(Re)Listening Metal, (Re)Imagining Youth, (Re)Affirming Multiculturalism Gita Widya Laksmini Soerjoatmodjo Department of Psychology Faculty of Humanities and Business Universitas Pembangunan Jaya gita.soerjoatmodjo@upj.ac.id Unpublished, English version Literature Review draft of the upcoming book Narendra, Y. & Laksmini, G.W. (2018). Heavy Metal Parents: Identitas Kultural Metalhead Indonesia 1980-an Yogyakarta: Octopus Publishing Listening to popular music is a way of consuming popular culture, in which one applies interpretive, signifying practices – which influences/is influenced by one’s cultural identity. During the oppressive authoritarian New Order regime in the 1980s-1990s, listening to non- mainstream heavy metal is considered as an activity of the “outsiders.” After Soeharto was ousted in 1998, heavy metal penetrated mainstream realm, making it as part of pop music consumption in Asia. The change of political context has made subcultural practices that used to be out of reach – namely going to concert, collecting records, memorabilia and merchandise, hanging out with fellow metalheads and opting for fashion expression – are now possible. What used to be accessible only through media representation in the adolescence years is now available as direct experience in the adulthood, when those who were outcasts in the past become parents in the present. The writing aims to take snapshots on how subcultural practices of heavy metal consumption are weaved into the process of changes - from adolescents to adults, from being metal heads to becoming parents, from articulating shared codes to sharing values -- and how this shift of fluid identities marks the making of Asian parent generation from Asian metalheads. Through a combination of ethnographic method and narrative psychology, framed in cultural studies approach, this paper argues that listening to heavy metal music plays a part in empowering popular culture consumers - to negotiate dominant discourse of essential Indonesia and open doors to the rise of future multicultural Asia generation. Keywords: Heavy Metal, Subcultural Practice, Fluid Identities, Parents, Empowerment, Multiculturalism