Black metal, on the whole, is tired and cliché. The willingness of new black metal bands to live up to the old stereotypes have made it a paragon of mockery in the metal scene as a whole, and perhaps deservingly so. For decades now, the central lyrical matter, for most black metal bands, has remained unchanged; evil, death, Satan, hate, etc. etc. In essence, this all amounts to simplistic inverted Christian symbolism, designed to demonstrate opposition of Christianity.
Obviously, such cartoonish imagery is unsubtle and immature, and time has robbed it of any originality it may have once had. However, I believe that the detrimental affect of such imagery runs much deeper than this; by placing such focus on evilness, even as metaphor, black metal is restricting its evolution as a genre.
Allow me to draw a comparison for a moment to the 80s hardcore punk scene. Obviously, punk, perhaps more than any other form of music, thrives on being oppositional. However, following an early surge of creativity, punk became mired in unoriginality. I propose that this was because oppositionalism was accepted in place of constructive new ideas, and this was reflected in the refusal of bands to innovate; as bands were more content to say "fuck the government" than propose a new social order, they were more content to continue playing the same style of music that had been wrung dry of ideas, rather than develop a new and innovative style.
I believe that black metal is in danger of the same fate, but perhaps to an even worse extent, due to the fact that by placing itself as opposite to Christianity, black metal essentially succumbs to the Judeo-Christian binary value assignment process it is supposed to be against.
The effects of this are already most evident in the black metal scene: the vast majority of black metal bands are ridiculously unoriginal, content to rehash the same tired ideas over and over - and, coincidentally, much of these bands' imagery is of the inverted Christian variety mentioned above.
Of course, the situation isn't all bad; there are original, current acts in the black metal scene. Notice, though, that most of these have managed to develop a more intelligent ideology than "Hail Satan!", whether it be the romantic escapism of Summoning, the nature-worship of Drudkh, or the foul satire of Christianity performed by Deathspell Omega (there is still room for anti-Christian sentiment in black metal, as long as it's intelligent!).
I don't really see a solution to this problem; it's impossible to impose an ideology on every band in the scene. However, I implore any black metal bands that may see this: please develop some more complex artistic concepts than being "grim" and "evil"!
Obviously, such cartoonish imagery is unsubtle and immature, and time has robbed it of any originality it may have once had. However, I believe that the detrimental affect of such imagery runs much deeper than this; by placing such focus on evilness, even as metaphor, black metal is restricting its evolution as a genre.
Allow me to draw a comparison for a moment to the 80s hardcore punk scene. Obviously, punk, perhaps more than any other form of music, thrives on being oppositional. However, following an early surge of creativity, punk became mired in unoriginality. I propose that this was because oppositionalism was accepted in place of constructive new ideas, and this was reflected in the refusal of bands to innovate; as bands were more content to say "fuck the government" than propose a new social order, they were more content to continue playing the same style of music that had been wrung dry of ideas, rather than develop a new and innovative style.
I believe that black metal is in danger of the same fate, but perhaps to an even worse extent, due to the fact that by placing itself as opposite to Christianity, black metal essentially succumbs to the Judeo-Christian binary value assignment process it is supposed to be against.
The effects of this are already most evident in the black metal scene: the vast majority of black metal bands are ridiculously unoriginal, content to rehash the same tired ideas over and over - and, coincidentally, much of these bands' imagery is of the inverted Christian variety mentioned above.
Of course, the situation isn't all bad; there are original, current acts in the black metal scene. Notice, though, that most of these have managed to develop a more intelligent ideology than "Hail Satan!", whether it be the romantic escapism of Summoning, the nature-worship of Drudkh, or the foul satire of Christianity performed by Deathspell Omega (there is still room for anti-Christian sentiment in black metal, as long as it's intelligent!).
I don't really see a solution to this problem; it's impossible to impose an ideology on every band in the scene. However, I implore any black metal bands that may see this: please develop some more complex artistic concepts than being "grim" and "evil"!
