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Old Man Metal

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The most recent in a decades-long series of psychological experiments into the emotional effects of music has demonstrated something that I could have told you for free: listening to death metal has a positive mental effect on fans, does not desensitize them to violence, and scares the shit out of normal people.

Just published in Royal Society Open Science, the work by researchers at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia compared the reactions of death metal fans and non-fans to a pair of images, one violent and the other non-violent, with one image being displayed to each eye.

Dr. Yanan Sun explained that, due to "binocular rivalry," when presented with two images, the brain will tend to focus on one more than the other. When normal people are presented with both a neutral image and a violent, threatening one, they focus on the violent image (for what I think are obvious reasons).

Sun's testing showed that the death metal fans also focused more on the violent image, indicating that they had not become desensitized to violence due to repeated exposure to all of the lovely violent content in their chosen genre of music.

In each test case, the victim subject was also exposed to one of two songs: Bloodbath's "Eaten," a really groovy little ditty about volunteering to be cannibalized, or Pharrell Williams' "Happy," which is sugary and upbeat enough to make a hipster dance like a Deadhead with a headful of Sunshine. "Eaten" has violent lyrics and "acoustic qualities that are characteristics of biological signals of aggression (e.g. nonlinearities, low mean pitch level, growling or screaming vocalizations)," while "Happy" "depicts prosocial and joyous lyrics accompanied by musical qualities with a positive emotional connotation (e.g. conventional song structure, major tonality, consonant sonorities and high mean pitch level)."

Guess what? Death-metallers reported feeling "peace, joy, power and wonder" when they listened to "Eaten," while the control group experienced "tension, anger and fear."

Researcher Bill Thompson likened fans' seemingly paradoxical enjoyment of brutal, violent music to many people's enjoyment of sad music. "Instead of leaving fans feeling hostile, the music helps them to discharge or distract from their own negative feelings, increase energy levels, and generate powerful, visceral emotional states."

"[Death metal] fans are nice people."




Photo credit: Luka Knežević - Strika, EXIT Photo Team. Photo of "Crowd at Kreator, Explosive Stage, EXIT Festival 2011" Use here under Creative Commons license: cc-by-sa-3.0 license.
 
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full


The most recent in a decades-long series of psychological experiments into the emotional effects of music has demonstrated something that I could have told you for free: listening to death metal has a positive mental effect on fans, does not desensitize them to violence, and scares the shit out of normal people.

Just published in Royal Society Open Science, the work by researchers at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia compared the reactions of death metal fans and non-fans to a pair of images, one violent and the other non-violent, with one image being displayed to each eye.

Dr. Yanan Sun explained that, due to "binocular rivalry," when presented with two images, the brain will tend to focus on one more than the other. When normal people are presented with both a neutral image and a violent, threatening one, they focus on the violent image (for what I think are obvious reasons).

Sun's testing showed that the death metal fans also focused more on the violent image, indicating that they had not become desensitized to violence due to repeated exposure to all of the lovely violent content in their chosen genre of music.

In each test case, the victim subject was also exposed to one of two songs: Bloodbath's "Eaten," a really groovy little ditty about volunteering to be cannibalized, or Pharrell Williams' "Happy," which is sugary and upbeat enough to make a hipster dance like a Deadhead with a headful of Sunshine. "Eaten" has violent lyrics and "acoustic qualities that are characteristics of biological signals of aggression (e.g. nonlinearities, low mean pitch level, growling or screaming vocalizations)," while "Happy" "depicts prosocial and joyous lyrics accompanied by musical qualities with a positive emotional connotation (e.g. conventional song structure, major tonality, consonant sonorities and high mean pitch level)."

Guess what? Death-metallers reported feeling "peace, joy, power and wonder" when they listened to "Eaten," while the control group experienced "tension, anger and fear."

Researcher Bill Thompson likened fans' seemingly paradoxical enjoyment of brutal, violent music to many people's enjoyment of sad music. "Instead of leaving fans feeling hostile, the music helps them to discharge or distract from their own negative feelings, increase energy levels, and generate powerful, visceral emotional states."

"[Death metal] fans are nice people."




Photo credit: Luka Knežević - Strika, EXIT Photo Team. Photo of "Crowd at Kreator, Explosive Stage, EXIT Festival 2011" Use here under Creative Commons license: cc-by-sa-3.0 license.

that rappy rap crap does though since they added the whole "I wannabe a GANGSTA" image starting on MTV all the way through VHI (which VHI was the last to have the best music) they havent gotten to CMT to my knowledge yet but most channels now promote that gansta rap BS crap and dont allow my daughter nor nephew to listen to the sht in the house.. all music since the last 80 years has been horrific for the body since changing the tuning from 432hz all the way to A=440hz tuning which is why people listening to something tuned to 432hz can think more clear and get better grades in school. it doesnt have to be Beethoven or anything, just a guitar or voice at a rate of 432hz in frequency which vibrates in perfect harmony with your bodys frequency/energy/vibration aka aura which all of this is scientifically proven through water. changing the structure of water by just playing anything that happens to be playing different TONES tuned at 432 hz creates amazing perfect structure within the frozen water under a microscope in the mmicro OR the MICRO as a whole you start seeing patters found in sacred geometry. this is why instruments going back 8,000 years along with al music they did including the wood they hit sounding like drums, ALL OF IT was at 432. every wonder why they changed it after the world war? thi is when all the changes happened with roads leading easier to the international order as they call it now or as they USED to call it, the new world order. the music has dumbed people down since the change in tuning the bad food indigence, fluorided water with extra lead which causes early Alzheimer and memory loss even in your 30's. music is everywhere and its not the kind of music, its the FREQUENCY of the music that matters. also do not forget about words. words are frequency, whether you mean the or not, they still effect water and what are we made of by 90%?? yes we are almost ALL water which means this stuff effects our bodies more than anyone has thought of. as i said its not the kind of music, but the frequency of sound and frequency/vibration of the sounds on top of the music/other frequency/(words*) hope this makes sense.. and thus back to my point. rap, effects people in the worst kind of way. the tuning is horrific and harsh on the body and mind for one however not including all the other crap about it.
 
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that rappy rap crap does though since they added the whole "I wannabe a GANGSTA" image starting on MTV all the way through VHI (which VHI was the last to have the best music) they havent gotten to CMT to my knowledge yet but most channels now promote that gansta rap BS crap and dont allow my daughter nor nephew to listen to the sht in the house.. all music since the last 80 years has been horrific for the body since changing the tuning from 432hz all the way to A=440hz tuning which is why people listening to something tuned to 432hz can think more clear and get better grades in school. it doesnt have to be Beethoven or anything, just a guitar or voice at a rate of 432hz in frequency which vibrates in perfect harmony with your bodys frequency/energy/vibration aka aura which all of this is scientifically proven through water. changing the structure of water by just playing anything that happens to be playing different TONES tuned at 432 hz creates amazing perfect structure within the frozen water under a microscope in the mmicro OR the MICRO as a whole you start seeing patters found in sacred geometry. this is why instruments going back 8,000 years along with al music they did including the wood they hit sounding like drums, ALL OF IT was at 432. every wonder why they changed it after the world war? thi is when all the changes happened with roads leading easier to the international order as they call it now or as they USED to call it, the new world order. the music has dumbed people down since the change in tuning the bad food indigence, fluorided water with extra lead which causes early Alzheimer and memory loss even in your 30's. music is everywhere and its not the kind of music, its the FREQUENCY of the music that matters. also do not forget about words. words are frequency, whether you mean the or not, they still effect water and what are we made of by 90%?? yes we are almost ALL water which means this stuff effects our bodies more than anyone has thought of. as i said its not the kind of music, but the frequency of sound and frequency/vibration of the sounds on top of the music/other frequency/(words*) hope this makes sense.. and thus back to my point. rap, effects people in the worst kind of way. the tuning is horrific and harsh on the body and mind for one however not including all the other crap about it.
ok first, its AFFECT, not EFFECT. But I digress. I'm curious tho, what do you think about R&B music? I'm trying to see something
 
@Prettypink513 my hat is off to you if you actually read that wall of text! I'm not a fan of rap, but I'm not going to go around and call it crap and BS because I don't like it.

Metal has always been about sex drugs and crazy ass shit.
It was like a bad train wreck. I couldn't look away. But after glorifying country music, bashing rap, and not even mentioning death metal, I'm really wondering if race is a factor in that rant :shrug:
 
It was like a bad train wreck. I couldn't look away. But after glorifying country music, bashing rap, and not even mentioning death metal, I'm really wondering if race is a factor in that rant :shrug:
Honestly seems to me to be legit Time Cube-grade schizophrenic ramblings with a strong conspiracy theory bent. The wall of text and wild-but-superficially-coherent science-ish theories that don't hold together upon inspection are archetypal. I'm betting that any racial bias that might or might not show through is a secondary motivation, if not completely unconscious.

His other posts are consistent with this analysis.

No offense, @mikefarley001 , don't mean to talk about you like you're not here. :)
 
I love metal, Death metal may not be my favorite genre, but I have to give them props, the dudes can play. I always find that I can mosh to just about anything and feel better, but there is one genre of music that I just can't do. Kind of ironic considering my home town, but I actually feel more angst when grunge shit comes on than I do listening to screaming guitars and growls of Diecide
 
MikeFarley is fucking awesome. Look forward to more of his madness.

People wasted time actually studying this? Was there even a question that it caused violence? I thought this all got squared away in the 80s. Judas Priest was in a courtroom fighting off absurd claims of hidden lyrical content telling kids to off themselves for fuck sake.

Of course death metal doesnt incite violence or desensitize folks to it. How could it when you cant decipher a single god damn word these idiots bark out.
 
It took me long enough to like metal. Death metal will never be on my playlist.

My 11 year old on the other hand...His favorite band is AC/DC.
Definitely an acquired taste. AC/DC though... I don't see how anyone can not like AC/DC, especially the Bon Scott-era stuff. Wonderful, tasty, rockin-ass blues-based rock'n'roll right there.

Bolt Thrower is some of the most accessible-yet-quality death metal out there, sonically it is not nearly as abrasive as most. That said, musically it is a great exemplar. Would be a great gateway band; I posted one of their songs in Song Of The Day recently.
 
No offense, @mikefarley001 , don't mean to talk about you like you're not here. :)

Well, he’s not “here”, but he’s not exactly “there” either...I have an inkling he’s the type to indulge in the occasional solipsistic rant.

I don’t have much to offer the thread because I’ve always assumed the study’s results are kind of obvious. Hang around enough metal heads and you realize they’re better than ordinary people!

An aside: “Eaten” reminds me of the super brief bit in the movie Hostel where a cannibal is eating a guy who’s strapped down and watching it happen, ha!
 
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