This ar ticle uses Horkheimer and Adorno’s dialectic of enlightenment and Adorno’s negative dialectics to situate Indonesian Death Metal musicians’ abandonment of the scene (subculture) so as to explore religion. The research method used is literature search, participant-observation, and semi-structure d interviews with Indonesian Death Metal musicians conducted over the period 2018-2019 for this subproject. Adorno might have seen it as using religious faith to critique Western liberal-democracy and rationality but, if that is the case, it requires us to view Western decadence and rationality as opposite sides of the same coin, with both being integrated, not separate, aspects of the Western culture infusing the global metal scene. This is what the Islamic resistance project is all about for those who leave the scene and for the religious ones who remain. The latter seek meaning beyond or outside of conventional understandings of metal lyrics and discourses.
KeywordsAdornoDeath Metal musicdialectic of enlightenmentFrankfurt SchoolHi-jraIndonesian IslamIslam and Popular MusicNegative DialecticsReligious Turn
Adorno, T. W. (1973) [1966]. Negative Dialectics (E.B. Ashton Trans.). Continuum.
Ahmad, S. (2010). Rock & Roll Jihad: A Muslim Rock Star’s Revolution. Free Press.
Alam, A. K. A.-W. (n.d.). What Are the Core Mistakes of the Tablighi Jama’at? Salafi Publications.
Baulch, E. (2003). Gesturing Elsewhere? The Identity Politics of the Balinese Death/Thrash Metal Scene. Popular Music, 22, 195-215. https://doi.org/10.1017/S026114300300312X
Baulch, E. (2007). Making Scenes: Reggae, Punk, and Death Metal in 1990s Bali. Duke UP. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822390343
Berger, H. M. (1999). Death Metal Tonality and the Act of Listening. Popular Music, 18, 161-178. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261143000009028
Bernstein, I. M. (2004). Negative Dialectic as Fate: Adorno and Hegel. In T. Huhn (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Adorno (pp. 19-50). Cambridge UP. https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521772893.002
Clinton, E., & Wallach, J. (2016). Talking Metal: Social Phenomenology of Hanging Out. In N. Varas-Diaz, & N. Scott (Eds.), Heavy Metal and the Communal Experience (pp. 37-56). Lexington Books.
Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2017). Critical Race Theory: An Introduction (3rd ed.). New York UP. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1ggjjn3
Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (Alan Sheridan Trans.). Allen Lane.
Foucault, M. (1979). The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: The Will to Knowledge. Allen Lane.
Foucault, M. (1980). Michel Foucault—Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-77. Vintage.
Granholm, K. (2011). “Sons of Northern Darkness”: Heathen Influences in Black Metal and Neofolk Music. Numen, 58, 514-544. https://doi.org/10.1163/156852711X577069
Gur-Ze’ev, I. (2005). Adorno and Horkheimer: Diasporic Philosophy, Negative Theology, and Counter-Education. Educational Theory, 55, 343-365. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-5446.2005.00007.x
Held, D. (1980). Introduction to Critical Theory: Horkheimer to Habermas. Hutchinson. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520341272
Hjelm, T., Kahn-Harris, K., & LeVine, M. (2013). Introduction: Heavy Metal as Controversy and Counterculture. In T. Hjelm, K. Kahn-Harris, & M. LeVine (Eds.), Heavy Metal: Controversies and Countercultures (pp. 1-14). Equinox. https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.v6i1/2.5
Horkheimer, M., & Adorno, T. W. (2002) [1947]. Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments. Stanford UP.
James, K. (2009). From “the Undead Will Feast” to “the Time to Kill Is Now”: Frankfurt School and Freudian Perspectives on Death-Metal. Musicology Australia, 31, 17-39. https://doi.org/10.1080/08145857.2009.10416578
James, K., & Walsh, R. (2015). Bandung Rocks, Cibinong Shakes: Economics and Applied Ethics within the Indonesian Death-Metal Community. Musicology Australia, 37, 27-46. https://doi.org/10.1080/08145857.2015.1021438
James, K., & Walsh, R. (2019). Religion and Heavy Metal Music in Indonesia. Popular Music, 38, 276-297. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261143019000102
Jasper, T., & Oliver, D. (1986) [1983]. The International Encyclopedia of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal (Revised ed.). Sidgwick and Jackson.
Kahn-Harris, K. (2007). Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge. Berg.
Kelabora, L. (1976). Religious Instruction Policy in Indonesia. Asian Survey, 16, 230-248. https://doi.org/10.2307/2643542
Khan, S. (2016). The Battle for British Islam: Reclaiming Muslim Identity from Extremism. Saqi Books.
Lee, D. W. (2018). “Negeri Seribu Bangsa”: Musical Hybridization in Contemporary Indonesian Death Metal. Metal Music Studies, 4, 531-548. https://doi.org/10.1386/mms.4.3.531_1
LeVine, M. (2008). Heavy Metal Islam. Three Rivers Press.
Mao, T. T. (1971). On Contradiction. In T. T. Mao (Ed.), Selected Readings from the Works of Mao Tse Tung (pp. 85-133). Foreign Languages Press.
Marx, K. (1994a) [1932]. Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts (Selections). In L. H. Simon (Ed.), Karl Marx Selected Writings (pp. 54-97). Hackett.
Marx, K. (1994b) [1859]. Preface to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. In L. H. Simon (Ed.), Karl Marx Selected Writings (pp. 209-213). Hackett.
Mork, G. (2011). Why Didn’t the Churches Begin to Burn a Thousand Years Earlier? In T. Bossius, A. Hager, & K. Kahn-Harris (Eds.), Religion and Popular Music in Europe: New Expressions of Sacred and Secular Identity (pp. 124-144). I.B. Tauris. https://doi.org/10.5040/9780755698547.ch-007
Moynihan, M., & Soderlind, D. (2003). Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground (Revised and Expanded ed.). Feral House.
Olson, B. H. (2008). I Am the Black Wizards: Multiplicity, Mysticism and Identity in Black Metal Music and Culture. Unpublished Master’s Thesis, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH.
Phillipov, M. (2006). “None So Vile?” Towards an Ethics of Death Metal. Southern Review, 38, 74-85.
Phillipov, M. (2011). Extreme Music for Extreme People? Norwegian Black Metal and Transcendent Violence. Popular Music History, 6, 150-163. https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.v6i1.150
Phillipov, M. (2012). Death Metal and Music Criticism: Analysis at the Limits. Lexington.
Purcell, N. J. (2003). Death Metal Music: The Passion and Politics of a Sub-Culture. McFarland & Company.
Ramadan, T. (1999). To Be a European Muslim: A Study of Islamic Sources in the European Context. The Islamic Foundation.
Ramadan, T. (2004). Western Muslims and the Future of Islam. Oxford UP. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195183566.001.0001
Schiefelbein, P. (1992). Adorno’s Negative Dialectics. In D. Engelbrecht (Ed., Trans.), Adorno: An Introduction (pp. 61-71). Pennbridge.
Schweppenhauser, G. (2004). Adorno’s Negative Moral Philosophy. In T. Huhn (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Adorno (pp. 328-353). Cambridge UP. https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521772893.014
van Bruinessen, M. (2002). Genealogies of Islamic Radicalism in Post-Suharto Indonesia. South East Asia Research, 10, 117-154. https://doi.org/10.5367/000000002101297035
Wahib, A. B. (2017). Being Pious among Indonesian Salafists. Al-Jami’ah: Journal of Islamic Studies, 55, 1-26. https://doi.org/10.14421/ajis.2017.551.1-26
Wahid, D. (2014). Nurturing Salafi Manhaj; a Study of Salafi Pesantrens in Contemporary Indonesia. Wacana, 15, 367-376. https://doi.org/10.17510/wacana.v15i2.413
Weintraub, A. N. (2006). Dangdut Soul: Who Are “the People” in Indonesian Popular Music? Asian Journal of Communication, 16, 411-431. https://doi.org/10.1080/01292980601012444
Weintraub, A. N. (2008). “Dance Drills, Faith Spills”: Islam, Body Politics, and Popular Music in Post-Suharto Indonesia. Popular Music, 27, 367-392. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261143008102185
Willette, J. S. M. (2012). Theodor Adorno and “Negative Dialectics”. Art History Unstuffed. https://arthistoryunstuffed.com/Theodor-Adorno-and-negative-dialectics
Woodward, M. (1996). Talking across Paradigms: Indian, Islam and Orientalism. In M. R. Woodward (Ed.), Toward a New Paradigm: Recent Developments in Indonesian Islamic Thought (pp. 1-46). Arizona State University Program for Southeast Asian Studies.%