Abstract: << This an outstanding collection of chapters that explore the intersections between progressive rock, metal and the literary imagination. Each contribution here is a must-read and the editors have done an incredible job framing the
Handbook.
Karl Spracklen, PhD, AcSS
Leeds Beckett University, Portland >>
"This Handbook illustrates the many ways that progressive rock and metal music forge striking engagements with literary texts and themes.
The authors and their objects of analytic inquiry offer global and diverse perspectives on these genres and their literary connections: from ancient times to the modern world, from children’s literature to epic poetry, from mythology to science fiction, and from esoteric fantasy to harsh political criticism.
The musical treatments of these literary materials span the continents from South and North America through Europe and Asia. The collection presents critical perspectives on the enduring and complex relationships between words and music as these are expressed in progressive rock and metal.
The book is aimed primarily at an academic market, valuable for second through final year students on undergraduate courses devoted to both popular music and to literary studies, and to postgraduate programs and researchers in a range of fields, including: popular music studies, musicology, creative music performance and composition, songwriting, literary studies, narrative studies, folklore studies, science fiction studies, cultural studies, liberal studies, and sociology, and for media and history courses that have an interest in the intersection of narratives, music and society."
Source for both: https://www.routledge.com

Abstract: "The Music Industry is a very complex world that embraces different and broad segments needing of academic exploration. The big majority of studies and/or academic approaches to this unique business world have been focusing greatly on the record labels side but have failed to address the role of those who make the music – the musicians/artists. This is exactly what the present study aimed to understand: What is the role of the musicians in the music business? Aren’t they one of the key elements, essential players, within the whole industry, if not the most important elements ever?
The industry of music includes a large number of creative and wise musicians/bands behind one of the most discriminated music genres in the music history – Heavy Metal Music. However, diverse studies have demonstrated that Heavy Metal is recognized as a music genre that generates profit, with an increasing legion of fans all over the world hence, also considered popular music. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to understand how Heavy Metal Music bands and musicians succeed and how they manage to conciliate artistic creativity and commercial demands. By making a multiple case study analysis within two different settings – Portugal versus Finland – it will be shown that Heavy Metal bands / musicians possess business skills that allow them to manage and conduct both the artistic and business activities of their music business. In some of the cases, it will also be raised their entrepreneurial skills in innovating and finding new ways of reaching the audience and becoming more successful whilst doing what they love the most – making music and playing it live."
(Source: ProQuest Dissertations Publishing)
Ciências Sociais e Humanas (Social Sciences and Humanities).

Abstract: "An encyclopedia of more than 100 guitars and the musicians who have mastered them.
Guitars and Heroes is organized by era, from the rockabilly pioneers to the guitar heroes of the future. Each chapter contains portraits of guitarists (past and present) and their favorite instruments. The authoritative text describes the musician's favored guitar or guitars and why they prefer them, often revealing a hidden facet of the musician's artistic approach.
Special photo spreads include The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Van Halen, Prince, Billie Joe Armstrong, AC/DC, Les Paul, anatomy of a Stratocaster, 5 Replica Guitars; Burst, the world's most expensive guitar; 5 Most Desirable Amplifiers, 5 Pedals That Changed the World, 5 Groundbreaking Sounds, The Chicago Blues in 5 Albums, 5 Essential Hard Rock Albums and 5 Design Gibson Mistakes.
The book is organized into three sections (Birth of an Art, The Golden Age, Modern Times) and nine chapters, each with a selection of artists and their guitars..."
[SOURCE: https://www.fireflybooks.com/BookDetails?Pid=771]

Abstract: << Black and white makeup of Kiss influenced later heavy metal acts such as King Diamond and, even later in the 1990s onward, Scandinavian black metal. The current chapter sketches a brief history of the usage of makeup and masks in heavy metal and related sub-genres. Black metal and to lesser extent death metal artists, use corpse paint, and occasionally masks, to portray a potentially transformative dimension of artistic personas, antinomian sociocultural values, and aggressive stage performances.
However, experts on black metal and death metal are skeptical about the extent to which these artists and values represent authentic transformation and not just superficial genre paraphernalia. Furthermore, in relation to Ghost, a popular heavy metal band from Sweden, intertextual influences from film characters are highlighted in a context signified by entertainment. Thus, masks and makeup in heavy metal might be seen as performative but with both entertaining and antagonistic elements. >>
[source: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-032-16978-5_11]

Abstract: Historians have long overlooked and misunderstood the Parents Music Resource Center, an activist group formed in 1985 to correct perceived excesses in heavy metal music. Scholars have focused their analyses almost exclusively on the First Amendment implications of the group’s actions, largely dismissing the PMRC in the process. This thesis argues that by expanding the historical analysis of the group to include the social and political climate of previous generations and of the 1980s, the self-stated goals of the PMRC, and a musicological discussion of heavy metal and why the group specifically targeted this genre, we can see that the PMRC was in fact an incredibly influential sociopolitical activist group that is representative of the political shift in the United States in the 1980s.