New research reveals that guitar skills in extreme metal music are more linked to male competition and status than to attracting mates. The study, focusing on heterosexual male guitarists, suggests that technical proficiency in guitar playing serves more as a display of dominance among peers.
I mean … yea … we knew this right? Just like body builders making it clear that they do it for themselves and not for sex.
It’s one of the wonderful things about metal … it takes all of the aggression and domineering instincts (that apparently tend to reside mostly in males) and directs them to something creative not destructive, something that can be shared not taken away, something that is (mostly) harmless not all conquering.
Just had a thought … egotistical billionaries … do any of them have any musical background? Like, do they play instruments at all?
I’d question the dominance thing as a whole. If you have two male pro metal shredders in a room they will not assert their dominance over the guy who just learned his first chord. Also they will not try to mate anyone… they will just shred until they get tired or kicked out.
Assuming that “egotistical” was not included as a way to no-true-scotsman out of answers, there are billionaires who are musicians, so there is nothing about playing music that makes one immune to pursuing obscene and harmful levels of wealth:
Diddy, Taylor Swift, Paul McCartney, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Rihanna, and JayZ are all billionaires.
Excellent point
They often finance political campaigns to play people against each other. Does that count?
LOL
I suppose; at this point there ain’t any tears left.
Paul Allen (of Microsoft, not American Psycho) was a pretty good guitarist. Picked one up at sixteen after listening to Hendrix, so played for most of his life.
Yea interesting … I wonder if Allen counts as part of the sorta slightly psychopathic billionaire class? Obviously a billionaire, but not quite a Musk or Bezos maybe? Dunno. But interesting … didn’t know he played guitar well.
Nah, nowhere near as bad as the psycho billionaires. Doesn’t seem to actually have much controversy at all, other than spending a fortune on yachts and using them for celebrity parties.
Outside of that, he seemed to be pretty reclusive and contributed a lot of funding to the arts, conservation, and scientific research.
I think him being a musician did actually impact things positively. Maybe the knowledge that art can bring people together helped, I don’t know. Then again, I don’t know what he was like in person, but he seems relatively “normal” for a billionaire.
Not the level of Chuck Feeney, but still okay.