Last week, June 8-12, Aalto University School of Business, in Helsinki (Finland) was hosting an international metal music research conference, titled Modern Heavy Metal: Markets, Practices and Cultures, and it was built around over 50 research presentations that all examine heavy metal and heavy rock music. The presenters covered multitude of science fields and nearly 30 countries.

The presentations provided a diverse view on research in the field. These included metal music industry and related business, and addressed political and social aspects of metal music, cultural characteristics and issued related to gender, ethnicity and religion. Another focus was on fan communities, visual culture, and the history of metal music. The programme included the philosophy of music, structural analysis and research on lyrics and the sound world.

Alex Skolnick – Testament

The presentations covered multitude of science fields and nearly 30 countries.

The event showcases appearances by many veterans of metal music, such as many-time Grammy nominee Scott Ian (USA), a founding member of the platinum record-winning band ANTHRAX, and guitarist Alex Skolnick (USA) from the band TESTAMENT. Music journalist and writer Martin Popoff (CAN) and heavy metal research legend Deena Weinstein (USA) also spoke at the conference. A workshop arranged in cooperation with Music Finland, brought together Finnish and German metal players and documentary films will be shown at the conference.

Martin Popoff

A number of metal music concerts were held in Helsinki in the evenings during the event week. Tuesday 9 June Four up-and-coming Finnish groups took over the Bar Bäkkäri stage: Blind Channel, Bloodred Hourglass, Ranger and Shiraz Lane. Wednesday 10 June Battle Beast and Lost Society, both of which have already attracted international attention, performed at Tavastia’s Pre-Tuska Party.

Academy Research Fellow Toni-Matti Karjalainen from the School of Business was the creator and main organiser of the event. Aalto University’s event partners included the University of Turku, University of Helsinki, Sibelius Academy, the Finnish Jazz & Pop Archive, and many music industry actors.

This event was the first official conference of the International Society for Metal Music Studies. In conjunction with the conference, the research papers will be compiled into a proceedings book that will be published in print and electronic format.

Whole Program here:
http://www.modernheavymetal.net/p/important-dates.html

The MHM organizers express their “thank-you”:

The MHM Conference is done! And what a great event we had. Altogether around 150 visitors attended the keynote lectures, paper sessions, industry workshop, movies, and the evening programme bit during the five days. Huge thanks to every participant and all the people contributing to the arrangements of the MHMC 2015.

The MHM website and social media channels will not be silenced, not for a long time. There will be reports, photos and other news posted here [at the MHM website]. Including information about the online version of the MHM proceedings. Information about future conferences and other related agents and publications will also be posted. In particular, as soon as the place and time for the next big ISMMS-related conference in 2017 is decided and published, you’ll find the info also here.

So, stay tuned and metal on!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/modernheavymetal – http://www.modernheavymetal.net