Evolution of Metal Groups: between Creativity and Commerce

Abstract

In the consumer society, music turns into an entire industry that brings a lot of money. Having originated as an underground and being a cultural phenomenon of the last quarter of the XX century, heavy metal music finaly joined the music industry and was fully commercialized. However, metal groups are the most creative groups that compose and perform their own works themselves. The emerging contradictions between creativity and commercial success affect the fate of these groups, their creative development. At the same time, they can both maintain popularity, that is, the commitment of their fans, and lose it. In this study, based on the analysis of the commercial success of albums of some representatives of the direction of heavy metal music, I identified the main trends in the development of the creative path of these collectives, and I proposed the main archetypes of metal groups. I was taken as empirical data the most authoritative charts of the Billboard Top 200 (USA) and UK Albums Chart (UK) sales of music albums.