The Goat-God Motif in Heavy Metal Music

Abstract

Since its emergence as a recognizable artistic endeavor, heavy metal has brought and enabled an authentic aesthetics in the wider culture: not only has it shaped its own unmistakable sonic “landscape”, but it has also shaped forms of visual presentation. Taken together, heavy metal has an adequate language for the communication of the ideas and motifs that are in its foundations. As art is one of the ways in which human beings gain an understanding of the self and the world (the other ways are philosophy, science, mythology, etc.) it is no surprise the art engages with various ways of perceiving. It is not only that these different ways correspond with each other, but are often the subject of one another as well. Heavy metal music is no exception as it also relies and draws its content from the phenomena of the world at large, and from introspection as well: the realms of the psyche. The mythical motif of the goat-like god Pan is a motif relating to both the outside world and the psyche: it expresses many things: divinity, humanity, nature, animalism, horror, psychosis, sexuality, countermovement and contrast as well as the cultivation of the individual and the community in the arts of dance and music. Claiming that Pan as motif has attained a significant place in the art of heavy metal as a symbol is an understatement, given that the discursive approximation and the exegesis of the Pan Mythos can indeed clarify the overall aesthetic and form of heavy metal and some of its numerous subgenres specifically. The aim of this article is to provide a comparative analysis of the descriptions of the goat-god Pan originating in ancient culture, with its form and meaning in the domain of heavy metal; most notably in the artistic endeavour Arckanum.