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National Socialist Black Metal - how is it still tolerated?

My Facebook feed has just shown me an ad for the new Watain album on Nuclear Blast. The name rang a bell so I had a quick google.

Surprise, surprise - they've been been dogged by allegations of anti-semitism and links to neo-nazis. They've worn (NSBM band) Absurd t-shirts, the guitarist left after being photographed giving nazi salutes and they've put out records on Drakkar Productions - known for releasing openly NSBM bands.

Ugh.

How is any of this still acceptable? Why are well respected labels like Nuclear Blast putting this crap out? Why are ESP guitars sponsoring it? I don't get it.

I'm afraid I long ago gave up on Black Metal altogether - every band I stumbled upon seemed to have a guitarist that was in a band with a load of nazis or was on a label that put out nazis or they toured with nazis. Sigh.

PFM metalheads - what's your take?
 
You wonder (well, I do) how the Facebook algorithm worked out that you might be interested in such a thing.

Unrelated but similar - I was perusing Facebook marketplace ads for some stone copings to repair some old garden walling... the suggested ad following those - was a fat bird in Birmingham selling some dodgy looking lingerie.... how is that related? It was quite amusing - even showed it to the wife.
 
If it is an actual paid ad report it as a breach. I doubt Facebook would knowingly sell advertising to racist/fascist bands.

PS I block/report any sponsored right-wing/nationalist content and unfriend people who spam it. I just don’t want to be viewing it.
 
My Facebook feed has just shown me an ad for the new Watain album on Nuclear Blast. The name rang a bell so I had a quick google.

Surprise, surprise - they've been been dogged by allegations of anti-semitism and links to neo-nazis. They've worn (NSBM band) Absurd t-shirts, the guitarist left after being photographed giving nazi salutes and they've put out records on Drakkar Productions - known for releasing openly NSBM bands.

Ugh.

How is any of this still acceptable? Why are well respected labels like Nuclear Blast putting this crap out? Why are ESP guitars sponsoring it? I don't get it.

I'm afraid I long ago gave up on Black Metal altogether - every band I stumbled upon seemed to have a guitarist that was in a band with a load of nazis or was on a label that put out nazis or they toured with nazis. Sigh.

PFM metalheads - what's your take?

They're a bit of a complex outfit and labelling them as NSBM or neo-Nazis is too simplistic - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watain

My reading is they're out to shock and provide the usual "F**k You World" narrative of Black Metal and to do that they have adopted some nasty symbology and practices.

You could have made the same arguments about Throbbing Gristle, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division, Laibach...
 
If it is an actual paid ad report it as a breach. I doubt Facebook would knowingly sell advertising to racist/fascist bands.

Already reported. I very much doubt Facebook will do anything as these bands are relatively mainstream, repeatedly claim it's all a fuss about nothing and seem to be just seen as 'controversial'.
 
My reading is they're out to shock and provide the usual "F**k You World" narrative of Black Metal and to do that they have adopted some nasty symbology and practices.

You could have made the same arguments about Throbbing Gristle, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division, Laibach...

That is a very valid point. I know nothing about this band/genre so have no idea as to where they stand on the map.
 
That is a very valid point. I know nothing about this band/genre so have no idea as to where they stand on the map.

If you read the Wikipedia article, the bass player provided this answer when asked about the T-Shirt & Nazi salute:

"NSBM is a joke, a despaired approach of people who're incapable to comprehend the perversion and the insanity of Black Metal. They're trying to appear extreme and limit their selves in their conception to that kind of society, which describes something that we wouldn't care less about. F*** the world! Black Metal doesn't have anything to do with the world like you know it."

It could be that they got called out and were backpedalling furiously but that was in 2006 and it seems little else has happened since then WRT far-right politics.
 
You could have made the same arguments about Throbbing Gristle, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division, Laibach...

I certainly find a lot of the 'shock value' (yawn) nazi imagery used by 80s industrial/power electronics outfits unacceptable. Though I kind of see a difference between teenage Philip Best putting out a tape and calling it 'White Power' (fvckwitted as that was) and grown middle-aged men who have been using the same clapped out 'edgy' schtick for decades.

The noise/industrial scene also seems to be now calling out dodgy nazis - see Skullflower.
 
I certainly find a lot of the 'shock value' (yawn) nazi imagery used by 80s industrial/power electronics outfits unacceptable. Though I kind of see a difference between teenage Philip Best putting out a tape and calling it 'White Power' (fvckwitted as that was) and grown middle-aged men who have been using the same clapped out 'edgy' schtick for decades.

I forgot to include Whitehouse and Boyd Rice in that list as well.

I think your concern that Watain have slipped NSBM onto a major label and onto Facebook is unfounded. They're just playing with it all, as stupid as it may seem.
 
I forgot Boyd Rice and Whitehouse from that list as well.

I think your concern that Watain have slipped NSBM onto a major label and onto Facebook is unfounded. They're just playing with it all, as stupid as it may seem.

It's a more general question that I'm asking. There's a whole spectrum of dodgyness from a few 'controversial' racist/antisemitic comments made in an interview to out and out NSBM bands (good guide - have their records been banned from sale on Discogs).

It's like Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon - every other band seems to have some connection to a dodgy racist. Why?
 
I certainly find a lot of the 'shock value' (yawn) nazi imagery used by 80s industrial/power electronics outfits unacceptable.

I was always uneasy with it with Joy Division/New Order (both names Nazi terminology) and don’t see how it fitted with their music at all. I suspect they just got trapped in the whole ‘piss off your parents’ thing of punk where such imagery was used purely to gain a reaction. I see Coum Transmissions/Throbbing Gristle as very different as that was really its own thing and exists far more in a ‘serious’ performance art realm than pop/rock. A remarkably extreme one at that.
 
It's a more general question that I'm asking. There's a whole spectrum of dodgyness from a few 'controversial' racist/antisemitic comments made in an interview to out and out NSBM bands (good guide - have their records been banned from sale on Discogs).

It's like Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon - every other band seems to have some connection to a dodgy racist. Why?

There's a lot of dodgy racists about?

We're oversensitive and see dodgy racists and fascists everywhere?

We hold our musicians to higher standards than we did before?

We worry too much, it's only music?

I really don't know.
 
I thought this was a thoughtful piece.

Does metal — specifically black metal — have a Nazi problem? Yes. Is it complicated? Also yes. While there are genuine neo-Nazis lurking within the scene, most bands that fall under the “National Socialist Black Metal” (NSBM) tag aren’t dreaming of Hitler specifically; the semi-subgenre is a haven for of white supremacist, white nationalist, fascist, racist, anti-Semitic, misogynist, homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, and otherwise bigoted viewpoints, but calling them all “Nazis” is an oversimplification.

https://theoutline.com/post/7313/black-metal-nazis-church-burning
 
I see Coum Transmissions/Throbbing Gristle as very different as that was really its own thing and exists far more in a ‘serious’ performance art realm than pop/rock. A remarkably extreme one at that.

A lot of their fans, though, didn't get it and saw it as political rather than art statement. ISTR reading Gen looking out to the audience at one gig and saw them all wearing camo and the black / white / red flash armband.
 
My Facebook feed has just shown me an ad for the new Watain album on Nuclear Blast. The name rang a bell so I had a quick google.

Surprise, surprise - they've been been dogged by allegations of anti-semitism and links to neo-nazis. They've worn (NSBM band) Absurd t-shirts, the guitarist left after being photographed giving nazi salutes and they've put out records on Drakkar Productions - known for releasing openly NSBM bands.

Ugh.

How is any of this still acceptable? Why are well respected labels like Nuclear Blast putting this crap out? Why are ESP guitars sponsoring it? I don't get it.

I'm afraid I long ago gave up on Black Metal altogether - every band I stumbled upon seemed to have a guitarist that was in a band with a load of nazis or was on a label that put out nazis or they toured with nazis. Sigh.

PFM metalheads - what's your take?

You separate the art from the artist. I like the music of Burzum, Emperor, Dissection, Mayhem, etc all full of a good few reprehensible characters.

If I was to start listening to music based on who I would share a drink with in a pub, I'd be seriously limiting my options.
 


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