Black Metal and Extremism

[Zzzptm]

Sometimes, Black Metal is only this: 

And sometimes, it leads to this:



As in, not just expressions of extreme views but real acts of violence, including arson and murder. We talk about separating the art from the artist, but can we truly separate a movement from its philosophy? Is there a way to filter out the extremism when enjoying the genre, or will that extremism always be a spectre lurking in the background?

Discuss.

[Sabbabbath]

I am not into BM, so I look at it from the outside. To me, it seems that inhuman, eugenic, antisemitic, racist and more generally deeply hateful statements and activities have been pretty common in the BM movement most of the time, and many of the excuses that have been made after some of those incidents sound ridiculously superficial and thus unreliable to me. The frequency of incidents suggests that those ideologies and the music are intimately connected. In my view, one of the common elements of most of the statements and incidents in questions is an incredible lack of empathy for other human beings, as illustrated by the following little episode in the history of Mayhem:

On 8 April 1991, Dead committed suicide in the house owned by the band. He was found by Euronymous with slit wrists and a shotgun wound to the head. Dead's suicide note notably read "Excuse all the blood, cheers." and included an apology for firing the weapon indoors. Instead of calling the police, Euronymous went to a nearby store and bought a disposable camera to photograph the corpse, after re-arranging some items.[16] One of these photographs was later used as the cover of a bootleg live album, Dawn of the Black Hearts.[17]

Euronymous used Dead's suicide to foster Mayhem's 'evil' image and claimed Dead had killed himself because black metal had become 'trendy' and commercialized.[18] In time, rumors spread that Euronymous had made a stew with bits of Dead's brain and had made necklaces with bits of his skull.[19] The band later denied the former rumor, but confirmed that the latter was true.[19] Moreover, Euronymous claimed to have given these necklaces to musicians he deemed worthy,[20] which was confirmed by several other members of the scene, like Bård 'Faust' Eithun[21] and Metalion.[22]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayhem_(band)

I guess it is needless to comment on this.

There would be MANY more stories to tell. Those of Gorgoroth singer Gaahl would have to include the words "rape" and "torture".
https://noisey.vice.com/en_us/article/r3zkak/gorgoroth-az

What I have never taken the time to check out is how BM deals with women and sexism. I did find, however, a pretty good article about misoginy in extreme metal:
https://noisey.vice.com/en_au/article/rb8bnd/death-metal-misogyny

[Zzzptm]

The music itself I've got a problem with getting into, as the extremism of the vocals can just turn me off. There can be other things that make me go  but usually it's the vocals that do it. I don't even have enough listening time to the music to get offended by the lyrics, although there are titles that will make me not want to even give a track a try.

But reading about some of the callousness in attitudes among many black metal musicians makes me want to not even try to get into the music. It's one thing to sing about ooky things, quite another to bring them to pass in reality.

Those Vice articles make for some interesting, if grim, reading and I plan to peruse them fully.

[Billy Underdog]

It's hard to explain the extremity of BM.
The music is one thing, it's just a continuation of Punk, NWOBHM, early Extreme Metal like Venom, Hellhammer/Celtic Frost and Bathory, and developed side by side with Death Metal and Grindcore.
The extremity in the mindset is another thing, though.
As for the Norwegian scene it was very much disenchanted youth alienated from society, and essentlially not more driven towards dark and "scary" stuff than most kids. It was just that they were such a tiny, secluded group that allowed the extreme frame of mind to develop.
There was some mental healt issues, Pelle Ohlins suicide was alot due to depression, and the murder Bård Eithun comitted was in self defence and had nothing to do with the BM scene. The fucked thing about it is that because of that mindset they kept it to themselves instead of going to the police.

But i honestly think that extreme mindset bleeds into the music too, which is why some of those early 90's albums are so beautifully ugly...

[Sabbabbath]

the murder Bård Eithun comitted was in self defence and had nothing to do with the BM scene

"Nothing to do with the BM scene" -maybe. "in self defence" - WTF??? Let's look at that case of "self defence" a little closer:

On 21 August 1992, Eithun stabbed Magne Andreassen, a gay man, to death in a forest just outside Lillehammer.[1] Eithun was visiting his family there.[2] He went to a pub and had a drink, but "the atmosphere didn't suit him, so he decided to head home".[2] According to Eithun, while walking in the Olympic park, "this man approached me – he was obviously drunk and obviously a faggot […] it was obvious that he wanted to have some contact. Then he asked me if we could [...] go up to the woods. So I agreed, because already then I had decided that I wanted to kill him, which was very weird because I'm not like this".[3] Eithun carried a knife because, as he explained: "It's better to have a knife you don't need than to not have one when you need it".[2] Once in the woods, Eithun stabbed Andreassen 37[4] times and then kicked him in the head repeatedly as he lay on the ground.
Eithun claimed that he felt no remorse at the time. In the late 1990s, he said of the murder: "I was outside, just waiting to get out some aggression. It's not easy to describe why it happened. It was meant to happen, and if it was this man or another man, that's not really important".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faust_(musician)#Conviction_and_release

To summarize: Eithun was "waiting to get out some aggression", no matter against whom. Andreassen was (or seemed) drunk, he was, in Eithun's account, "obviously a faggot", he "wanted to have some contact" and asked Eithun to go with him "to the woods". And Eithun, in his own words "agreed, because "already then I had decided that I wanted to kill him". In the woods, Eithun stabbed Andreassen 37 times (!) and then kicked him in the head repeatedly (!) when Andreassen was lying on the ground (!)

Honestly, Billy, to call this "self defence" is victim-blaming. According to the information we have here, Eithun wasn't even threatened, let alone assaulted or anything like that. He himself says he was looking for trouble, that he "agreed" to go with Andreassen, and that at that point he had already decided to murder him. Even IF he had been attacked (which obviously wasn't the case at all), 37 stabs with a knife and repeated kicks in the head while the other one is lying helplessly on the ground is not exactly what is usually called "self defence". Instead, what we have here is obviously a case of a fatal homophobic hate crime.

essentlially not more driven towards dark and "scary" stuff than most kids

Well, I was driven towards dark and scary stuff myself when I was younger. Still, if I had found a member of my band dead "with slit wrists and a shotgun wound to the head", this is what I would NOT have done:

Instead of calling the police, Euronymous went to a nearby store and bought a disposable camera to photograph the corpse, after re-arranging some items. One of these photographs was later used as the cover of a bootleg live album, Dawn of the Black Hearts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayhem_(band)

Nor would this have been my way of telling it to my friends:

"Dead has done something really cool! He killed himself [...] Relax, I have photos of everything".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayhem_(band)

I have had my share of mental health issues myself, and I know lots of others who have. None of them would have done anything like that. Seriously, I think you should stop being so generous with those guys. You have said you are separating the art from the artist. If so, you would be able to enjoy the music and NOT sugarcoat the deeds of the musicians. But honestly it looks like you're doing just that: whitewashing severe violence and hate-driven ideology. Think about your own words: they were young people - so what? Most violent crime is commited by young males, that doesn't excuse anything, and it really doesn't help the victims. Precisely because I KNOW that you are strongly against bigotry, homophobia, racism and all that shit, I find it worrying that your affinity to BM makes you make that kind of excuses. I love the music of Black Sabbath, and at the same time I know that Ozzy once tried to strangle Sharon, and according to Lita Ford, Tony physically abused her four or five times and once tried to smash a big, heavy leather chair over her face after having choked her unconscious. If I ever notice that I start making excuses for those actions, I will know that separating art from artist doesn't really work for me.

[Billy Underdog]

To me and alot of others BM isn't about violence, but pain, suffering, anger and hatred. Towards oneself and others. Misanthropy. Nihilism. Out of the large group into Extreme Metal, and BM in this instance, only a handful have been violent. You've pretty much mentioned most of them already. Most BM guys express these feelings in art only. Much like Edvard Munch, really.
Fenriz and Attila Csihar make alot more violent and brutal music than Kristian Vikernes (yup, that's his name) and Gaahl, but they've never acted violent against others (atleast not something so out of the "ordinary" that it's a known instance).
These feelings are just natural for everyone, and like the christian philosopher Anton LaVey says, we have to acknowledge that we as humans are animals, and relate to everything that goes along with that, feelings included. That's not saying one need to act upon them.

For many Extreme Metal is an outlet for those feelings, and leave them as calm and harmonic people.

[Zzzptm]

Anton LaVey is a christian philosopher? Guy wrote The Satanic Bible. Not that it takes away from his comment, but I just wanted the info on him to be clear.

But I think problems arise when people lose sight of "This is OK only so long as we pretend we're doing this" and start thinking, "hey, why not let my life be my art?"

[Billy Underdog]

Anton LaVey is a christian philosopher? Guy wrote The Satanic Bible. Not that it takes away from his comment, but I just wanted the info on him to be clear.

As an organ player watching family fathers sitting drooling over burlesque circus girls on saturday evenings, and being all puritanical in church the morning after made him shy away from the "christian" (read: churchified) hypocrisy and wanted to oppose to it, hence going for "the other team". But it's philosophical "satanism", not actual devil worship, and reading how he's talking about being in touch with one self is pretty much the same as Jesus was talking about. Yes, he was alot more carnal than the church want us to believe that Jesus was, but who's to say that the church is telling the truth? Actually it's known that they've lied and withheld knowledge for gain, and i don't trust people like that. Having tried to get as close to the oldest sources available i've found that "philosophical satanism" is alot closer to christianity than the churchs doctrines.

As for life as art, i don't think that is a problem in itself, but if the art project is in any way extreme, and the line between life and art gets blurred, that's when we've got a problem. Was trying to get into that topic here: https://www.komunumo.net/forumo/life-the-universe-everything/art-or-terrorism/

[Zzzptm]

Indeed, and well connected.

And, yes, LaVey wrote more philosophically, definitely not a High Church Satanist. I'll pass over the question of whether or not Jesus was more carnal than commonly taught, that seems to be out of the purview of this thread.

For me, I have to ask at what point is this stuff musical pornography, shocking for shock's sake. It's one thing to question man's relationship to God and/or established religion, but is this really the best way to pose that question? Or even *should* the question be posted this way at all? And is that question's potency lessened by including violence, gore, and rapistic elements in the lyrical content?

[Billy Underdog]

For me, I have to ask at what point is this stuff musical pornography, shocking for shock's sake. It's one thing to question man's relationship to God and/or established religion, but is this really the best way to pose that question? Or even *should* the question be posted this way at all? And is that question's potency lessened by including violence, gore, and rapistic elements in the lyrical content?

Don't know if i get your question. Do you mean that pornography is shocking for shock's sake? I disagree with that notion, porn can be highly enjoyable, so musical pornography could be anything from Vivaldi to Beatles, from Crosby, Stills and Nash to Darkthrone.

No doubt that musically Extreme Metal is aiming for shock, both for shock's sake and to make enjoyable music.
There are musical differences between the different sub-genres of Extreme Metal, but more notably there's lyrical differences. Black Metal usually go for the anti-Christian/anti-religious/Satanist topics while the gory stuff is more Death Metal and Grindcore. That's why Mercyful Fate/King Diamond can be considered Black Metal by some, though musically it's closer to Speed Metal. But ofcourse there's some bleeding over.

The proto-Extreme Metal bands like Venom, Celtic Frost and Bathory mostly sang about this stuff because it was "cool" and shocking, so did the earliest Thrash and other Extreme Metal bands. Heck, bands have been playing around with these topics since the beginning of Rock, it's just grown exponentially.

Come the late 80's and "BM proper" it was more a stance against an establishment than actual belief, very few actually considered themselves Satanists exept for shock value. Ihsahn of Emperor is the only one i can pick from the top of my head, but he was more LaVeyan philosophical Satanist. Ok, maybe Infernus of Gorgoroth, he claims to be a devil worshipper, but... meh...

Some of the few bands i can think of that in any way confessed to believing in witchcraft (what the church wrongly call devil worship, i don't think such a thing have ever existed, there's nothing evil in harvesting the power of nature, quite the contrary) are Coven, whos members were part of a coven, and Black Widow, who performed mock sacrifices during their shows, as taught to them by Alex Sanders, who was a Wiccan priest. Their music was more in the psychedelia/prog landscape, so to answer your question: i really don't know if violent, agressive, extreme music is the best way to question religious authority. But some of it sound fucking great.

As for degenerates doing criminal acts, you find them in all walks of life. Esp. in "clean & healthy" groupings like many charismatic christians, ironically. Most Black Metal fans are actually very nice, calm and friendly people.

Varg Vikernes and the morons in Absurd would probably have done something similar to what they did without being into music at all.
I'm not defending how Øystein Aarseth dealt with Pelle Ohlins death, or that Bård Eithun actually murdered Andreassen (who, btw, was known for luring young boys into the woods to "have fun" with them), but the mindset that made them act like that is also the same mindset that made them make great music. Others with the same mindset also made great music, but never acted out in violence. Blame it on the person, not the music.

[Sabbabbath]

porn can be highly enjoyable

Enjoyable for whom, is the question. Definitely not for about 95% of the women who are "working" in the porn industry, often treated like slaves, hugely vulnerable for sexual and other kinds of violence, very poorly paid (if paid at all), permanently humiliated and usually thrown away like rubbish after a very short period of time. There are pretty impressive and shocking studies about that, even though mainstream discourse ourdays claims it's a normal job (same about prostitution). No serious discussion of pornography and how "enjoyable" it is can ignore the conditions under which it is produced. And yes, I am sure there is some super-original, creative, art-like, women-centered porn. It's just that such stuff is like 0.00001% of the huge global market that pornography is these days.

For many Extreme Metal is an outlet for those feelings, and leave them as calm and harmonic people.

It's just very, very questionable if it really works like this. The Freudian (or maybe pseudo-Freudian, I am not sure whether it was himself or some of his interpreters who are to blame) image of drives working as a steam boiler has been shown to be totally inaccurate in many respects by studies in psycholigy. And research in linguistics and the workings of the brain suggests that repeating violent statements and associations creates and strengthens connections or associations in the brain, rather then loosening them. A famous example of such a connection often used in right-wing propaganda is the association of "refugees" or "muslims" with "crime" or "rape". If such (linguistic) associations happen repeatedly, even in explicit criticism (e.g. "statistics show that refugees are NOT disproportionately involved in sexual violence"), the feelings and attitudes of those exposed to those messages, and those expressing them, start to adopt them. Accordingly, it is highly questionable that the repetition of negative, violent, hateful messages really helps being less negative, violent or hateful.

To be sure, my point is NOT the same as the traditional viewpoint that listening to a metal song can "make" somebody shoot themselves or others in the head. My point has some similarities, but is more subtle and takes social contexts into account. And the Black Metal scene, at least in the 1990ies, was a social context that quite obviously fostered violence and hate, incl. racism. There are more examples, but I admit I am getting tired of bringing them up. And again, I am not willing to shrug Fenriz' and many others' racist and antisemitic statements of as    youthful folly, given that most of their excuses and later statements on the matter don't sound reliable to me at all.

Of course, Black Metal is just one thing.

There's also stuff like this:
"To break the necks of young women
Their cunts my pus will fill
Acid burning through her crotch
I baptize her face with my rot
Then venom foams from her throat
On my discharge she will choke"
(Cannibal Corpse: Post Mortal Ejaculation)

Do I believe that the guys who created these "artful" lyrics will be less likely to be violent or sexist after writing or singing these lyrics and making a lot of money with them? Do I believe that listeners will feel more respect for women, or have more empathy in human beings afterwards? Not only is that, as mentioned above, pretty unlikely. I would also argue that enjoying such lyrics requires a lack of empathy, a worrisome indifference to what happens in the world and/or a position of extreme privilege - because in fact such horrible stuff happens all the time. Here's just one horrible example (don't read it if are not ready for it):
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/man-sentenced-life-prison-disemboweling-girlfriend-article-1.3383393
I don't even wanna start about what happens in Syrian or Brazilian prisons and pretty much all around the world all the time. None of those people I have met in my life who have been victims of torture or rape and are fully aware of it are tolerant towards such lyrics or "art". My point is: violence, even verbal violence, is not art, not a way of "saying" or "expressing" anything that needs to be said. It is a brutal, horrible, very physical reality for many Millions, probably Billions of people in this world. If a person cares or worries about violence, they should start doing something against it. If a person doesn't, they should shut the fuck up about it.

Finally, about the "extreme" attitudes in Black Metal: Actually I think it is, after all, not half as extreme as it claims to be. Yes, Black Metal bands have attacked a few norms or values that may be considered hegemonic, most notably Christianity and nonviolence. That's the two areas where it is indeed "extreme". On the other hand, at least nonviolence is challenged all the time, not least by the export of weapons by the Norwegian government (same in many other countries, of course - I am only mentioning Norway because we are talking BM). More importantly, pretty much every other value that Black Metal represents seem to be very traditional and conservative, including the racist and nationalist stuff. That's a similarity to the Trump movement in the US and similar right-wing movements in Germany, Norway and many parts of the world: mainstream critics of such movements misleadingly call them "extremism", but actually most of their concerns are about very old and traditional stuff, and most notably about white and male privilege. Calling them "extreme" conceals the facts that such attitutes are, regrettably, widely accepted in the mainstream, even if it its manifestations within the mainstream are often more subtle.

Anyway, for some reason I find this discussion pretty frustrating, so this will probably be my last contribution to this thread.

[Billy Underdog]

For paragraph 1: ofcourse i know the porn industry is horrible. But i'm male and allow myself to be shallow every now and then, so it's enjoyable to me as a consumer. Once again i have to say i don't really understand why Dozy dragged porn into this discussion at all, but i guess he see it as something degenerate and shocking.
Funny enough, you don't mention the emotional and mental issues alot of male porn "actors" also develop.

Paragraph 2: i simply find those Cannibal Corpse lyrics comic, and i think most Extreme Metal fans do too.
You're getting to know me a bit now, and both me and Thel are huge Extreme Metal fans. Do any of us strike you as violent, racist, women haters or any of the other stuff you're connecting with this music?
Let's turn it around. Feminist studies; there are actually women that become man haters (no, not talking about you). Is that because of the studies, or is it each persons own responsibility?
There is violence in the world, you yourself mention different prisons f.ex. I don't think the prisoners are locked up because they've become violent from listening to Extreme Metal. Neither do they continue to be violent in prison for the same reason.
By your logic we should ban action, thriller and horror movies and tv-shows, video games, Wagner operas (he was damned racist), basically art in general, as alot of art touch upon these topics. Hell, we should even ban news, that's the most violent and horiffic "entertainment" out there.
Yes, there are impressionable people. Stupid people with confused opinions. If there wasn't any Extreme Metal to influence them, there would've been something else. Charles Manson was influenced by Beatles, Lee Harvey Oswald by Cather In The Rye.
I can only speak for my own experience now, but after listening to a great BM album, i'm mentally exhausted, but also calmer and more harmonic. After having been at a concert even more so. I'm probably more agressive (to the extent i get agressive) before than after.
Once again, the problem is with the person doing the acts, not the art he/she convey or enjoy.

Bringing the distasteful Norwegian weapons politics into this seem really pointless to me. BM guys aren't very influenced by politics, even less the other way around.

[Zzzptm]

I brought up pornography because, well, there *is* pornography in quite a few of the lyrics there... It's one thing to challenge the edges, but at what point does the stuff cross the boundaries?

And it's even a question for instrumentals... some of the playing is, again, extremism for extremism's sake, not really something that makes sense musically, at least not to me.

[Billy Underdog]

And it's even a question for instrumentals... some of the playing is, again, extremism for extremism's sake, not really something that makes sense musically, at least not to me.

That's a poor argument. It's only saying you don't understand and/or enjoy that kind of musicality. Doesn't say anything about the actual quality.
There's alot of contemporary "pling plong" music i don't get either, but i don't dismiss it's quality though. I just accept it's not for me...
To me Steve Vai is extremism for extremisms sake, as in "let's see how many notes we can put into the shortest possible time". That on the other hand is fully understandable, it's just that it's at the expense of the musicality, so we end up with bad and boring music.

[Zzzptm]

I've got the same criticism on Vai's work, for what it's worth. Just because something can be done doesn't mean it should be done.