Muutama sananen MHM-konffasta ja metallitutkimuksessa Inferno-lehdessä 2/2014:
Some words about metal research and conferences featured in the latest Inferno magazine:
a very rough translation:
METAL – SCIENCE?
Helsinki will host an academic conference “Modern Heavy Metal: Markets, Practices and Cultures in June 2015”. The former black sheep of popular culture is today a relevant subject for almost any scientific discipline.
The conference, organized by Aalto University School of Business, follows The Heavy Metal and Popular Culture conference that was organized at the Bowling Green State University last year.
- It gathered over one hundred people to discuss research in metal, whatever it may entail. Cultural research, sociology, musicology, philosophy, and also our business perspective, were represented there, says Research Director Toni-Matti Karjalainen.
The topics of the Bowling Green Conference were exhilarating. German music researcher Florian Heesch talked about the Canadian hot water blower Thor with the title “Nordic Metal Avenger: Jon Mikl Thor’s Performances of Superhero Characters”.
Themes varied from the glam metal parody of Steel Panther to the meaning of religion, gender and national identity in the Puerto Rican metal scene.
- One chap had studied Meshuggah to his PhD. He showed tight analysis of a short song clip from the music structure point of view. It is very metal to pay attention to details and pull off lots of stuff from that, notes Karjalainen.
- During the conference we discussed that the next bigger event could take place in two years. People asked whether I’d be interested in organizing it in Helsinki. And now we are putting it together.
Why should Pertti Perustallaaja (kind of “John Doe”) come to listen the academic talk?
- If Pertti is interested in metal, he will certainly get interesting perspectives and good examples of how this phenomenon can be explored. And for sure he would learn something new and surprising. We will hopefully create a broad review of topics that appeals to people outside academia too.
- And we will try to put up some kinds of artist and industry panels. So people from the field will also speak there. It will be not only about academic waffle. Which is also good, while commercial and practical aspects of the metal culture are main angles of the conference. And hopefully we manage to get metal gigs for those days in Helsinki.
The presentation of Karjalainen in Bowling Green was titled “In Somnium Exportata: A Finnish Story of International Metal Labor. And a data set on Nightwish brand building is currently on his table, waiting to be worked towards publications. Karjalainen, who made his doctoral thesis about the relationship of design and branding at the University of Art and Design Helsinki has also written articles on the metal entrepreneurship within music industry.
- Finnish metal export has been another main theme in my research; how Finnish bands manage and function abroad, what kind of umbrella brand is Finnish Metal in overall, and how bands are marketing themselves, from visual communication to action. The export angle and visual communication – or if you use the ugly word of branding – are the ones I am interested in.
If sociologist Deena Weinstein was a lone wolf in the world of science with her book Heavy Metal: Music and it’s Culture, today the metal-focused researchers even have an association called "International Society for Metal Music Studies".
The next metal research conference is organized in Puerto Rico in March. Communality of the metal culture is the overlaying theme of this conference. Based on the titles, the presentations will even cover the aging of metal audience; are we going to see retirement homes focusing on specific subcultures some day.
Karjalainen is the last speaker of the conference.
- As I got the final slot in the event, I am probably going to throw an invitation to the audience: Welcome to Helsinki next year.
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