The Antichristian Phenomenon

This was originally posted in my last.fm journal here.

While skimming through a thread in the Intelligent Metal group, someone had posted quite an interesting thought that black metal and pagan metal (I rather refer it as folk metal as pagan metal is too much of an ambiguous term and pagan metal falls under the categories of folk and black metal in any case) are mere pastisches of lost societies. They were, in the author’s eyes, “inauthentic”.

While thinking more over the cause of this, some interesting ideas came to my mind, strongly associated when the author started to compare black and folk metal as equally fake as McDonalds, that he is indeed correct in his captivization, but it is not as easy as he puts it. Black and folk metal is is a journey to find one’s own identity, more than merely trying be a fake opposition. Is there actually in this light any question why Norway of all countries, came to be the mother of black metal? To understand this further, one must realize that Norway historically is a very new independent nation. Not until after the First World War did it manage to free itself from Swedish rule. Before that, Norway had either for a very long time been both a part of Sweden and Denmark. It is thus more than any other country one may argue, a country who for a long time had no real true national identity. Adding the sudden Americanzation which swept over the rest of the world shortly after the Second World War, no wonder Norwegians still struggle to define what is typically Norwegian! Why is it that Norway has a national day they celebrate each year (17th of May) but Swedes had to install such a national day because we previously didn’t have one?

Therefore, it can be easy to conclude that Norway in fact was the perfect home for black metal. It should not be further argued which band was the first one to release the first black metal album (some argue it was Bathory, others Venom, others once again Mayhem), nevertheless, today the Norwegian black metal scene is rather undisputed. Why then, one may ask, is it that the search of national identity has taken the expression in black metal in particular? To understand this, one must first understand the Norwegian black metal scene itself.

It can be argued whether it was Mayhem who started it, regardless, Mayhem’s place in black metal history holds a very important keyrole to develop the genre further. It should first of all be noted that Mayhem was not the first band to write about vikings, paganism and antichristianity, but one man should definitely be mentioned as a huge inspirational source in this matter: Bathory. No doubt he inspired many black metal bands which popped up during early 90s with his viking lyrics. It should also be noted that Bathory today is most commonly considered the father of folk metal as well, but more about this later.

To understand why vikings are so important in this, one must first understand that vikings are a major part in Scandinavian history. In fact, it is so deeply ingrained in our mentality that it is the very part of our national identity. Scandinavians are proud of their viking origin! There is not a single true Scandinavian who doesn’t feel a little sense of nationalism when vikings are mentioned. Despite having a bloody history, vikings formed who we are. We also know that vikings were one of the last to give in to Christianityin Europe. Here we get to an interesting topic of itself, where Christianity among other things have come to respresent the “evil commercial capitalism”. As we know, Christianity is the major religion in USA and their religion is deeply rooted in the society. Christianity thus represents the capitalism and Americanization (McDonalds do too but it would be silly to sing about how much you hate McDonalds). Faith itself, is considered to be of the color white, and in religion means “purity”. This is why white clothing is preferred during certain celebrations with Christian grounds, and why priests among other politically important figures wear white during work. Black then, is the very opposite of this, the epitome of paganism. There is of course a strong sense of irony in this as well, as despite attempting to break free of the contemporary society’s bonds, the revolt is still expressed in a language used in that society rather than actually referring to the society they are trying to mimic.

Returning back to national identity, I also find it interesting to note here that Norwegian is even preferred as the sung language in black metal. Once again the refusal to admit globalization and Americanization. Bands like Dimmu Borgir wrote all their lyrics in Norwegian in their early years, before releasing Enthroned Darkness Triumphant. In band names too, we can see a preference for Ancient German with the band Tyr. While originally from Faroe Islands, it was under a long time inhabited and controlled by vikings and even today, I think children of the Faraoe Islands must learn Danish in school. A rememberance when the islands were a part of Danish rule.

Additionally, there is no real metalhead who never encountered the world “true”, or “tr00″, or “trve” (spelt with a Latin u) which essentially, is particularly permeated around black metal. Along with this mentality often include poor recordings, the refusal to release any other types of music than demos if any demo is released at all and the refusal to sign to big labels unless it primarly focuses on black metal only, if the band by all means must sign at all. This too, is an expression against the Americanization and capitalism. To “be true” stands for the absolute opposite of commercialism. To become commercially successful is the greatest sin in metal. In addition there is often a correlation between commercialism and poor music quality that particularly people speaking for the “trueness” argue over. Instead, rather listening to a barely listenable black metal demo is preferred. Here too, we can see a correlation between poor sound quality vs good sound quality, since commercially successful bands have better studios available and thus good sound quality means you have enough money to afford such a studio, despite that with technological improvements, even cheap sound studios can offer good quality sound today.

Finally, we have corpse painting. To dress up or use makeup is hardly unusual in metal. KISS were one of the first together with Alice Cooper. Here we can see how important shock value is to gain attention. Would people today remember Kiss and Alice Cooper would they have performed without stage makeup and flashy shows? No doubt, Mayhem managed to very early make a name about themselves with the murder of Euronymous. Varg Vikernes got into jail and the murder itself became exeggerated and rumors began to spread. Here once again, we can see the ambivalent attitude black metal has against commercialism. Would we still have the black metal we have today would this not happened? I am not so sure. Definitely more bands were to follow, and while they were not as extreme, Mayhem did set up the level of public attention a black metal band should crave through controversial means. Of course, I can see why particularly folk metal bands rather refer corpse painting as battle paint, regardless, it is pretty much the same but with different colors. Folk metal bands too, are known to dress up in true LARP style.

Folk metal, often considered to be started by Bathory, rather put a focus on entertainment value, because while we shouldn’t forget that while music is art and can express many things, in the end, it is just that, entertainment. I doubt Quorton himself took his music that seriously. It is also here the main difference between folk metal and black metal is split: folk metal does not care so much about commercialism. In fact, many folk metal bands are commercially succesful (Ensiferum, Finntroll). While the folk metal genre is dominated with Scandinavian countries here too, folk metal is not so much about catching the essence of the Scandinavian nationality (in fact, I don’t think any folk metal band takes itself too seriously) but is more interested on doing a good “show”. This too, comes from older times of metal when we have bands such as once again, Kiss, Alice Cooper, GWAR and Manowar that also put a heavy emphasis on stage appearances more than doing just music. It is thus all about entertainment. Black metal then, with it’s “trueness”, is not free to entertain in the same way as folk metal can.

Can both genres then still try to deliver the same ideas through their lyrics and musical atmosphere? I would say that black metal has in general a far more serious undertone compared to folk metal and that black metal then, actually tries to find some sort of essence using modern means (once again, noticing the irony not trying to use the way how pagans could have done it) whereas folk metal is more about entertainment. It is, in a sense, Lord of the Rings, whether it may be about vikings or elves. While the lyrics themselves may hold some historical ground they are just that, stories, and should not be taken seriously or literary.

With this text, I hope I managed to give others some insight and an interesting point on the black and and folk metal movement. While I know I focused a lot on black metal, black metal today is also a far bigger scene than folk metal currently is, and has quite a controversial history which should be explored. However, I do think I managed to explain what I consider to be the reasons why particularly black metal as a movement started at all and why it more than any other metal genre holds such strong ideological grounds. I also think it further managed to explain why black metal and not folk metal took the expressional form with national socialism (nsbm). It is quite ironical too to note that black metal more than any other metal genre too is very similar to a religion in an anthropological sense. While most people would agree that a religion requires a deity or somesuch to be worshipped, religion is not only about worship but also about rituals and rules. Black metal more than any other genre has rules what to do and not to do (wear corpsepaint, be true, release poor quality demos, write about paganism, satanism, antichristianity and vikings etc) and many of the fans are more eager to advocate these ideals than fans of other metal genres advocate theirs. We can for example right now see a huge controversy within the genre with so called unblack metal, or christian black metal. As previously explained, Christianity is the very epitome religion black metal works against; coming out as a Christian black metal band then creates a huge controversy and other artists within the genre being non-Christians will automatically reject this band, thus forcing these bands to call themselves unblack metal, not only because they do not want to be associated with the antichristianity permeated in black metal but also because they are rejected by the genre itself.

I realize this is a huge subject and definitely worth looking into more, but for now, I hope you in this gr1m trve frostb177en text found some entertainment for a while

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 24th, 2008 at 2:50 pm and is filed under Culture, Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.