Angst is a German, Dutch and nordic word for fear or anxiety. It is used in English to describe an intense feeling of internal emotional strife. Fear is an unpleasant feeling of perceived risk or danger, whether it be real or imagined. ... Anxiety is a complex combination of the feeling of fear, apprehension and worry often accompanied by physical sensations such as palpitations, chest pain and/or shortness of breath. ...

A different but related meaning is attributed to Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855). Kierkegaard used the word angst (Danish, meaning "dread") to describe a profound and deep-seated spiritual condition of insecurity and despair in the free human being. Where the animal is a slave to its God-given instincts but always confident in its own actions, Kierkegaard believed that the freedom given to mankind leaves the human in a constant fear of failing its responsibilities to god. Kierkegaard's concept of angst is considered to be an important stepping stone for 20th-century existentialism. Søren Kierkegaard was born to an affluent family in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark. ... 1813 is a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1855 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... ... Despair in common usage is the condition of having abandoned hope. ... Human beings are defined variously in biological, spiritual, and cultural terms, or in combinations thereof. ... God is the term used to denote the Supreme Being ascribed by monotheistic religions to be the creator, ruler and/or the sum total of, existence. ... Existentialism is a philosophical movement that views human existence as having a set of underlying themes and characteristics, such as anxiety, dread, freedom, awareness of death, and consciousness of existing, that are primary. ...

While Kierkegaard's feeling of angst is fear of actual responsibility to God, in modern use, angst is broadened to include general frustration associated with the conflict between actual responsibilities to self, one's principles, and others (possibly including God). Still, the angst in alternative music may be more accessible to most audiences than the esoteric tradition of existentialism. The term "angst" is now widely used with a negative and derisive connotation that mocks the expression of a common adolescent experience of malaise. The term God (capitalized in English language as a proper noun) is often used to refer to a Supreme Being. ... Existentialism is a philosophical movement that views human existence as having a set of underlying themes and characteristics, such as anxiety, dread, freedom, awareness of death, and consciousness of existing, that are primary. ...

Angst in contemporary music

Angst, in contemporary connotative use, most often describes the intense frustration and other related emotions of teenagers and the mood of the music with which they identify. Punk rock, grunge, emo, and virtually any Alternative Rock dramatically combining elements of discord, melancholy and excitement may be said to assert angst. There is an obvious connection to this music and the various subjugation of its proponent youth or racial or sociopolitical minority subculture. Linkin Park is an example of an angsty band. A separate article is about the punk band called The Adolescents. ... Punk rock is an anti-establishment music movement beginning around 1976 (although precursors can be found several years earlier), exemplified and popularised by The Ramones, the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned. ... Grunge music (sometimes also referred to as the Seattle Sound) is an independent-rooted music genre that became a commercially successful offshoot of hardcore punk, thrash metal, and alternative rock in the late 1980s and early 1990s. ... This article deals with the genre of music. ... The terms alternative rock and alternative music were coined in the early 1980s to describe punk rock-inspired music genres which didnt fit into the mainstream genres of the time. ... Melancholia (Greek μελαγχολια) was described as a distinct disease as early as the fifth and fourth centuries BC in the Hippocratic writings. ... As understood in sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, a subculture is a set of people with a distinct set of behavior and beliefs that differentiate them from a larger culture of which they are a part. ... Linkin Park is a nu/alternative metal band from Los Angeles, California, and is currently signed to Warner Brothers Records. ...

Angst was probably first discussed in relation to contemporary music in the mid to late 1980s and 1990s. In the 1980s "teen angst" was expressed in music to a certain extent in the rise of "punk", but the word "angst" is currently more associated with, and was probably first used in reference to, the grunge movement and the band Nirvana. Nirvana themselves seem to have been aware of this, as evidenced by the first line of Serve the Servants in which Kurt Cobain describes the success of writing songs dealing with the subject (Teenage angst has paid off well | Now I'm bored and old...). This article is about the grunge band Nirvana. ... Serve the Servants is a song by the American rock band, Nirvana. ... Kurt Cobain Kurt Donald Cobain (February 20, 1967 – ca. ...

See also

Look up angst in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• English words of German origin
• Anxiety
• Suffering
• Anomie
• Alienation
• Ennui