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.

Abstract: Issue theme: Actes du colloque: Rock et violences en Europe: Metal et violence.
- Résumé:
Growling can be regarded as a key aesthetic practice of death metal. This practice, throughout the history of the genre, has been heavily gendered; while practiced both by men and women since the early 1990s it has nevertheless been associated with masculinity, due to its perceived aggressive sound, as well as corresponding notions of perceived low pitch and noise. In 2001 Angela Gossow became the singer of the band Arch Enemy and has since established herself as one of the most outstanding female growlers within the global metal scene. An analytical look at Gossow’s individual vocal style will be applied to argue that growling could potentially contribute to a more complex understanding of how voice, gender and aggression are related. This article examines the musical phenomenon of death metal growling, as well as the marginalization of women in what has been conceived as a primarily masculine style.