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Comment by eponeponepon | Hacker News Reader

NSBM's a difficult problem. For one thing, where do you draw the line? For every band that are out-and-proud unequivocal neo-nazis preaching race-war, there's another who insist they're apolitical as musicians, another who just want to "explore themes of our national history" (yeah, pull the other one...) and probably half a dozen who just flirt with the imagery because it sells records.

For another thing, this stuff is interesting - there's no two ways around that. Musically, it's almost entirely straight-up bad (when Varg Vikernes is the best a movement has to offer, you know there's a quality problem), but the cultural mechanisms that made it and the social history that feeds it is, speaking with cold clinicism, really very interesting.

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> Musically, it's almost entirely straight-up bad (when Varg Vikernes is the best a movement has to offer, you know there's a quality problem)

That's a very precarious judgement call, unless you mean the severely limited production value, which has become a hallmark of black metal by itself.

No, I mean half of them flat-out don't know how to handle their instruments properly, and even the ones who do are still using them to make art that is lazy, adolescent and derivative.

The production-value stuff I totally understand and wholly dig, and that's not why I lack respect for their music.

> half of them flat-out don't know how to handle their instruments properly

I'd venture to say that's in the eye of the beholder. A highly skilled, say, progressive rock guitarist could reasonably claim all of them don't know how to handle their instruments.

> lazy, adolescent and derivative.

I wouldn't discount any argument that would claim this is true for all metal. In a way, that's part of its appeal.

    > In a way, that's part 
    > of its appeal.

You're not wrong - and this is no small part of why it's a tough problem.

But I think those three are a bit of a "pick any two" situation.

It’s a tough question for sure and I don’t think there’s a clear answer. We can start by refusing to support the worst of it, calling out the friends and artists who do, and making it seem less normal and acceptable than it really is. Black metal has become such a safe space for it. Even the term “NSBM” helps whitewash it!

Edit: I'm not trying to insult or shame you for using "NSBM." Everyone says it, it's totally normal at this point, and that's the problem.

I have never looked at the term that way, but what you say is completely fair.

I seem to recall a time when a lot of that scene rejected the label and tried to claim it was "just black metal", but now that I think about it, I suspect they've collectively owned it these days.

I don't know what else to call it that doesn't either minimise it or need a dozen paragraphs' worth of explanation, though...

I think it's best to just call it what it is: nazi black metal or racist black metal. Anything else dresses it up. Even fully spelled out, "National Socialist Black Metal" has always struck me as far too sophisticated a label when you consider the content and the people making it. Most of them aren't threatening soldiers writing political treatises, they're sad kids LARPing as Nazis.

    > sad kids LARPing as Nazis.

Spot on. A description I am undoubtedly going to steal when the opportunity arises, so thanks! :)

Please do!

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