Popular music not only encompasses genres that are at the center of attention (and media spotlight), but there are many subterranean currents and formations that remain (or persist) on the shady side of pop culture. Although heavy metal has long been not just a part of the undeground, this couldn’t be said for doom rock, which is still rarely discussed in both professional and scientific articles. The aim of the thesis is to shed more light on and clarify the “phenomenology” of doom, this loud, slow and morose musical aesthetic that emphasizes more primal sound stimuli than sophistication and carries a unique distinction, unlike any other metal form - its feature is in explicit slowness. I tackle the topic on three levels: in the first part I study the developmental periods of the phenomenon with historical analysis, in the second part I try to show the main genre conventions with the help of sonic, visual and verbal codes, and on the analytical level I textually examine seven (a)typical genre albums. I find that after almost 40 years of doom metal tradition, the first record (or first records) of the Black Sabbath is still a fundamental work.
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