Introduction to Multilingual Metal

Weinstein (2000, pp. 5–7) describes the heavy metal genre as made up of three essential aspects: the sonic, the visual, and the verbal dimension. Relatively little attention has been paid exclusively to the verbal aspect, that is metal lyrics, with some notable exceptions (e.g. Sellheim, 2016; Spracklen, 2015). Many early studies of metal music were Anglo-centric, with a particular focus on the United Kingdom or the United States (e.g. Walser, 1993; Weinstein, 2000). There have been some recent studies on heavy metal practices and lyrics in individual countries and cultures, e.g. Islamic societies (Hecker, 2012; Levine, 2008), Puerto Rico (Varas-Díaz & Rivera-Segarra, 2014), Aboriginal Australia (Mansfield, 2014), Finland (e.g. Karjalainen & Sipilä, 2016), and Norway (von Helden, 2017). The edited volume about global heavy metal culture by Wallach, Berger, and Greene (2011) features chapters on the Easter Islands, China, Japan, Israel, Nepal, and Malta, among others.