Heavy Metal - Controversies and Countercultures - Titus Hjelm
Extreme music for extreme people? Norwegian black metal and transcendent violence
Heavy Metal - Controversies and Countercultures - Titus Hjelm
Michelle Phillipov
University of Tasmania
Description
This chapter focuses on the events of the Norwegian black metal scene in the early 1990s, a period in which violent aesthetics in metal music became explicitly and deliberately articulated to real acts of violence. Concentrating on the musical and criminal activities of the band Emperor, the author suggests that the group’s success was, at least in part, the result of members’ simultaneous promotion and disavowal of their involvement in violent crime.