Did Venom really start black metal?

[Life Sucks]

?????

haha I was banned for a few days for doing that.


Back on topic. Back in the mid 80s, even if a band like Judas Priest had satanic lyrics, they would be considered black metal (Mercyful Fate, for instance, was like Judas Priest with satanic lyrics). Venom, however, had lots of songs with musical characteristics of what is considered black metal even today. It is not a large jump from such Venom songs to Bathory.

 

[Donnie Darko]

haha I was banned for a few days for doing that.


Back on topic. Back in the mid 80s, even if a band like Judas Priest had satanic lyrics, they would be considered black metal (Mercyful Fate, for instance, was like Judas Priest with satanic lyrics). Venom, however, had lots of songs with musical characteristics of what is considered black metal even today. It is not a large jump from such Venom songs to Bathory.

Thats my point, you cant lay the creation of black metal to a single band. Its the evolution of a sound caused by bands being influenced by past bands but also bringing their own ideas to the mix.

 

[skeptik]

Black Metal is more than a sound. And discounting Mercyful Fate is wrong.

 

[Manic Ferocity]

But speaking for the music itself (disregarding the non-musical aesthetics of black metal)...Venom and Mercyful are heavy metal bands having more in common with NWOBHM than black metal.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

You can't separate those aspects in this argument since they all add up to holistically become "black metal." That is what they are going to respond to that with. I do not necessarily agree but I've learned to not care as much

 

[Manic Ferocity]

Ha I know. The argument goes very easily both ways so it's next to impossible to make a point that can't be countered.

For the sake of discussion I'll make a point anyway. Other metal sub-genres separate the non-musical traits when defining a genre. What makes black metal any different?

 

[Rabid Headbanger]

How's it compared to Under the Sign of the Black Mark? The more similar the better, because I love that album.

Just hit up the official myspace. All the songs on there are from the first album.

 

[skeptik]

You can't separate those aspects in this argument since they all add up to holistically become "black metal." That is what they are going to respond to that with. I do not necessarily agree but I've learned to not care as much

You're blatantly and objectively wrong, and you know it, just admit it already.

Ha I know. The argument goes very easily both ways so it's next to impossible to make a point that can't be countered.

For the sake of discussion I'll make a point anyway. Other metal sub-genres separate the non-musical traits when defining a genre. What makes black metal any different?

Black Metal had a very different evolution than most genres of music. If this isn't obvious enough to you, then you should either do some more research or just stop caring. Black Metal is very different from every other Metal genre, and has been since its inception. It focused on ideology as integral to the concept itself and defined itself not simply by sound. This is what makes Black Metal different. As for Venom and Mercyful Fate being "very" musically different, I strongly disagree. I've cited this at least half a dozen times, but listen to Venom's "Don't Burn The Witch" and then listen to Bathory's "Born For Burning." If you define the latter as Black Metal and the former as not, then you're essentially contradicting yourself. Not only are the same lyrical themes shared between the songs, but SO ARE THE MUSICAL themes. Basically, if Quorthon had sung on the former, you would call it Black Metal, evidently, which means that your hypothesis that they are "very" different musically is wrong. Mercyful Fate is obviously a more difficult case to argue, but they are clearly an extreme outlier within the evolution of Heavy Metal to begin with. The progressions and stylings of Mercyful Fate really can't be directly compared to anyone else before them aside from obvious harmonic influences from Tipton/Downing, etc.

 

[Boiorix]

It's fairly obvious that there are lots of points of similarity between Venom and early Bathory, at the same time, a strong argument could be made that it is in the divergences from Venom (chiefly vocal style and the use of faster and slower tempos to elongate phrasing) that are Bathory's lasting contribution to the genre. Sure, you can point to tons of Bathory riffs that sound like Venom riffs, but what's far more telling is that you can point to lots of DarkThrone, Burzum, Immortal, Graveland, Emperor, etc. riffs that sound like Bathory riffs, and virtually none that sound like Venom.

 

[Donnie Darko]

But speaking for the music itself (disregarding the non-musical aesthetics of black metal)...Venom and Mercyful are heavy metal bands having more in common with NWOBHM than black metal.

Venom has aspects of both, the most black metal aspect of them is the lyrics and the raw production.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

Black Metal had a very different evolution than most genres of music.

This argument blows, seriously. How so? An influential band influenced other influential bands, who eventually created a typified sound (with multiple styles and geographical stylings such as folk influence and whatnot).

Do my research for me to convince me. I am of course very stupid and "objectively wrong"!

 

[Zephyrus]

Just hit up the official myspace. All the songs on there are from the first album.

I did and was impressed. The songs sound great, but not as dynamic as on Under the Sign...

Listening to those songs did help me further appreciate Bathory's claim to being the most important progenitor of the Black Metal sound.

 

[Boiorix]

This argument blows, seriously. How so? An influential band influenced other influential bands, who eventually created a typified sound (with multiple styles and geographical stylings such as folk influence and whatnot).

Do my research for me to convince me. I am of course very stupid and "objectively wrong"!

I think the intermittent nature of its development is fairly unique. Black metal developed originally in the early 80s, the big leaps are made by Bathory and Celtic Frost in the mid-80s, but the genre lay essentially dormant until 1991 or so - an eternity in recorded music. When it reappeared in the early 1990s, it did so on the backs of bands who ignored completely the state of the art to return to inspirations that were, in effect, two full generations back. That history is unique enough to warrant mentioning, don't you think?

 

[thisisaformicatable]

This argument blows, seriously. How so? An influential band influenced other influential bands, who eventually created a typified sound (with multiple styles and geographical stylings such as folk influence and whatnot).

Do my research for me to convince me. I am of course very stupid and "objectively wrong"!

Just look at what all the first wave bands had in common (hint: not sound). Not a familiar circumstance when compared with most other metal genres.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

OK, that is a good point, thanks!

 

[S<issors]

Formica that sounds like an argument for bm being an illdefined genre, not a unique one (uniquely ill-defined?)

 

[Boiorix]

Formica that sounds like an argument for bm being an illdefined genre, not a unique one (uniquely ill-defined?)

See my post re: black metal history. The punctuated nature of the genre's development, with it's periods of silence, of doubling back on itself, etc., makes defining it in the way you would a movement with a purely linear history rather difficult.

 

[thisisaformicatable]

Formica that sounds like an argument for bm being an illdefined genre, not a unique one (uniquely ill-defined?)

If "illdefined" means it's not defined only by developments in sound, then yes. But that's a pejorative term that has no place in this discussion.

See my post re: black metal history. The punctuated nature of the genre's development, with it's periods of silence, of doubling back on itself, etc., makes defining it in the way you would a movement with a purely linear history rather difficult.

Please elaborate upon what you see as the dormant period.

 

[Boiorix]

Please elaborate upon what you see as the dormant period.

85-90

1985 saw Bathory and Celtic Frost develop the basic framework of melodic tremolo phrasing and ambient percussion allied to elaborate compositions that used structure to mirror a conceptual narrative. Subsequently, Celtic Frost got the AIDS and Bathory released two albums that refined but did not appreciably expand upon their basic approach. No bands stepped in at that point to carry the torch, and, for all intents and purposes, Bathory was left as the sole voice in black metal (although there were stirrings in the depths of the underground - Mayhem, Tormentor and Sarcofago - there was nothing that sustained any real momentum). The period of dormancy lasted until 1990/91, when the Norwegian movement both woke the slumbering black metal beast and brought to it a level of self-conscious intent that had previously been lacking.

 

[thisisaformicatable]

Seems inaccurate to characterize the developmental period of the second wave as a dormant period. If anything there were more bands active 1985-90 then before, call it a lull in exposure but I don't see a need to force the first decade of the genre into a poetic narrative.

That aside this is most certainly not the unique aspect of black metal that V.V.V.V.V. was asking after, unless you have a theory associating this time line with the present controversy.