Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: A “Nihilistic Dreamboat to Negation”?

I: The Limits of Music Criticism

1	The Rise of Political Criticism

2	The Politics of Popular Music Studies: The Case of Punk

3	The Search for the “New Punk”: Hip Hop and Electronic Dance Music

4	A “Promise Unfulfilled”: The Problem of Metal

II: The Pleasures of Death Metal

5	Death Metal and the Reorientation of Listening

6	The Pleasures of Horror

7	“Becoming Death”: Pleasure and Play in Death Metal

8	“Bodies Prepared for Slaughter”: Death Metal’s “Technical” Appreciation

Conclusion: Death Metal at the Limits

Select Discography

References

Index