On Heavy Metal: Existential Rage and the Neurotic Artist

Abstract

Many artists are seen as neurotic and some believe this occurs because of their underpinning struggle to ameliorate the existential angst that often arises from living out an embodied human life. An art piece can be a means to channel the artist’s neuroticism and potentially alleviate exasperation due to conflicted thoughts about existence. At its extreme, what the author labels as existential rage occurs as a railing against the meaninglessness and disparity of life’s circumstances. Art, especially the heavy metal musical genre, is a dynamic medium that encapsulates and communicates existential rage, a version of existential injury categorized by extreme embitterment toward one’s being in the world. In this way, thoughts can be experienced as coming from outside of the artist as opposed to within the metaphorical inner cracks of their psyche. Heavy metal as a sonic medium of expression is intensely engrossed in existential concerns about existence. Laypersons and mental health practitioners alike stand to benefit from an expanded understanding of heavy metal in discourse on universal concerns within existential philosophy and psychology.