Published 17 December 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a2825
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a2825

Research
Christmas 2008: Music
Head and neck injury risks in heavy metal: head bangers stuck between rock and a hard bass

Declan Patton, research assistant, Andrew McIntosh, associate professor

1 School of Risk and Safety Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia 2052

Objective To investigate the risks of mild traumatic brain injury and neck injury associated with head banging, a popular dance form accompanying heavy metal music.
Design Observational studies, focus group, and biomechanical analysis.

Participants Head bangers.

Main outcome measures Head Injury Criterion and Neck Injury Criterion were derived for head banging styles and both popular heavy metal songs and easy listening music controls.

Results An average head banging song has a tempo of about 146 beats per minute, which is predicted to cause mild head injury when the range of motion is greater than 75°. At higher tempos and greater ranges of motion there is a risk of neck injury.

Conclusion To minimise the risk of head and neck injury, head bangers should decrease their range of head and neck motion, head bang to slower tempo songs by replacing heavy metal with adult oriented rock, only head bang to every second beat, or use personal protective equipment.

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I always vote, and being a civil society junkie, I always get a bit misty-eyed in the process. But today’s election was special. It was the first time a candidate I supported in the primaries was there to vote for in the final presidential election. Happy day.

Also, Cricket Australia is lobbying the International Cricket Council for a mediation phase in cases of racial vilification in international cricket.

“It is consistent with our view, and the ICC’s view, that cricket should have a zero-tolerance approach to racism in sport. We need to understand what we need to do to encourage cultural acceptance, and that it’s more complicated than simply writing a list of rules. We recommended that there should be an intermediate step that recognises the complexity and the need for a more sophisticated process that takes the high drama out of it. Genuine, properly structured, well-founded mediation can have really good results. You can achieve reconciliation and move on.”

Cricket story here.