Why heavy metal is awesome

I put it into writing riffs and letting it all out on stage, and it keeps me level and completely sane. In his ongoing study of violent and aggressive music, which includes a June paper in the journal Music Perception about the intelligibility of death metal lyrics forget about it, non-fans , Thompson has found that the limited appeal of the form may be one its key features for fans—one at least as old as rock itself. David Noonan is a freelance writer specializing in science and medicine.

Credit: Nick Higgins. Already a subscriber? Sign in. Thanks for reading Scientific American. Create your free account or Sign in to continue. See Subscription Options. Go Paperless with Digital.

Get smart. Sign up for our email newsletter. Sign Up. Support science journalism. Educators can promote scientific thinking by posing claims such as listening to certain genres of music is associated with violent thinking.

One professor discovered that heavy metal inspires joy rather than anger in its fans , while another simply tried to determine why people like death metal at all. Anyway: the next time someone tells you heavy metal is bad for you, show them this study. A new study has found that heavy metal has a ton of health benefits for its fans. Or spend a summer going to heavy metal festivals in Europe. I met a woman from Panama a while ago, who had flown to Europe to spend the summer travelling around festivals.

Subscribe to the occasional heavy metal updates and get a song today! New music posted every week! Please contact the developer of this form processor to improve this message.

Even though the server responded OK, it is possible the submission was not processed. Well said, Sam, well said!! Damn straight! Sam totally agree, I tried in my younger years to live rock and roll life had a band and never went anywhere but loved trying.

Grew up in and lived the lifestyle and era of metal. Have nothing but respect for the writers and musicians in that genre. People say as far as music, I live in the past. There are a few that have stayed in the game: Maiden, Metallica, Megadeth, etc. I enjoyed the tracks I heard from you.

You give me hope that I can add current music to my playlist again.