Black Metal

Black metal as a distinct genre of popular music is characterized by a general yearning for authenticity. This authenticity can be expressed through production values, musical techniques adopted, and style of dress and presentation among members of the scene. In this context, members of the scene are presented with a dilemma given the demand to both showcase individuality in their taste and style while also conforming to what it means to be “true” or authentic within the scene.
Due to these traits, “The debates surrounding heavy metal and the people who make it – over meaning, character, behavior, values, censorship, violence, alienation, and community – mark metal as an important site for cultural contestation” (Walser 1993: 10).

This thesis explores ideas surrounding authenticity in the black metal community as they are continually reproduced through the negotiation of normative relations to tradition found within the black metal community. It will also analyse the policing of its borders, examining how certain identities and practices are inherently constructed as more “authentic” to black metal while others are underrepresented, and thus may be seen as marginalized.

I want to discuss the problematic conception of authenticity in the genre, in particular its static relation to the genre’s history defined in terms of the styles of older “second-wave” bands (centrally those bands understood to be True Norwegian Black Metal) which are celebrated as the “hegemonic” form of black metal. As well as a discourse analysis of the scene in these terms, this thesis will centrally include a virtual ethnography of online communities for black metal fans. By examining the content and systems of distinction produced within these online communities, I will consider how the static nature of the authentic black metal style and associated “gate-keeping” in this community regulate how authenticity is produced within the scene.

Marginalisés depuis l’indépendance de 1991, les groupes d’extrême-droite dits ultranationalistes ont vu dans le séparatisme du Donbass de 2014, l’annexion russe de la Crimée et l’émergence de bataillons de volontaires un vecteur de renaissance. Parmi, eux le régiment Azov. C’est fort de ses succès militaires, qu’il s’est fait une place au sein de l’extrême-droite ukrainienne et dans le paysage politique post-Maïdan. Par sa transformation en parti politique (Corps National), son organisation, sa capacité de mobilisation de la jeunesse, l’originalité d’une propagande relayée par Internet et la musique metal, il a voulu rendre à l’Ukraine sa grandeur. Des projets et des représentations comme la Natiocratie, l’Intermarium, Reconquista, le nationalisme transnational qui sont nourris des désillusions, des crises politico-économiques et des grands mythes d’une histoire revisitée ont fait d’Azov, une alternative politique objet de cette étude.

Formed in 2009 by Conchur O’Drona, the dark-ambient project From The Bogs of Aughiska (Bogs) is steeped in the history and heritage of Ireland, specifically the County Clare region. As O’Drona explains, Bogs expresses “musically what it’s like to grow up in the West of Ireland”, as well as pride in “our Heritage, History, Culture and Environment”  – a philosophy manifest throughout their music, artwork and performance.
Bogs’ self-titled debut in 2010 featured County Clare residents telling stories of banshee encounters, while a split EP with Dark Ages, An Gorta Mor (2012) deals with the Irish Great Hunger (1845-52). Developing their folkloric interests, Roots Of This Earth Within My Blood (2014) features Irish storyteller and County Clare inhabitant Edmund Lenihan discussing decades of collecting fairy stories in the region, while Fenian Ram (2016) includes a version of traditional song ‘The Ballad of John P Holland’, part of two tracks exploring the life and legacy of the titular Irish figure best known for inventing the submarine.
Developing Biddle and Knights’ argument for the nation as “a crucial but ambivalent category for understanding how cultural texts and practices function in the construction of personal and collective identities,”  my presentation focuses on Bogs’ exploration of Irish national identity through the incorporation of folklore and traditional storytelling into their music and visual imagery, as well as their choice of instrumentation, melody, and lyrics. I may draw comparison between Bogs and other bands from the Irish extreme metal scene such as Altar of Plagues and Primordial, and discuss Lord Dunsany, the Anglo-Irish writer of fantasy and Weird tales, as a complimentary literary analogue for Bogs’ music (developing my pre-existing research into the parallels between Weird fiction and metal music).

Formed in 2009 by Conchur O’Drona, the dark-ambient project From The Bogs of Aughiska (Bogs) is steeped in the history and heritage of Ireland, specifically the County Clare region. As O’Drona explains, Bogs expresses “musically what it’s like to grow up in the West of Ireland”, as well as pride in “our Heritage, History, Culture and Environment”  – a philosophy manifest throughout their music, artwork and performance.
Bogs’ self-titled debut in 2010 featured County Clare residents telling stories of banshee encounters, while a split EP with Dark Ages, An Gorta Mor (2012) deals with the Irish Great Hunger (1845-52). Developing their folkloric interests, Roots Of This Earth Within My Blood (2014) features Irish storyteller and County Clare inhabitant Edmund Lenihan discussing decades of collecting fairy stories in the region, while Fenian Ram (2016) includes a version of traditional song ‘The Ballad of John P Holland’, part of two tracks exploring the life and legacy of the titular Irish figure best known for inventing the submarine.
Developing Biddle and Knights’ argument for the nation as “a crucial but ambivalent category for understanding how cultural texts and practices function in the construction of personal and collective identities,”  my presentation focuses on Bogs’ exploration of Irish national identity through the incorporation of folklore and traditional storytelling into their music and visual imagery, as well as their choice of instrumentation, melody, and lyrics. I may draw comparison between Bogs and other bands from the Irish extreme metal scene such as Altar of Plagues and Primordial, and discuss Lord Dunsany, the Anglo-Irish writer of fantasy and Weird tales, as a complimentary literary analogue for Bogs’ music (developing my pre-existing research into the parallels between Weird fiction and metal music).

Cet objet est une tentative de mise en
correspondance de différents formes et contenus
afin d’en proposer un discours visuel autant
que textuel. Il s’agira de pointer certaines de
leurs qualités à travers un terrain horizontal
monochromatique puissant qui en permettra d’en
révéler, je l’espère, ce qui en fait leurs spécificités
voire leurs substances.

Le choix des matériaux témoigne à la fois des
liens mais aussi des distances que l’on pose
traditionnellement entre des objets que l’on pense
ordinairement variés voire opposés. Ceci afin
de consacrer un corpus fertile où similarités et
différences motivent le regard porté sur les formes
comme sur leurs contenus. Mon attention en
tant qu’étudiant en design graphique a été nourri
de pratiques et d’esthétiques issues du champ
pédagogique et cohabite pourtant avec des
références complètement extérieures à celui-ci.

En un sens, mon rapport aux formes,
aux discours et aux idéologies se nourrit
d’environnements visuels différents, certains
diraient même contradictoire, discordant. C’est
donc en composant ses matériaux au sein d’un
même ouvrage, côte à côte, que je tenterai de
les faire dialoguer. Il s’agira de les mettre en
parallèle ou en confrontation au sein de la double
page, découpés en quatre section plus ou moins
poreuses entre elles. Afin de comprendre et
de contextualiser plus précisément le rôle de
chacun des éléments de ce corpus, la trame
visuelle correspondant à la partie haute de l’objet
s’accompagnera d’une trame textuelle dans la
partie basse de celui-ci.

Il sera d’abord de question d’esthétique et
d’écriture graphique, puis de culture et d’enjeu
musical, politique et idéologique et enfin de
considération éditorial et périodique. L’idée n’est
pas de séparer les différents contenus entre
eux pour en montrer l’éloignement mais plutôt
comment toutes ces propositions variées ont
investie des champs similaires, des espaces qui
leurs sont communs.

Black Metal is a heavy metal subgenre which emerged in 1980s. Followers and performers of the genre usually prefer to stay underground and not to follow mainstream. As a result and the causation of that, they have created an anti-modern image with their bad production. This was caused by either the financial pressures or on the other hand the rebellion against the music labels that tried to impose the modern understanding of music production alongside the band image. However, after a while this element has become a
“checklist” item and the fundamental things that created black metal were overshadowed by the understanding of “if it is bad production, it is black metal”. So in this paper, it is
investigated qualitatively that whether if the changes in the music market due to technological developments affect the Black Metal genre even the followers and performers prefer not to follow mainstream. The paper includes firstly developments in Black Metal genre will be analyzed from the specific documentaries and scholars. Secondly, developments in the music market in general are investigated and they are compared with the development of Black Metal genre.