Interestingly heart rate and respiration decreased over time for all conditions. Listening to the other music or sitting in silence, meanwhile, showed a decrease in anxiety. In one study, non-fans who listened to classical music, heavy metal, self-selected music, or sat in silence following a stressor, experienced greater anxiety after listening to heavy metal. For people who are not fans of heavy metal, listening to the music seems to have a negative impact on well-being. Other researchers have studied more specifically why people listen to heavy metal, and whether it influences subsequent behaviour.
Heavy metal has positive effects on fans of all ages. This research showed that listening to music you dislike, compared to music that you like, can impair spatial rotation (the ability to mentally rotate objects in your mind), and both liked and disliked music are equally damaging to short-term memory performance. More specifically, I have used thrash metal (a fast and aggressive sub-genre of heavy metal) to compare music our participants liked and disliked (with metal being the music the did not enjoy). I have used it as one of the conditions in my own studies exploring the impact of sound on performance. Over the years, there has been much research into the effects of heavy metal.
I also grew my hair (yes, I had a mullet … twice), wore a denim jacket with patches (thanks mum), and attended numerous concerts by established artists like Metallica and The Wildhearts, as well as local Bristol bands like Frozen Food. After that, I voraciously read music magazines Kerrang!, Metal Hammer, Metal Forces, and RAW, and checked out as many back catalogues of artists as I could.
I first began to listen to heavy metal when I was 14 or 15 years old, when my uncle recorded a ZZ Top album for me and I heard singles by AC/DC and Bon Jovi. For me, as a quiet, introverted teenager, my love of heavy metal was probably a way to feel a little bit different to most people in my school who liked popular music, and gain some internal confidence. It may be to feel a sense of belonging, because they enjoy the sound, identify with the lyrical themes, or want to look and act a certain way. There are many reasons why people align themselves with genres of music. Why, then, if it’s so “bad”, do so many people enjoy it? And does this music genre really have a negative effect on them? Among the genre’s most contentious moments, there have been instances of blasphemous merchandise, accusations of promoting suicide, and blame for mass school shootings. Due to its extreme sound and aggressive lyrics, heavy metal music is often associated with controversy.
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