Ideological Relevance of Black Metal

WeAreInFlames said:
Not really reading the entire thread, but pretty sure this hasn't been brought up: could there be entirely instrumental black metal? No lyrics or vocals at all, song titles and a band name devoid of any ideological significance. Basically, no attitude or ideology behind the music at all. Could it still be black metal?

I think the answer is really obviously yes, but you guys keep talking about how BM is defined by lyrics/attitude/ideology, so I'm curious how you'll answer this.
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Pretty much what I said as well. Even though there is some kind of ideology behind black metal (although not a single one but a collection of different ideologies) they are not necessary for the creation of black metal music.

I am sure a composer from another genre of music would be able to write a good black metal song with the same kind of feelings invoked without having a black metal ideology behind it. Im guessing alot of black metal bands are like this as well - not really ideological that is. Its just an image - not for all but for some. Does it make their music less black metal. Not according to me.

Einherjar86 said:
Furthermore, I don't think that "pagan" or "folk" black metal acts deviate all that much from the ideologies that have been previously mentinoed (i.e. "voice of dissent," "anti-conformity," etc.). Does black metal mentality have to exhibit an aversion to all forms of spiritual belief? I'd suggest that pagan lyrics harbor just as much dissent as strictly secular lyrics.
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In a way youre right. Pagan lyrics do attack modern thinking and in todays society are seen as rebelliour. However, pagan bands in general seem to support a positive and constructive idea. Preserving nature, going back to a more natural way of living and relating to other people (morals even!) etc. Other black metal bands try to make sense of a totally destructive ideology - self-hate, hatred of this world - a wish to destroy everything etc.

Burzums album "belus" is meant to be inspiring and constructive. It does not deal with any traditional black metal ideology. Still most consider it black metal. Why? Because the instrumentation sounds like black metal.
 
Anyone who thinks that the original ideologies didn't have any effect on the genre's aesthetics is a massive fucking retard.
 
Do you have reading comprehension problems or something? That's not what he was saying at all. What he's saying is the original ideologies don't matter in determining if a band is black metal nowadays. We're talking about music here guy. All music is is sound. If band a sounds exactly like band b but band a are satanist fags and band b are christians, it doesn't matter, they're both black metal. They still play the same style of music, they just have different ideologies associated with themselves.

What is so hard to understand about that?
 
Specific ideologies influenced black metal to sound the way it does. I'm not even saying that black metal is restricted to one ideology but Christianity is so ridiculously contradictory to the original ideologies of black metal that it cannot be implemented and still be referred to as such. To assume a band can be considered black metal based on mere aesthetics is a very superficial judgment and doing the genre a disservice. I don't think you understand how different black metal is from other metal genres.
 
I think the real question is... why would anyone make christian themed "black metal" in the first place? Like what's the point of such a thing?
 
I think that comes more from a lack of total band count for quality to come from more than the idealogy. That goes for religious music in general, there isn't as much money there, so even "religious" people aren't generally going to put that idealogy into their music, if they want to be more available.
 
I feel like no matter how good it might be it would just feel so contrived, going against everything black metal is basically. I love pagan/naturey whatever black metal, but like... come on... christian?
 
Well, from a monotheistic standpoint, since music is mathmatical, it would stand to [reason] that god created the possibility of the black metal equation.
 
Dakryn said:
I think that comes more from a lack of total band count for quality to come from more than the idealogy. That goes for religious music in general, there isn't as much money there, so even "religious" people aren't generally going to put that idealogy into their music, if they want to be more available.
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Yeah well I can't imagine why a band would even think of having a Christian ideology combined with the aesthetics of black metal other than for the sake of being ironic. The music suffers as a result of the ideology, not to mention something I wouldn't be able to take seriously to begin with.
 
I think there might be a niche there for a humorous BM christian band but that'd be about it..come to think of it,it would be fucking hilarious.Overtly Christian BM lol
 
as a thought experiment, let's imagine a band starts that bears a very strong resemblance to Dark Throne. This band has pictures of themselves in black and white, corpsepaint, in the woods and cemetaries. And they sing in Norwegian. There are plenty of blastbeats and tremolo picking riff sections to accompany shrieked vocals. Let's say you don't know Norwegian, and unbeknownst to you, the band's lyrics deal with christian history, folklore and beliefs. Even though you are unable to decipher the lyrics, they sound a lot like early Dark Throne (but not Soulside Journey era Dark Throne, obviously) which makes you happy. The question is, if you found out they were not anti-Christian, would you still listen to them and consider them black metal?
 
ObscureInfinity said:
Yeah well I can't imagine why a band would even think of having a Christian ideology combined with the aesthetics of black metal other than for the sake of being ironic. The music suffers as a result of the ideology, not to mention something I wouldn't be able to take seriously to begin with.
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You wouldn't take any music with Christian idealogy seriously, so your opinion on Christian BM is worthless.
 
I think there might be a niche there for a humorous BM christian band but that'd be about it..come to think of it,it would be fucking hilarious.Overtly Christian BM lol
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Yeah i can see it maybe being done completely tongue in cheek like that but not a band taking themselves seriously and trying to spread the good word to all us uncultured heathens by means of black metal, thats just silly.
 
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