heavy Music 28
Gito Minore
4. Walkabout, Just Walking about for the Sake of Walking: The Journey
as an Ethos in the Poetics of Ricardo Iorio 46
Manuel Bernal and Diego Caballero
5. Passion and Ethics: A Space for Voice and Tradition in Iorio’s Lyrics 58
Juan Ignacio Pisano
6. The Reason Behind My Writing: Another Day of Being 72
Ezequiel Alasia
7. Piedra Libre: Referential Tensions in Argentinean Heavy Metal
Lyrics Since the Political Crisis of 2001/2002 84
Emiliano Scaricaciottoli
Notes on Contributors 100