Musical representation in times of violence: The origins of peruvian metal music during the general crisis of the eighties

This article addresses the motivations that led young Peruvians to express themselves through metal in the 1980s, moving away from other musical genres that had already been developed, such as hardcore, punk and underground rock. In this sense, we propose that their motivations, far from being a mere copy of foreign bands, should rather be framed in the context of the political, social and economic crisis that took place in that decade, a situation that was exacerbated by the internal armed conflict between State agents and terrorist groups. To ground our position, we will resort to the Nietzschean genealogical methodology and phenomenological concepts from Husserl and Scheler, understanding metal as an ‘emotional response reaction’ to the values preferred by society, in relation to the experience of the crisis and through different layers of consciousness (affective, volitional, cognitive) and modes of consciousness (perceptive-natural and representational-aesthetic). Our approach is complemented by testimonies of musicians who were part of the origin of the metal scene in Peru.