Author is missing one key point. Metal (as well as other underground music-centered subcultures) is counter-culture first, not a specific ideology. What it goes against depends on surrounding mainstream. Another good example is hippies in West and USSR at the time. While West hippies were left-leaning, USSR hippies were anti-USSR. Many of them, especially in non-Russian parts of USSR, had quite a bit of nationalistic…
The authors raise that very point multiple times. > The Beatniks gave way to the Hippies who, to their credit, offered an affirmative vision for the world. Many were in it purely for the rebellion of drugs, sex and faux-Eastern spirituality, which is a big reason why the hippie aesthetic was eventually co-opted and commodified just like the Beat aesthetic (so much so that it was subverted by Western governments into…
But that bit show author’s bias very well. As ex-USSR metal head, visiting West festivals was complete culture shock how different attitude is. Yet the spirit is very similar.