Talk:Black metal

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Notice: Leyasu is banned from editing this article for a period of indefinite.

The user specified is on probation and has edited this article inappropriately. The user is not prevented from discussing or proposing changes on this talk page. This ban must be registered on the administrators noticeboard. If you disagree with this ban, please discuss it with the administrator who imposed it or on the noticeboard. At the end of the ban, anyone may remove this notice. Posted by ~~~~.

	This article is related to WikiProject Music genres, a user driven attempt to cleanup and standardise music genre articles on Wikipedia. Please visit the project guidelines page for ideas on how to structure a genre article and help us assess and improve genre articles to good and 1.0 standards.	Music Portal
B	Black metal has been rated as B-Class on the assessment scale.

This article is part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Metal, an attempt to improve articles related to heavy metal music. Please participate by visiting the project page for more details on the projects.

Archives
February 2002 - May 2006

Contents 1 Wikiproject improvments 2 Pagan metal 3 Merging the intro with History 4 Archiving 5 War Metal 6 Some weird stuff 7 The second wave 8 Sorry for all the blood 9 Third Wave?

[edit] Wikiproject improvments

Alrighty, while I intend to do some of these, I think it would do us good to get a list going of what We think needs to be done to get Black Metal into 1.0 standards (it is as of today a B-)

1. Lead - Seems mostly ok, a bit ambigious already got a better wording for the parts I find so.

The lead is filled with fluff. There's no reason to include a (false) spiel about how black metal is supposedly anti-idealist, especially given that black metal is rooted in Romanticism, which is arguably a form of idealism itself. Also, perhaps someone should cite a source for the idea that black metal bands consider racism "a form of philanthropy" (??). No one is ever going to agree about what black metal is and is not, so perhaps it's just best to avoid any generalist statement about ideology whatsoever.Egendomligt 06:10, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

2. Genrebox - Pages need to be made for US Black Metal and Eastern Europe Black Metal, other than that seems ok. We might want to add something about Scandavian Black Metal as a regional scene? Or rather might move Viking to Regional, and retitle it Scandavian, though this leaves the beginings of NSBM out and implies that their bands were part of the same scene.

3. Characteristics - My main problem with Characteristics is the listing of "Lyrics that take the form of pessimistic, Satanic, Pagan, or occult themes which blaspheme Christianity. Bands such as Slayer, Venom, Deicide, and Immolation overlap lyrically with black metal somewhat but are musically defined as death metal (Deicide, Immolation) or thrash metal (Slayer, Venom), however, Venom coined the term "Black Metal" and laid the foundations for later Black Metal alongsides Bathory and Celtic Frost." As there are Christian black metal bands by actual music styles Christian Black

I think it's good the way it is, as it says "Black metal can display" (emph. mine) before the listing itself. That, and "Unblack" has no real importance/influence in Black Metal. It could perhaps be changed to say that there's also something as Christian Black Metal, and then a link to that page... 81.240.173.147 21:53, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure where you think it is saying can in any form, the direct quote from the page is is that of "Lyrics that take the form of pessimistic, Satanic, Pagan, or occult themes which blaspheme Christianity. And its not just christian black metal that exsists, Wolves in the Throne Room have no lyrical base in pessesism, but are black metal. There mere fact that you can have these lyrics without it being black metal, makes me question the revelance of this, as you can say the same thing about other forms of extreme metal.Atechi 16:22, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

As "black metal" refers to the occult in the first place, the lyrical content is as important as the musical content in defining something as "black metal." Thus, there is no such thing as "Christian black metal," as while they may musically style themselves as such, their lyrics are far and away from the occult and from any sort of "black"ness. --Skullfission 08:14, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

4. History - What is in our history section after the third paragraph goes on a tangent about Norweigan NSBM (one that is repeated on about four pages), Additioanlly, the entire section seems to lack sources (or they are at least not cited), and to me needs to be rewritten.

I corrected some grammar here, but you're right, this needs major re-writing, especially since at the end it goes off on a tangent about the future of the genre! Maybe this should be moved; it needs some serious thought. Many fans have very strong feelings about what can be/can't be considered BM, and talking about bands that bring in elements of industrial etc. could cause some controversy. 41214 21:09, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

5. Artists - Seems good to me.

There are many more important bands that should be mentioned, such as: ildjarn, havohej, mütiilation, vlad tepes, vatain, nargaroth, behexen, 1349, etc.

Be weary, naming too many bands can lead to edit wars. People will delete or add band names just because they feel like it. I saw this happen on several pages. Emmaneul 03:10, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I am aware of that. However, some bands, f.e. Moonblood, are by far more essental than, some of the mentioned bands, like Blut Aus Nord, Arkhon Infaustus, Anorexia Nervosa, Antaeus or Ofermod.

I worry that some of these bands shouldn't be mentioned at all; if a band bring in industrial elements, can they still be considered BM? There is a big rift in the BM bands that are emerging now- some are rigidly sticking to classic styles and some are being much more experimental. Fans have strong opinions on this. 41214 21:11, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

6. Samples - We need to get some.

7. Misc - Can we take the NSBM section out? as a subgenre with its own page?--Atechi 16:42, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, i agree there should be some samples IMO. Darksteel 09:48, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Looking at it more closely, I think we can delete the history and subforms, rename First/Second wave Black Metal to History, and it would clean it up really well, imo. --Atechi 16:50, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pagan metal

While we are discussing the possible deletion of some minor subgenres, there is one that seems to me to be sadly ignored, pagan metal. There are a number of relatively well known bands such as Primordial and Moonsorrow that fit into this category, but no section! Pagan metal presently redirects to Black Metal. There are about 20 articles that link to pagan metal ([1]), so it must to have some significance, and should deserve a section at the least.

Back in December there was an AfD for pagan metal, the result of which was no concensus (3 keep, 2 delete, [2]). Strangely enough, I cannot find the article or section that was up for deletion. Would someone like to create this section? Or at least tell me why it shouldn't be (re?)created, if that's the case. IronChris | (talk) 23:54, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

[3] - dunno if it fits well in this article. It also has close ties to viking metal and folk metal. Spearhead 08:48, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

There's a lot of useless genres here. Pagan Metal is not a genre, is a stylistic description. Oriental Metal is similarly dumb, and doesn't exist. No one outside of Wikipedia references 'Oriental Metal'. Also, Neoclassical Metal or Symphonic Metal are, like Pagan Metal, stylistic descriptions, not actual genres. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.122.166.35 (talk • contribs) .

Yo, I got redirected here when I clicked on a link for 'troll metal'. I can't see why Troll Metal is more similar to Black Metal than it is Folk Metal or even Heavy Metal - Finntroll, Korpiklaani, TrollfesT - they don't sound very black metal to me.

i've heard people referencing oriental metal. Like Loudness.Miles 02:47, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

i havent heard of oreintal metal, but neoclassical i hear mentioned quite often--Frenrir1 22:01, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I redirected Pagan Metal to point to Folk Metal, as it isn't strictly a type of Black Metal. --Atechi 18:33, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. The only one related to it would be Blackened Pagan.

BTW, The Origins of Black Metal Publication > Articles > The Origins of Black Metal is a "dead" link.

[edit] Merging the intro with History

It is misleading to have the section labeled History start off with the Norweigian DRA.MA. I would suggest to either start off the history section with Venom, Bathory, ect or to rename the History to Early Norweigan Scene or something similar. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.15.181.90 (talk • contribs) .

I agree that a lot of emphasis is made on the Norwegian history, and that's not all there is to it. This seems like a decent proposal to me, there's a lot about history in the intro. IronChris | (talk) 03:50, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree and will try and rewrite the article in the next few weeks, there is also alot of repetition most notably "Venom (the original line up being Cronos, Mantas & Abbadon)." which occurs twice. Also the start of the "History" section and the "First Wave" scetion both add exactly the same info about Venom. I also think it would be better to leave out the large section about the Euronymous/Varg episode as I'm pretty sure there will be info about it on either the Mayhem, Burzum, Euronymous or Varg (or all four) pages already.

Another thing of note is that there was no recording studio in Euronymous' basement, I think the writer is reffering to the 'Griegenhallen' (Greig Memorial Hall)? which is a general purpose studio, not limited to BM. Another thing would be the 'Inner Circle' reference as Varg and many others have stated that there was no large organization as many of them didn't stay in the same city (Euro - Oslo, Varg - Bergen, Emperor - Notodden), it could be noted however that the term is used. I also think the NSBM section could be shortened to one sentence as there is already an article about it and the 'War metal' section could be added as a separate page or a page could be made for Blasphemy as "It is generally accepted[weasel words] that Blasphemy were the first "War Metal" band".

I'd like to know what others think of these ideas first?--XdiabolicalX 19:37, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Downplaying the importance of the early Norwegian scene seems foolish, as this was the scene that basically defined the second wave of black metal and its varieties. The history of early black metal is a primarily Norwegian one, unless anyone wants to point out similarly influential groups from other countries around the same time.--Egendomligt 08:14, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Archiving

This talk page is getting excessively long (133 kilobytes, the recommended maximum being 32). Would someone like to archive some of the old discussions? It's getting kind of a pain to read and edit, not to mention that some particularly old browsers (if they still exist) might have difficulties showing or editing such long pages. IronChris | (talk) 03:56, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Ok I archived it. It was getting much too long. IronChris | (talk) 17:09, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] War Metal

What the hell is War Metal? And why is it included on the Black Metal page? If it would be included any black metal subgenre it would be NSBM or Viking Metal. War metal it's just a stupid tag that some stupid fuck invented in order to earn some status. It's just stupid. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Viriatus (talk • contribs) .

Woah I can't believe "war metal" is still there... There were lots of discussions about it (see archive 1), but nothing was ever done. IronChris | (talk) 21:19, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

So are we going to delete "war metal" or make a minor movement group as suggested in the archives? I personally lean towards deletion of War Metal, it strikes me a poseur subgenre. Google gives Black War Metal 303, just plain War Metal is 128.000 but most do not seem relevant to the music scene. Atechi 16:25, June 23 2006

At the very least, it would seem from it would be better to place this with Thrash or Death metal, most of the bands listed as influance are death/thrash and in the section description it is listed as a Death/Thrash fusion. Atechi

Deleted War Metal due to lack of objectives.

[edit] Some weird stuff

"Black metal is a sub-genre of extreme metal" Extreme metal? I never heard of this as being a real genre. BM is a kind of extreme metal but I don't think extreme metal by itself is a genre. And the Extreme metal page is a low quality page. Refering to extreme metal is not a good idea imo.

"It garnered criticism from mainstream media because black metal supposedly embraces anti-Christianity, misanthropy, nihilism and sometimes racism and nationalism though not all musicians considered black metal necessarily support these ideologies, especially not the latter two (they are almost exclusive to the sub-genre of National Socialist black metal), perhaps because standard black metal ideology is influenced by anti-idealist philosophers who often regarded racism as a form of idealism or philanthropy." This is a very long sentence. I think this could be more readable.

"A distinct "rasped" vocal style..." & "Screeching vocals" I think one could be deleted

"Standard tuned guitars (In contrast to death metal which is typically dropped D and down-tuned.)" In Death it's not common to play in dropped D. Downtuning is common, 'dropped D' isn't. Emmaneul 03:10, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The second wave

Regarding Litany's edit: I agree that the article should cover the origins of the second wave wore widely, but except for Bathory (which is already covered in the article), the Swedish black metal scene was very small in the late-80's / early-90's and the bigger Swedish bands only started after black metal was already "popular". Claiming bands such as Lord Belial, Dark Funeral and Mörk Gryning as a major influence or originator is just a factual inaccuracy and blatant fanboyism, as these formed in 1993/1994. If you want to make the section to cover some important non-Norwegian bands too, please do so, but don't only add your favourite bands from your own country and make it look like Sweden was a key scene together with Norway. Most sources agree the second wave originated from Norway. Prolog 18:53, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Haha fanboyism? First of all they are not my favorite bands and second of all most bands. Both Marduk and Abruptum (and also Dissection if you want) came before bands like Dimmu Borgir, Emperor and Gorgoroth. Dark Funeral, Lord Belial and Mörk Gryning came during the same time between 1992-1993. I'm not trying to put down the fact that Norway was a big influence during theese years, but they are not the single one (just like with Melodic Death Metal from Sweden). Sweden was also a prominent inspiration in the second wave of black metal. Regarding Bathory, that band was one of the big influences during the first wave. I think we could cover more band's that wore important during theese years than just Norwegian and Swedish, like Samael for Switzerland and maybe even Sarcófago from Brazil.

The line between the genres of black-, death-, thrash/speed-metal were (and still is as fare as I consider) rather blurry during this time (late 80's/early 90's). Best regards - Litany 19:06, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree the section is too Norway-centric and should cover influential bands from other countries, like the ones you mentioned along with Master's Hammer, Blasphemy, Beherit etc. This shouldn't be hard to do as the section is still pretty short. I still think the article should keep the usual consensus of Norway as the most notable scene, as otherwise it might fall under original research and go against the few semi-reliable sources that there are about this subject. Prolog 21:13, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I deleted Dark Funeral and Abruptum as influences from Swedish scene as Abruptum isn't black metal at all and Dark Funeral wasn't found until 1993. Dissection hasn't really ever stated themselves as black metal but "metal of death", but I suppose it can stay there. I also added Finnish scene as influence, namely Beherit and Impaled Nazarene. Ofcourse there could be a long list of the smaller bands which have later become famous and somewhat influental from these two countries (Sweden: The Black, Azhubham Haani etc., Finland: Archgoat, Unholy etc.), but it's getting rather trivial. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 130.234.5.136 (talk) 15:33, 12 December 2006 (UTC).

I wanted to emphasize the significnce of Dead's suicide to second wave of black metal as after the attention black metal got through it, death metal bands started to be more interested in BM. These bands include Thou Shalt Suffer (pre-Emperor), Black Death (pre-Darkthrone), Amputation (pre-Immortal) and partly Old Funeral (Varg Vikernes used to play in the band before Burzum). Ofcourse some of the bands changed their name already before the suicide, but their style suddenly turned into more BM after it.

Also I wanted to ask if anybody here considers the Black War (the so-called "BM war" between Norway & Finland in the c. 92-93) worth of a mention? I could write about the incident. After all it had a effect on Finnish black metal scene (espescially Impaled Nazarene & Beherit).

I'd like to know why the Norwegians hated Beherit so much to spawn a band called Fuck Beherit. I've never saw anything about them othe rthan the Metal-Archives page. XdiabolicalX 00:23, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, I added the Dark War into the history section. You can check pretty much the same shit from Finnish 'zine Isten #8 (I can also send scans). And although the "conflict" can sound hilariously funny now, it was far more serious back then when people were being killed.

There also could be some mention about the murder commited by Bard in the history section and in general the article should handle also Finnish and Greek scenes as they were the two big scenes with Norwegian one.

[edit] Sorry for all the blood

Just a quick note; something I noticed, but didn't Dead's suicide note read "Sorry for all the blood" and not "Excuse all the blood"? Or is this just due to different translation (as I'm not sure if it was written in English or not).

It was written in Swedish or Norwegian, not that it matters because there was more on it than just those words as the media would have you believe. XdiabolicalX 17:39, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Third Wave?

I'm not sure there really is a third wave, but there are definately modern BM bands which are not second wave. Compare bands like Negura Bunget, Nokturnal Mortem or Arcturus with Transylvanian Hunger... Huge difference. I think something needs to be said about modern/"third wave" BM bands.

I agree, there's been lots of talk about French band recently, I'd like to see some more development on the paragraph about these "third wave" bands and the similiarities and differences. 41214 12:18, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not hugely familiar with modern black metal, but to me it seems like releases from bands starting in the late 90's and early 2000's differ greatly from early to mid 90's black metal. Bands such as Wykked Wytch (sp?) and others are being lumped into the black metal category, and recent releases from groups such as Enslaved, Satyricon and Dimmu Borgir suggest a much different sound than what they were 10 years ago. I personally feel, from my own observation, that black metal groups that are embracing more commercial or accessible sounds, or prog-oriented sounds (such as in Enslaved) or avant garde/ambient sounds (such as Blut Aus Nord) should be considered part of a third wave.