In the early 1980s, only fifteen of the 1,500 heavy metal bands listed in the International Encyclopedia of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal came from countries outside Europe, North America, and Australia. In 2007, the online database Encyclopaedia Metallum logged more than 47,000 metal bands from 129 countries. From Indonesia to Malta, Nepal to Brazil, Israel to Norway, and Japan to Easter Island, metal has taken root and flourished as the music of choice for a passionate minority. It has become a potent source of meaning and identity for young people, despite societal disapproval, censorship, and even government harassment. In Metal Rules the Globe, ethnographers, cultural insiders, and some of the foremost authorities in the burgeoning field of metal studies analyze the dramatic worldwide expansion of heavy metal music and culture. They illuminate connections between metal and modernity, identity, idealized masculinity, the nation, and the music industry. And they take readers inside metal scenes around the world, describing how the sounds of heavy metal and the meanings that metalheads attribute to them vary from culture to culture.

Contributors. Idelber Avelar, Albert Bell, Dan Bendrups, Harris M. Berger, Paul D. Greene, Ross Hagen, Sharon Hochhauser, Shuhei Hosokawa, Keith Kahn-Harris, Kei Kawano, Rajko Muršič, Steve Waksman, Jeremy Wallach, Robert Walser, Deena Weinstein, Cynthia P. Wong