Graffiti in the basement of black metal club Helvete, Oslo, 1980s. Wikimedia Commons
Alban Bargain-Villéger
Sometime in the autumn of 2005, I decided to give black metal a chance. Until that point, I had had reservations about that type of music, which is often associated with neo-paganism, the far right, and base displays of primal machoism. A long-time classical music aficionado, it soon occurred to me that what had appeared at first as musical chaos actually involved complex, layered compositions full of breaks, tempo changes, intricate melodies, and that few of these artists are hyperviolent psychopaths. Not surprisingly, this was a lonely experience, as most of my friends failed to understand what I saw in layers of cacophonous noise topped with the ramblings of a growling animal of sorts. Indeed, like Vegemite, black metal is an acquired taste. This post does not purport to convert anyone to this type of music, which is certainly not for everyone. The rationale for writing on this particular topic stemmed from the realization that, since everything in this universe – from cat trees to reality TV – will undoubtedly (or has already) become the subject of serious historical investigation, why not attempt to lay out the basis for a political history of black metal?
Unlike protest songs, which I wrote about in a previous post, black metal (and extreme metal in general) has elicited few serious historical studies. While some anthropologists and journalists have published articles, monographs, and filmed documentaries on black metal – which often emphasize the hackneyed commonplaces of the cliquey, immature, and simultaneously (and paradoxically) good-natured and reactionary artist –, historians of music have maintained a safe distance from that topic. First of all, this type of music is not exactly of the “top 40” variety, which limits its marketability. Secondly, extreme metal bands smell of sulfur. While it is all good and well for historians to explore seventeenth-century witchcraft or Victorian esotericism, the contemporaneity of intimidating, mostly male, head-bangers has probably deterred many from focusing on that particular topic. Nonetheless, more studies of this musical genre would open up many avenues for all kinds of historical investigations, whether one is interested in the history of ideas, generational conflict, gender, religion, or politics.
Black metal first attracted massive media attention, not so much due to its musical or aesthetic characteristics, but to a series of church burnings (most infamously the 1992 arson of Bergen’s Fantoft church); the 1991 suicide of Mayhem’s singer Dead (Per Yngve Ohlin); the gruesome murder of Euronymous (Øystein Aarseth), then leader of the now legendary band Mayhem, by Count Grishnackh (Varg Vikernes) in 1993; soon followed by the arrest of Emperor’s drummer Faust (Bård Guldvik Eithun) for killing Magne Andreassen, who had solicited him for sex one year earlier. Rumors of Satanism became systematically (and unfairly) associated with the Norwegian youths who chose to grow their hair long, wear face paint and (post-)goth clothing. The tragedies that riddled that period have undoubtedly overshadowed the artistic dimension of black metal, whose fans had to deal with the stigma of ridicule, at best and, at worst, that of amorality. While all that violence is undoubtedly part of the history of the genre, the music was, until recently, often dismissed as cacophonous nonsense. Continue reading →
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