Heaviness: A Key Concept of Metal Music Through the Lens of Deleuzian Philosophy

Abstract

This work focuses on the concept of heaviness and its use in the context of metal music. It first examines the concept in the works of other academics interested in metal music and then seeks to find a common point of convergence between the various definitions of heaviness through Deleuzian and Deleuze-Guattarian philosophy. In doing so, this thesis brings together both a cultural approach to the study of music and an ecological approach, creating a cognitive-semiotic conception of heaviness as a perplexity of the physical-spatial properties of sound and the listener’s musical experience.