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‘From the Dark Past’: Historiographies of Violence in Norwegian Black Metal

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Researching Subcultures, Myth and Memory

Abstract

In this chapter, Hagen explores the ways in which the violence and media spectacle of black metal in Norway has continued to haunt the genre’s history even as many of the style’s practitioners attempt to downplay it and move beyond it. Acknowledging that for many fans, the violent origin story has become an essential aspect of the subculture’s identity, gaining mythical aspects through the constant retelling of it, Hagen is left to wonder how to accurately portray the essence and je ne sais quoi of this musical subculture without ignoring its nastier aspects or engaging in an apologia for them.

Tell me what did you see there? In the darkness of the past…

—Mayhem, ‘From the Dark Past’ (1994)

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Notes

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    The comments on the YouTube page hosting the documentary generally poke fun at the corpse-painted concert goers, although some commenters express nostalgia for the seriousness of youth. Maryljan, ‘Black Metal (1998) Documentary Belgium (with ENG subtitles)’, 10 March 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mENpzyfENhQ. [Accessed on 24 September 2018].

  43. 43.

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  46. 46.

    B. Teitelbaum, Lions of the North: Sounds of the New Nordic Radical Nationalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017) provides an evocative example of ethnography in this vein. This potential political tension between subject and researcher may account at least in part for the popularity of American black metal bands like Wolves in the Throne Room and Panopticon as research subjects, as these bands eschew right-wing nationalism in favor of environmentalism and more progressive ideals.

  47. 47.

    A. Brown, ‘A Manifesto for Metal Studies: Or Putting the “Politics of Metal” in its Place’, Metal Music Studies vol. 4 (2018) no. 2, 343–363.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Utah Valley University, Orem, UT, USA

    Ross Hagen

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  1. Ross Hagen
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Correspondence to Ross Hagen .

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  1. Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Bart van der Steen

  2. Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Thierry P.F. Verburgh

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Hagen, R. (2020). ‘From the Dark Past’: Historiographies of Violence in Norwegian Black Metal. In: van der Steen, B., Verburgh, T. (eds) Researching Subcultures, Myth and Memory. Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41909-7_8

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