ABOUT THIS BOOK

The first collection of essays on Argentine metal music.

This is an interdisciplinary study of Argentina’s heavy metal subculture between 1983 and 2002, a period in which metal music withstood the onslaught of military dictatorship and survived the neoliberal policies of bourgeois democracy.

Edited by leading researchers in the field, this collection addresses the music’s rituals, circulations, cultural products, lyrics, and intertexts, allowing readers to rethink the genre’s place within Argentinean politics and economics. Exclusively written by members of the Group for Interdisciplinary Research on Argentinian Heavy Metal (GIIHMA) in a communal approach to scholarship, the book echoes the working-class voices that marked early post-dictatorship metal music in Argentina, exploring heavy metal music as a catalyst for social change and a site for engaging political reflection. This is a fascinating work of scholarship and a groundbreaking contribution to the emerging field of global metal studies.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Emiliano Scaricaciottoli is professor at the University of Buenos Aires. He is the coordinator for the Group for Interdisciplinary Research on Argentinian Heavy Metal (GIIHMA) and has edited two books of essays and another seven productions on rock and metal in Argentina. Nelson Varas-Díaz is professor of social-community psychology at Florida International University. He is coeditor of the journal Metal Music Studies and the director of the documentary film Songs of Injustice: Heavy Metal Music in Latin America. Daniel Nevárez Araújo holds a doctorate in comparative literature from the University of Massachusetts Amherst as well as master’s and bachelor’s degrees from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras.

REVIEWS

This is an indispensable collection for anyone who cares about metal in the global south, or about music and politics in general. A fascinating, groundbreaking contribution to the emerging field of global metal studies.

This is an indispensable collection for anyone who cares about metal in the global south, or about music and politics in general. A fascinating, groundbreaking contribution to the emerging field of global metal studies.'

The volume brings together seven works by eight authors who deal in depth with various aspects of heavy metal music and culture in the South American country. [...] As Scaricaciottoli, Varas-Diaz and Nevárez Araujo point out in the introduction, the importance of this work is based on the understanding that metal music in Argentina has built its own culture, a culture from the south that should be understood not as an appendix or derivation of their counterparts in the global north, and that their political dimension is inextricably linked to processes of emancipation and social change.'

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface to the Second Edition vii

Group for Interdisciplinary Research on Argentinian Heavy Metal (GIIHMA)

Foreword ix

Emiliano Scaricaciottoli

Translator’s Note xiii

Juan Manuel López Baio

Introduction: A Window into Heavy Metal Scholarship in the Global South xv

Nelson Varas-Díaz, Daniel Nevárez Araújo, and Emiliano Scaricaciottoli

1. Heavy Metal as a Subculture in Argentina: Identity and Resistance 2

Gustavo Torreiro

2. Genre Violence: Argentinean Heavy Metal in the Music Market 16

Luciano Scarrone

3. Heavenly Hosts and Other Demons: Reflections Concerning a

Difficult and Transversal Relationship in the History of Our Heavy Music 28

Gito Minore

4. Walkabout, Just Walking about for the Sake of Walking: The Journey

as an Ethos in the Poetics of Ricardo Iorio 46

Manuel Bernal and Diego Caballero

5. Passion and Ethics: A Space for Voice and Tradition in Iorio’s Lyrics 58

Juan Ignacio Pisano

6. The Reason Behind My Writing: Another Day of Being 72

Ezequiel Alasia

7. Piedra Libre: Referential Tensions in Argentinean Heavy Metal

Lyrics Since the Political Crisis of 2001/2002 84

Emiliano Scaricaciottoli

Notes on Contributors 100