17 Replies to “I’m Majoring in Heavy Metal”

  1. So does knowing every Judas Priest song count towards a degree in theology as well?
    We live in a world full of absurdities.

  2. Ummmmmmm. One would think they could come up with something useful,like how to stop muzzies from imposing sharia law in the ghettos of London,etc.Or maybe dentistry? Or how to have a succesful car-b-que.The sun set long ago on the so called fish and chip “empire”.

  3. I’m not surprised by this kind of thing any more. Ironically, it’s just a reflection of a capitalist economy. There’s a demand for this kind of thing, so someone will provide it. Caveat Emptor. If the Emptor (buyer) refuses to Caveat (beware), then they suffer the consequences.
    In the meantime, let’s hope that the students do manage to get something out of it — enjoyment, love of learning, or something useful out of the electives.

  4. If I could find a University where I could major in Pub, or Watching Hockey, or even Library Snoozing I might consider going back to school.
    Wonder if I can get a government grant so I can “upgrade my skills and hiring potential”?

  5. Learning that third chord is, like, HARD man. REALLY hard. Hey, like, pass me that spliff, wouldya? (hufffffffff)

  6. How incredibly square… and stupid!
    The Establishment is giving a course on heavy metal… pfffttt!
    Is there a major in Power Napping? What about Freeze Tag?

  7. Heavy Metal program may not be the best but at least it keeps kids focused and there are a lot of people who go to Heavy metal concerts, buy cds, and play the stuff. There is actually a large market for these kids to go into. There are far more useless courses and programs to take that we could frag upon. My personal favorite that I saw in a University catalogue when I was in school was, the history of Nazis and Black Lesbian Discrimination.

  8. Look on the bright side. Every student enrolled in the Heavy Metal program is a student not enrolled in poli sci or grievance studies.

  9. This certainly frees up the law abiding citizens options, 30 years ago I knew a drug dealer, who created his own ID as a Doctor, wore a suit, drove a respectable car.
    Transported huge quantities of drugs all over the country.
    Cops called him sir.
    A major in heavy metal is only too precious for those of us addicted to the notion that society requires productive people to contribute, for our universities that is so yesterday.
    Socialism is great until you run out of other peoples money.

  10. PHD in heavey metal all on a student loan….soooooo, we git stiffed again!!!!!

  11. Hey, there are a lot of talented ‘3 power chord’ guitar players out there. A degree might just be the ticket you need. “Yo mate, sorry, yer pretty good but buddy here is good too and he has a degree”. Drangggggg.

  12. Post-Secondary institutions have fixed costs. Someone mentioned theology; a number of Bible colleges/theological institutes offer weak extension theology programs through local churches, etc, or change their programs to cater to popular demand. This is about on the level with programs for “worship leaders” or “pastors of worship and the arts” etc. All kinds of young men think they are spiritual giants because they can wear a guitar and grow a little goatee. The exaltation of the trivial and the mediocre is as fatal to civilization as the trivialization of lies and mendacity.

  13. Does my background as a “heavy metal” guitarist and bass player mean I get a degree from this place? Of course, I could write a PhD dissertation on the topic that the current definition of “Heavy metal” is meaningless as back in the days that we’d spend way too much time jamming in a friends back room we were thinking that we were playing hard rock or psychedelic rock. Some of the stuff that we played when we were first starting out would pass for grunge but we just thought we were bad musicians at the time.
    If one uses wikipedia, one finds that Led Zeppelin is a “heavy metal” band. We just used to think they were rockers back in the early 1970’s. Also, apparently most heavy metal guitarists come from a classical musical background according to the experts at wikipedia. In the 1970’s, I’d consider Black Sabbath to be trash metal as it took only seconds to work out the melody to their songs whereas Led Zeppelin took a lot of work to figure out. Yngwie Malmstein is classified as a metal guitarist by wikipedia whereas I’d put him in the hard rock category with a strong classical influence.
    Considering that most of us who grew up in the 1960’s and 1970’s would put the low talent bands such as Black Sabbath and Grand Funk Railroad into the metal category it makes post-hoc classification of music meaningless. We were too busy having fun to look at the minutae of classifying the music we played in the 1970’s.
    It makes me think that I’m getting old when there are university degrees offered in the music that we used to just fool around with. Never made it as a musician but sure had a lot of fun jamming back in the early 1970’s. But then, it makes for more interesting conversation with the barista with a heavy metal degree when I’m getting my coffee.

  14. Can’t say I’m surprised. Years ago when I was doing a music BA at UBC one of my profs was trying to convince me to go for an academic career as an ethnomusicologist studying metal and industrial music, because to him it was amazing that I knew about those genres and could write well. I think this program was around then too, seems to me he mentioned graduate programs in the UK.
    Thing is, I don’t know more than any other fan and musician, and it seemed to me to be a pointless and bizarre waste of a life to be writing papers explaining rock music to old stuffy guys who thought Wagner was a little too fresh for his own good still. And any of the papers I wrote for that prof were mostly just really basic info and pulled out of my butt the night before due date.
    I guess someone else decided to take the lazy way out and go for it, though.

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