From Yahoo News:
LONDON (AFP) – Teenagers who lock themselves in their bedrooms to blast out heavy metal music may simply be trying to cope with the pressures of being gifted, according to British research reported Wednesday. The study said that teenagers often work off the stresses and strains of being a bright outsider by listening to bands such as System Of A Down, Slipknot and Tool.
Researchers questioned more than 1,000 members of the National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth, whose members rank among the brightest five percent of youngsters in Britain.
“There is a perception of gifted and talented students as being into classical music and spending a lot of time reading.
“I think that is an inaccurate stereotype,” Stuart Cadwallader, a University of Warwick psychologist who is presenting the findings to the British Psychological Society Wednesday, told the Daily Telegraph.
“We are looking at a group with lower than average self-esteem that does not feel quite as well adjusted.
“They feel more stressed out and turn to heavy metal as a way of relieving that stress.”
Cadwallader added that heavy metal fans often appreciate the “complex and sometimes political themes” of the music.
“It has a tendency to worry adults a bit but I think it’s just a cathartic thing,” he said.
“It does not indicate problems.”
Many of heavy metal’s biggest stars are closet geeks — Brian May, guitarist with Queen, is currently finishing a doctorate in astrophysics, while Iron Maiden star Bruce Dickinson is a history graduate, international fencer and qualified commercial pilot.
Aha! We’ve all been waiting for this to be stated by someone outside of the fold: brilliant people are drawn to the music of the gods; the stuff of political foment and antiestablishment values. Don’t be fooled into reading this backwards, though- it’s not to be said that ALL metalheads are the stuff of intellectual legend, simply that those with impressive cerebral capacity tend to be drawn to heavy riffs and angry vocals. There still be morons among us, just as in any other musical clique. If this inclination could be turned into a more viable theory, though, we may even be able to infer that the metal community has a higher percentage of intellectuals than would occur by chance…but we’re not quite there yet.
All initial cheering for our kind aside, there are problems with this article that deserve exposure. First:
“There is a perception of gifted and talented students as being into classical music and spending a lot of time reading. I think that is an inaccurate stereotype.”
No kidding? So what you’re saying is that metal fans and people who read…aren’t mutually exclusive? It doesn’t take a Blind Guardian groupie to see that a preposterous stereotype like this holds no water; how many people can you pick out at a Slayer concert who don’t at least own some Stephen King or H.P. Lovecraft? Cadwallader seems to be hoping he’s revealing a new and surprising fact, but it’s hardly a phenomenon he’s unveiling here- if anyone with political clout besides Dee Snider had bothered to give credence to the metal lifestyle before this, they would’ve seen that, contrary to what Cadwallader believes the general public thinks, we’re not all imbeciles.
I also am a bit put off by the supposition that naming two members of the global heavy metal community who’ve graduated college supports the idea that “many of heavy metal’s biggest stars are closet geeks.†Two instances do not a pattern make, but more importantly- who said anything about closets? As they’re often already on the fringes of society and have nothing to lose, I put forth the idea that the metalheads are, in fact, quite open about their geekiness and revel in it.
Cadwallader, I applaud your efforts to lift teenaged SOAD fans higher in the eyes of their ancestors, but to put it bluntly: you’re not telling us anything we didn’t already know.
