Musik och Livsstil
En studie om ungdomar och hårdrock
In the following study I probe the social world of hard-rock music. By conducting interviews with four young male enthusiasts of this music I try to develop a general picture of this social world, as well as of the basic elements on which this particular subculture is constructed. The identity of a hard-rocker is based upon a number of factors beyond just a preference for that music. Throughout the interviews I encountered many implicit norms that one must followed in order to be able to see oneself as a true hard-rocker. I also found that from the respondents? perspective, the mainstream culture has, throughout the history of metal music, used various ways to counter the spreading of this genre. Such measures include both the launching of moral panics as well as attempts to incorporate elements of heavy metal into the so-called mainstream genres. Finally, I also noted an interesting relationship between the identitiy of being a hard-rocker and related cultural practices. There is a circuit between these practices and the identitiy, in which the practices fuel and deepen the identity, and the idenity in turn promotes the particular practices.