Eric Smialek

Eric Smialek
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Eric verified their affiliation via an institutional email.
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Eric verified their affiliation via an institutional email.
University of Huddersfield · Department of Music and Music Technology

Doctor of Philosophy

About

18
Publications
2,013
Reads
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63
Citations
Introduction
I conduct interdisciplinary research on expression and meaning in popular music, specializing in extreme metal and Taylor Swift. My MSCA research focuses on extreme metal vocals and I have additional projects on Cannibal Corpse. I co-founded the European Taylor Swift Research Network and co-organized the 2024 Taylor Swift unconference in Amsterdam. I serve on the editorial advisory board for the journal Metal Music Studies and as Assistant Editor for IASPM Journal.
Additional affiliations
September 2013 - June 2018
McGill University
Position
  • Course Lecturer
Description
  • Taught "Popular Music after 1945" (elective for students with no musical training) Taught "Critical Thinking about Music" (music history class for music majors)

Publications

Publications (18)
Article
Full-text available
In studies of extreme metal, vocalist gestures represent a way to re-examine musical meaning within the style, methodologically bridging music analysis and ethnography. Our article studies vocalist movements on stage as a multipurpose interaction with music, closely examining audiovisual texts from live DVDs, YouTube still shots, and open-ended Goo...
Poster
Full-text available
Czedik-Eysenberg, I., Smialek, E., Herbst, J., Reuter, C. (2024). A web interface for acoustic-semantic analysis of extreme metal vocal styles. Posterbeitrag, 40. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Musikpsychologie (DGM), 6.-8.9.2024, Hochschule für Musik und Theater München.
Chapter
Regarding social class and genre, one might frame metal music as occupying a middle ground between punk at one extreme and progressive rock at the other. Histories of these genres in 1960s and 1970s England reveal broad, material differences between the livelihoods of their musicians and audiences in terms of vocation, education, and economic secur...
Chapter
The relationship between metal and disability is distinctive. Persisting across metal’s sub-genres is a preoccupation with exploring and questioning the boundary that divides the body that has agency from the body that has none. This boundary is one that is familiar to those for whom the agency of the body is an everyday matter of survival. Metal’s...
Article
Cet article analyse cinq taxonomies de genre musical du métal de 2001 à 2010. J’y examine la manière dont leurs logiques et designs reflètent des croyances implicites sur les caractéristiques des genres musicaux et leurs relations. Des monographies universitaires jusqu’aux cartographies numériques, ces taxonomies s’appuient sur une conception linéa...
Chapter
Since its beginnings more than fifty years ago, metal music has grown in popularity worldwide, not only as a musical culture but increasingly as a recognised field of study. This Cambridge Companion reflects the maturing field of 'metal music studies' by introducing the music and its cultures, as well as recent research perspectives from discipline...
Article
Full-text available
In 2018, Taylor Swift asserted her political advocacy to a public extent she had not previously done. Controversially, Swift’s music video ‘You Need to Calm Down’ (2019) showcased LGBTQ celebrities and aligned her with Katy Perry, whose similar identification as an LGBTQ ally has met stark criticism. As with Perry, I argue, criticism towards Swift’...
Article
Dangerous. By Susan Fast . 33 1/3 Series. New York: Bloomsbury, 2014. - Volume 11 Issue 2 - Eric Smialek
Chapter
Full-text available
During the 1980s Metallica developed a loyal fan base who championed them as distinct from the most popular heavy metal bands of the period. As Metallica began in the 1990s to experiment with songs that were increasingly introspective, drawing from blues and country music, many fans accused the band of "selling out." After the band’s lawsuit agains...
Article
Full-text available
Extreme metal genres such as death metal and black metal force music analysts to seek alternative methods to Western notation-based analysis, especially when one asks what means of expression their vocalists may draw from in order to seem convincing and powerful to fans. Using spectrograms generated by AudioSculpt, a powerful sound analysis, proces...
Article
The unusual complexity of two recent recordings by the extreme metal band Meshuggah has resulted in a strongly divided reception amongst fans, providing the opportunity to reconsider some common conceptions of metal aesthetics and to contribute to subtler ways of understanding taste and social demographics. Spanning twenty-one and forty-seven minut...

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