I don't normally make a distinction between what I like musically (or in other words, what I think "sounds good") and what I like about what a piece of music signifies. One reason is that whether or not I think some piece of music sounds good is informed to a great degree by what I take the piece to signify in an extra-musical sense.
I don't admire mere form in music (and art in general). Though music has no propositional content, that does not imply that it's meaningless. I'd say music is heavily imbued with meaning. I'm not quite sure how else one would explain the possibility of irony in music, for instance. So what a piece of music is expressing is rather important to me, simply because it's value-relevant and I don't see any non-ad hoc reason for not taking it into account in my evaluation. Now, if music does in fact evoke or signify anything extra-musical those things are going to be so abstract such as to allow you to be justified in appreciating this dimension of music while ignoring the boneheaded lyrics (especially in extreme metal, where lyrics usually don't even factor into the actual experience of the music).
Regarding NSBM, I would say that boring, uninspired, and uninteresting lyrics usually appear right alongside boring, uninspired, uninteresting music. I find most of this NSBM stuff to be boring and uninspired in the same way I find most politically-charged punk music to be boring and uninspired. I do not really have any moral objections to appreciating NSBM. I just think most of it is stupid.
nice post
yeah i'm not sure i do think the same way as dodens and the rest. i definitely used to, but these days i just don't really care whether my favourite albums have artistic value. i'm perfectly comfortable, even happy with the idea that all judgments of taste are entirely subjective. i know for a fact that all the albums i love reflect my general attitude, tastes and 'biases' to a huge extent, that's entirely why i love them. furthermore i'm not sure whether terms like 'tastefully' or 'effectively' as used by dodens can ever be separated from personal tastes - there are cultural norms in place for them which give us the illusion of something higher than opinion but really i think a questioning (and at times outright rejection) of cultural norms is part and parcel of loving metal.
as for the topic at hand specifically, i don't listen to much NSBM at all because most of it sounds shit to me, no doubt because the great majority of national socialists are drugged up thuggish idiots. i actually don't have many cases where i love how a piece of music sounds but hate the lyrics, because usually bands who write stupid lyrics write stupid music, i think i said that before and it's obvious really. but in those few cases where the music
does sound good and the lyrics are obnoxious political bullshit, for example, then this is where keeping an open mind comes in for me. rather than just immediately ignoring the lyrics i'll try to reinterpret them through the lens of my experiences listening to the album. if i keep failing to resolve the conceptual divide (maybe the lyrics reveal themselves as deeper than first thought, maybe the music reveals itself as being similarly obnoxious, whatever) then i'll assume there's no unity to be found, and then i might try ignoring them, but i don't tend to give up easily. obviously it depends on how much i like the music, and how prominent the lyrics are within that music. if i really liked how bob dylan sounded (i don't, by the by) but i hated his lyrics then i'd have to be pretty fucking crazy i think. with some albums, many albums with clean vocals actually, the lyrics are too deeply integrated into the music and aren't extractable in the same way.
my point put another way, i support the notion of 'keeping an open mind' but i don't believe that requires putting aside my own values, preferences, perspectives, but rather by giving an album every chance to appeal to my ways of thinking, even develop them (which the best albums do, i think). my favourite albums are often ones i have a strong negative reaction to upon first listen, but i try to look at them in every way possible, lyrics included. what i
don't do is try to think of them purely in terms of how well they achieve what they set out to achieve - i very much analyse albums in relation to myself, as in i analyse my personal experiences listening to them, not in relation to some 'objective' measure of quality i don't know or care about.
i suppose my question to you guys is: if you had a completely unchristian mindset, and a piece of music is uber-tastefully, uber-effectively christian (i don't just mean lyrically, everything about the music reflects christian views to a tee), would it become one of your favourite albums? i'm pretty certain it wouldn't for me, whereas i think if i approached music like dodens then it probably would.
i hope somebody reads this muddled rambling its like my longest post in a year
good point and with what you said I gotta agree with it and changed my mind on racism in music/art
