I am always so peaceful when listening to heavy metal ... :D
I think the article should focus more on good music elements versus bad music elements. My brain gets annoyed at bad music. Good music can be useful though, in particular for relaxing. I normally dislike jazz-elements, but Sade for instance is acceptable (not pure jazz, but she uses jazzy elements).
I'm more a fan of atmospheric black metal, 80's thrash and prog metal, myself but the psychological effects of listening to death metal have been researched. As previously discussed on Hacker News:
Dissecting the Bloodthirsty Bliss of Death Metal: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18335308
Death metal music inspires joy not violence: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19383699
Heavy metal/hardcore is good music. Mumble rap is bad music.
Good music is subjective. Aside from the guitar skills involved in shredding, I think heavy metal is probably the worst genre of music.
I'd say good music is objective. Whether it's hard to play, uses complex polyrhythms etc. which most listeners aren't even aware of - and those people tend to think good music is subjective as they can't perceive the quality, only whether they like it or not. There's also some incredibly skilful metal music with no "shredding" whatsoever.
I don't particularly like Mozart but I'd be an idiot to say it's not good music. On the other hand most people agree Taylor Swift does not make good music, having released lots of samey 4 chord songs with incredibly simple melodies, but she's one of the most listened artists of all time.
If the goal of music is to induce an emotional or intellectual response in a person. Then only the listening person can decide if a response was induced and if that experience impacted them in a positive or negative way. It is the definition of a subjective experience.
The complexity of the music or the technical skill of the artist has nothing to do with it being good or bad. Music anywhere on the spectrum from simple ambient noise to symphonic formalism to simple and infectious can be good or bad based on the taste of the listener.
Complexity isn’t really the thing either. I’ve heard a ton of terrible but technical songs. Often the coolest songs are remarkably simple, yet manage to do something that feels new. A modern example: https://youtu.be/ga8K_diGviw
This attitude promotes eliteism in music, which I am very opposed to.