Heavy metal justice?: Calibrating the economic and aesthetic accreditation of the heavy metal genre in the pages of Rolling Stone, 1980‐91: Part two 1986‐911

Abstract

Drawing on a comprehensive sample, composed of album reviews, lead or feature articles and interviews, drawn from the RS archive, my research, in Part Two of this article, shows how heavy metal in the period 1986‐91 acquires a notable level of critical or aesthetic legitimation, which it was largely denied in the preceding period, 1980‐85. However, this aesthetic as opposed to economic accreditation is conferred on particular bands and album releases rather than the genre as a whole, particularly those emerging from the thrash underground, such as Metallica and Megadeth, with the former receiving their first lead feature in Rolling Stone in January 1989, entitled ‘Heavy metal justice’. It is therefore somewhat ironic that this aesthetic approbation reaches a symbolic plateau with Robert Palmer’s **** review of Metallica’s ‘black album’, an album that in retrospect can be seen to announce a ‘crossover’ strategy that allowed the band to find a wider audience beyond the thrash underground.