Metal music studies at the intersection of theory and practice (original) (raw)

Welcome to this special issue arising from the conference Crosstown Traffic: Popular Music Theory and Practice held at the University of Huddersfield (United Kingdom) in September 2018. As a joint conference arranged by four popular music studies research organizations, 1 including the International Society for Metal Music Studies (ISMMS), it aimed to integrate different disciplines and professions, promoting interdisciplinarity and collaborative work. A total of 272 speakers from 26 countries presented 131 papers over five days, thirteen of which were directly related to metal. The central requirement for acceptance was that a presentation had to engage with topics relevant to more than one organization, namely popular music studies, metal music studies, electronic dance music and record production. Although this requirement was a political decision of the conference committee, it encourages reflection on the development of metal music studies in general. There is a broad consensus that while research on metal music