Two experienced popular music scholars, Bruce Johnson and Martin Cloonan, have boldly taken up the task of examining the multifaceted connections between popular music and violence. The result is a very thorough, wide-ranging and convincing book. Moreover, the topic is far from insignificant. As Johnson and Cloonan note, the connections between music and violence have important implications in areas such as regulation, censorship, social policy and Popular Music Studies (PMS), to name but a few.
Besides producing a very interesting description of the various aspects of the phenomenon, the authors begin with a stimulating critical overview of the state of affairs within PMS. Indeed, the thread of criticism of the field runs through the entire book. According to Johnson and Cloonan, during the ‘immature’ phase of PMS scholars were committed to authenticity and to celebrating popular music under all circumstances. The writers see the future differently as, in PMS's mature state, ideally, a balance will be maintained which recognises both the pleasures of popular music and the realities of musical violence in everyday life.
Indeed, one of the main findings of the authors is that the negative side of music is most often to be found in the familiar texture of life (p. 161); music-related violence cannot be neatly placed in certain genres of music, or subcultures, or certain lyrics. Another important result of the authors’ study is the conclusion that it is not easy to find clear cause and effect relations between music and violence. They prefer to talk about the different ways in which different types of music and violence intermingle. However, the critical, fundamental question throughout the book is: does violent music cause violent behaviour?
What I liked most were the sections in which case studies were analysed in a detailed and critically reflective way. These showcase the authors’ masterly skills of analysis and their breadth of knowledge. Refreshingly, the writers even admit to some disagreement between themselves about such basic concepts as ‘incitement to violence’ (p. 95). The polyphonic deconstruction of the concept followed by the presentation of the resulting ‘compromise’ serves the readers very well.
The book begins with three chapters by Bruce Johnson about music as sound, music and violence in history, and about the technologitisation of modern sound. The depths into which the author has delved in handling these topics is immediately apparent. While this is something of an advantage, at the same time these sections highlight the fact that sometimes it would have been worth filtering and systematising the list of cases. A temporal scale which ranges from the ancients to the mid-21st century means that a whole array of examples has been crammed into a small space.
In the next chapters the two authors demonstrate the connections between music and violence by starting from the more ‘innocent’ end. The latter part of the book is full of more extreme examples in which music and violence work in collaboration.
The authors start with cases in which music mainly ‘accompanies’ violence. Here, of course, it would have been possible to further compare the ‘fortuitousness’ nature of some of the events outlined here and the cases in which, for instance, being a musician actively contributes to the chances of being the perpetrator or victim of violence. In this section, the authors also discuss the relationship between violence and the censorship of music. Here the cases move away from the ‘fortuitous’ towards premeditated participation and the authors discuss genres which have been particularly associated with violence. They suggest that since at least punk, musical ‘violence has become Jacobean in its theatricality’, as well as noting that misogynist violence is a ‘genre staple in the gangsta Rap milieu’ (p. 76).
Audiences are also potentially endangered. Accidents and seizures can be common occurrences at gigs. Here the authors pay special attention to the mosh-pit, noting that while ‘it is normally a place of harmonized interdependencies’, there is also a violent aspect to this ‘good clean fun’. In this connection the researchers develop some extremely interesting discussions about causality (p. 81).
One of the most educational examples in the book is the description of the chain of events at the Woodstock 99 festival, where the levels of violence gradually increased throughout the event. There are descriptions of the events before the infamous appearance by Limp Bizkit, during which the band asked the audience to release their negative energy. The authors also deserve credit for the ways in which they discuss the double-dealing of the music industry and the role of the media. When the label boss of the heavy metal band One Minute Silence heard that the fans had destroyed the concert set at The Garage, his only worry was: ‘Was there enough media there?’
In the fifth chapter Johnson and Cloonan move onto music and incitement to violence, ranging from children's songs to Northern Ireland to Rwanda. The inclusion of children's songs is particularly welcome and illustrative of musical violence in everyday life. All over the world children sing very violent songs. For example, Australian kids sing about packing their teacher ‘in a port [manteau] and listen to her scream’ (p. 98). Similarly, I know that Finnish kids sing: ‘Santa Claus, whitebeard, old fellow, come here, we are not afraid; soon we will beat you up.’ This is most often private, transgressive, cathartic singing whereas state-based incitement is public. The writers repeat that even children can separate fantasy from reality (p. 132).
In numerous examples, Johnson and Cloonan bring up the fact that it is very naive to think that the evil lurks only in ‘the usual suspects’ such as rap or black metal. Their point is that, under the right circumstances, any piece of music is potentially violent. Thus a syrupy Christmas song, Whitney Houston or Dolly Parton can as well trigger pure violence if, for example, they are not played ‘nine to five’ but 24/7. Mozart is violence when used in ‘cleansing’ certain groups of people from shopping centres and bus stations.
The focus shifts from children's songs to genres such gangsta rap, and to neo-Nazis, reggae and homophobia, sometimes in ways which appear a little forced. In a book like this, genres such as 1990 Norwegian Black Metal and its attendant misanthropy are inevitably topics for discussion. In the future, research will undoubtedly find out whether the July 2011 mass murderer Breivik from Oslo listened in his teens to people such as Öystein Aarseth (aka Euronymous), leader of Mayhem, declaring ‘that he didn't want people to respect each other but to HATE and FEAR’ (p. 104). Johnson and Cloonan seem to accept ‘as a freestanding proposition that popular music shapes out imaginary’ (p. 103). However, as the writers remind us, Lavez wrote his Nine Satanic Statements after being moved by the music of Chopin. As a whole, the analytical parts of the book contain most intelligent and many-faceted thinking upon this difficult subject.
When moving to dealing with Music as Violence, the writers convincingly illustrate the two overlapping ways to potentially inflict forms of pain. The first is as a sonic force. Here sound may be deployed in ways which physically hurt or cause organic damage. The second, intertwined, way is psychological. Important examples here come from the recent conflicts in Northern Ireland and the former Yugoslavia. The writers show a line starting from the 1989 Noriega case (where US forces blasted music at the former Panamanian president) to music becoming a permanent part of US army psychological warfare, the most appalling cases (that are known of) being during the War on Terror and at the Guantánamo Bay detention centre (p. 152). Many of the examples from the Balkan and Africa cases are just as horrendous and include rapes and castrations being performed accompanied by new folk music. The ‘new’ Europe is not free from this, either. The book ends with a policy chapter listing different ways in which music and violence has been dealt with.
After finishing this excellent book I understood the connections between music and violence much better than I did before. I am sure that the book will be worn out when teachers use it in classes and that the multitude of examples it contains will inspire students to undertake their own analyses of other cases. It is also a book that I recommend all popular music scholars should read, as it offers a valuable critique of the scholarly field. However, it might be best not to suggest it as bedtime reading.
