True Black Metal: Authenticity, Nostalgia, and Transgression in the Black Metal Scene

Abstract

Black metal as a distinct genre of popular music is characterized by a general yearning for authenticity. This authenticity can be expressed through production values, musical techniques adopted, and style of dress and presentation among members of the scene. In this context, members of the scene are presented with a dilemma given the demand to both showcase individuality in their taste and style while also conforming to what it means to be “true” or authentic within the scene. Due to these traits, “The debates surrounding heavy metal and the people who make it – over meaning, character, behavior, values, censorship, violence, alienation, and community – mark metal as an important site for cultural contestation” (Walser 1993: 10). This thesis explores ideas surrounding authenticity in the black metal community as they are continually reproduced through the negotiation of normative relations to tradition found within the black metal community. It will also analyse the policing of its borders, examining how certain identities and practices are inherently constructed as more “authentic” to black metal while others are underrepresented, and thus may be seen as marginalized. I want to discuss the problematic conception of authenticity in the genre, in particular its static relation to the genre’s history defined in terms of the styles of older “second-wave” bands (centrally those bands understood to be True Norwegian Black Metal) which are celebrated as the “hegemonic” form of black metal. As well as a discourse analysis of the scene in these terms, this thesis will centrally include a virtual ethnography of online communities for black metal fans. By examining the content and systems of distinction produced within these online communities, I will consider how the static nature of the authentic black metal style and associated “gate-keeping” in this community regulate how authenticity is produced within the scene.