John Lee Research Paper

My friend John Le, who I have known since high school, always enjoyed heavy metal music even though everyone else in our friend group enjoyed more traditional teenage music genres, such as hip-hop, R&B, and pop. His music choices alienated him somewhat from the rest of us and lead to many arguments between him and myself on the merits of the heavy metal genre, which works out perfectly because I chose to interview him due to this genuine interest in the experiences that shaped his adoration of heavy metal music. In this essay, my interview with John Le reveals that his fascination with heavy metal music stems from a desire for a genre to express emotional mood shifts and rebellion from the traditional rigid constraints (as well as expectations)
These experiences can feature an amalgamation of different influences, however, in the case of my friend, music was the single most defining experience of his life. John says “Heavy metal music single handedly changed my life. It’s probably the only way I could have survived middle school and high school and made it to medical school where I am today.” Heavy metal music to him, provided an escape from the rigors of the Asian American immigrant lifestyle. Personally speaking, Asian Americans have very large expectations placed on their shoulders to not just do well in school, but excel, and thus excel in life as well (by going into the stereotypical Asian American dream jobs of doctor, engineer, etc. ). These expectations are sometimes very overwhelming and the impounding pressure put up by Asian American parents can be hard to deal with at an emotional level. John relates, “My dad used to yell at me a lot I remember (laughs). You know sometimes when test just finished I would legitimately be sweating and the only thing that could calm me down would be heavy metal music.” As an outsider, seeing someone mention heavy metal music and comfort in the same vein is utterly mind boggling, the genre itself lends no comfort to the ears to a casual
Heavy metal subverts many traditional musical aspects and involves nearly incomprehensible very fast beats combined with a type of very deep bass speed talking into the microphone. Its meaning is shrouded to those who aren’t avid listeners and are closed minded because of its genre. LeRoi Jones makes a key point about the “attitude” of genres, which readily applies itself to heavy metal music as well. Jones defines attitude as the “result of thought perfected at its most empirical… certain ways about thinking about the world” (152-153). Thus, as Jones puts it, we may understand the music but we will never understand the “attitude” of heavy metal with just cursory research. According to John, he says “Heavy metal music represents a lot of things. It’s for people like me who need an outlet, but it can be something else for someone else. It’s hard to define what heavy metal music represents it’s all encompassing really and it’s individually interpretable.” Therefore, heavy music for John personally, was a safe-haven for his own mind from the rigors of everyday life, but for anyone else, their attitude of heavy metal can be different. Heavy metal provided John with opportunities for emotional connection that other genres did not appeal to and thus it resulted in his supreme appreciation for the genre of heavy metal. Without a doubt, it is very clear that heavy metal, at the very least, has