Just in preface, this is probably going to be my final rebuttal, at least for this particular exchange, because it's getting rather exhausting beyond what I'd anticipated I'd be entering into and, while it has been interesting, I'm just not prepared to invest much more energy into this particular conversation. I will probably explore similar ideas in the article on the subject that I intend to write, however, which I will more likely than not post here whenever I actually do write it.
Well it wasnt me who started talking about the "core ideology of black metal". It was others and thats why it is relevant for the discussion. And indeed you come back to it later in your post as well. It is at the base of this discussion.
Yes, "the core ideology of black metal" is at the base of discussion, but not the semantic explication of the word 'ideology.' I have already made clear that the word is being used in a specific context in this conversation, and that should be sufficient enough to proceed without continually needing to repeatedly go back to this same conversation.
In a way Id agree but the problem is that none of the foundation is very coherent and indeed it wasnt unusual for bands to hold opposide ideas in regards to what they were doing. So of course everything that happens now builds on what happened then and what people back then said but not all is in agreement with it. Judaism produced Christianity but they are today two distinc religions. Black metal had some foundations, even if they were loose in ideological content, and from that culture bands rose up that didnt share the core beliefs of say Euronomyous or King Diamond (and those two of course didnt agree with eachother either even though both called themselves Satanists).
There is enough coherence in tracing the paths from the black metal bands of today back to Venom in order to justify the argument that black metal is a genre that is defined by more than instrumental qualities. I've already (to myself) satisfactorily demonstrated the usage of unchristian/anti-Christian/Satanic (as deity and as symbol) themes in the black metal bands of the 80s, which showcases alarming consistency. I would imagine it would be quite a struggle to find a proper black metal album released in the 80s that did not talk about Satan. This Satanic/anti-Christian/unchristian sentiment
was the ideological constitution of black metal in the first wave/ the 80s, and it certainly remains in prominence in 2010.
What is important to remember is that black metal evolved in what I would describe as a way quite unlike any other genre of metal that, while maintaining all of the essential elements of the first wave of bands, so greatly expanded upon the foundations of the genre that their new contributions had to be retroactively attributed to the 'core ideology' of the genre. So the conception of black metal of the 80s and of the 90s are not the same, though the conception of the 90s contains all of the properties of the conception of the 80s. What was once almost exclusively an ad-hoc, unintentional artistic movement lambasting Christian values had become something much more involved not only ideologically but also musically and even managed to develop musical traits that have come to be associated with the term 'black metal,' something that never occurred until the early to mid 90s. But with the dawn of the second wave, the 'ideology' element in black metal in a sense became a series of subsets of miniature ideologies that all cogently related back to a single progenitor. It opened the door to a series of 'acceptable' avenues for exploration to such a point that it may actually be more useful to define the ideology in terms of what is necessarily excluded rather than what is explicitly included. There is still room for expansion in this department, as seen in many bands today.
What it is is a fuzzy fog of very loose concepts and what actually brought it together was a kind of music that brought use of the same core ideas instrumentaly. I believe that is why some see black metal as having a solif ideological foundation.
This is a curious statement, because the conception of black metal in the 80s was by far more universal on an ideological level than it was on a musical level (for reference, the list of songs that I pointed out in my previous post), but this almost flipped in a sense in the 90s, where many bands in certain regions came to have iconic 'black metal' sounds, yet their lyrics continued to branch out beyond anti-Christianity to incorporate new 'branches' stemming from the original 'tree.' You have managed, however, to more or less successfully describe the
nature of the black metal ideology; it
is a loose, somewhat unfixed, initially unintentional construct that is capable of expansion without implosion. I would say, however, that it is not the concepts themselves that are loose, but the conglomerations of the various concepts together that represent the 'looseness' that we both rightly observe in the ideology.
Although I dont agree at least Euronomyous was consistent when he said he regarded every metal band with Satanic lyrics to be black metal. I however judge music from the musical content and not the lyrical.
I'm not entirely sure whether I agree or disagree with Euronymous on this issue, but it is not essential to our conversation either. I feel compelled to stress that lyrical content is very much a part of musical content, however, though I assume that you mean to say instrumental content. "Musical" content refers to the whole song, necessarily including any lyrics or librettos associated with the song.
I think you overvalue the amount of thought put into Venoms lyrics. Cronos has been very clar with this. The first interview I found online quoted him as: "Look, I don´t preach Satanism, occultism, witchcraft or anything - rock and roll is basically entertainment and that´s as far as it goes."
And of course if we try to dissect Venoms lyrics to make it a coherent and consistent ideology we see that little actual thought was put into the lyrics. There is no cohesiveness or consistence other than the repeating of certain buzz words.
I could write a dissertation examining the coherent and consistent themes of Satan as a symbol of anti-Christianity, non-conformity (the goat is also relevant here), hedonism, and blasphemy in Venom's lyrics qualifies them as a 'serious' enterprise in and of themselves irrespective of the lyricists' ultimate motivations, but I can't imagine you'd choose to care at all. Lyrics have a life of their own, as do stories. The entire basis for their lyrics is Satan, sex, violence, hedonism, and metal. How is this not consistent or coherent? I would argue that Venom's lyrical output is
extremely consistent and coherent with very little divergence during the accepted period of their prime.
I bear the star of the Necromancer
My blood is black and my heart doth bleed
I am infernal and my mind's in torment
I'll raise the dead make the world unclean
Laughing as my Legions rise
Control the Zombie's mind
I hold Hell close to my breast
I'm leaving God behind
Ashes to ashes - dust to dust
I'll enter Hellfire - I'll break the crust
If I implied you said that I may have confused you with someone else since Ive been debating with several people here. No offence.
My problem is that people tend to think there is one common thread through all black metal. I mean you can trace back metal as a whole to Black Sabbath but it doesnt mean that every band actually say the same thing, plays the same thing or stand for the same thing they did. Sure black metal is rooted in anti-christian imagery and in alot of ways its still there. But there are bands that cant be called anti-christian because they dont write about christianity or relate to it in any way but they are still playing black metal. Having the same root doesnt make them agree on the concepts the foundational bands had. And to use TS logic there has to be an ideological agreement between band and ideology for the music to be called black metal.
There is not one common thread throughout all black metal
directly; rather, there is a series of directly interrelated threads representing the divergent and evolutionary nature of the genre's ideology that runs through all black metal. Not all members of a shared ideology need to utter the same speech. As I said previously, what is more essential in defining a black metal band is whether or not the lyrics suggest a fundamental disagreement with the established norm of the genre, not whether or not a band suitably enough conforms to those norms via some pre-established checklist. You are under a misapprehension if that's what you think we have been arguing for.
The idea of a core ideology has to include certain things to form the core. So far I dont even see a core in the first generation of black metal.
I do very well and truly believe that I have satisfactorily argued that Satanism and anti-Christianity are the core values inherent in the first wave of black metal. Every band from Venom to Mercyful Fate to Bulldozer to White Hell to Future Tense to Kat to Törr to Tormentor to Master's Hammer to Sarcofago to Sodom to Mayhem, ad infinitum, possesses this common ideological trait. They are so drastically more divergent instrumentally than lyrically that it's almost remarkable.
It is more a very loose set of rebelious beliefs stapeled in Satanic imagery (not Sataic ideology for the most part). I see the core as non existent and indeed a retrospective design more than anything else.
You are certainly right to deduce that the notion of black metal as we understand it today is largely a retrospective occurrence, but this is actually how all genres are formed, not only in music, but in all avenues of art or entertainment. Edgar Allan Poe was not aware that he was writing a 'weird fiction' story (actually that term essentially designates a body of writing that predates what is called 'genre fiction,' but that's another issue); nor did the vast majority of composers of classical music from the various 'eras' of sound realize that they were a part of the Baroque period or the Romantic period; nor did the Mannerists Raphael and Michaelangelo know that they represented a "post-Raphaelite" movement; nor, finally, did Charlotte Bronte know that she was a Victorian author. This is because, by the very nature of organically formed genres, they cannot be coherently evaluated until after they have already existed and taken shape. In other words, calling the black metal ideology, or rather tracing the path of the black metal ideology back to its origins, a "retrospective design" is merely to describe its very nature than to critique it.
