Metal Ballads as Low Pop? An Approach to Sentimentality and Gendered Performances in Popular Hard Rock and Metal Songs

Ballads are often among the bestselling songs of heavy metal and hard rock bands. Within these genres, ballads represent a way to address emotions such as love that not part primary self-understanding those genres. Still, “genre ideals style” seem be at odds with sentimental aesthetics ballad its emotional expression experience. In this article, we take close look sonic, textual, performative, visual, emotional-somatic articulation generation sentimentality in three selected ballads. Even if term “power ballad,” which is used reference ballads, refers simultaneity “heaviness” sound thematization lyrics, stereotypically more masculine-connotated genres nevertheless create friction skepticism their discursive evaluation, they generate aesthetic discrepancies between concrete genre conventions. Their quantitative popularity contrasts qualitative evaluation. Therefore, second step, analyze reception particular evaluations music reviews, order point out ways argumentation through frictions established. As result, show related how addressed extent proximity rules.