When Taylor Swift wrapped up the US leg of her tour in Los Angeles last year, she received a mammoth eight-minute standing ovation. Metalheads, however, have a rather different way of showing their appreciation. Conjuring a stank face with riff is something Spiritbox’s Mike Stringer says “can be one of the highest forms of praise.
” You know the expression: all contorted like you’ve just popped the world’s most sour piece of candy in your mouth. It’s a phenomenon seemingly exclusive to the metal genre and its nastiest riffs. But why do we react in such a way, and what are the secrets to creating that reaction? According to British music academic Milton Mermikides, there’s scientific reasoning behind a response which, in other styles of music, may convey the complete opposite meaning.
“Stank face is perhaps just a modern term for a long-documented musical experience which falls somewhere between deep visceral pleasure and a sort of physical engagement, irritation or even repulsion – an ecstatic ‘pleasurable pain,’” he says. “It relies on music’s unique ability to trigger a host of physical and emotional responses in the listener. These include our response to dissonance, such as the roughness of a sound – a scrunchy chord, an angular melody or a syncopated rhythm.
“When coupled with the dopamine release from satisfying predictions and bodily engagement, these can produce ‘cross-modal’ responses. It’s as if the music is so rich, flavoursome .
