First, thanks to everyone who contributed a constructive reply.
Secondly, some minorities do listen to and appreciate Skrewdrivers overtly racist material; the S. Korean band Samchung covered a song from this era of Skrewdriver.
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surely it's not logical to compare and relate biography to content so much that the core meaning of any song lyrics are defined by content.
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When judging art, I tend to favor content over biography when critiquing, but not to the complete exclusion of biography. Granted, this shouldn't always be the case, but I firmly stand behind O. Wilde's statement that biography is the lowest form of criticism, particularly in regards to contempory art.
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You can only judge a piece of music / art by what you're given from the artist. It's obvious that SOD gave us a joke while Skrewdriver expressed a distinct, serious political philosophy. Both of these facts are informative.
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Agreed, the intent of these artists (SOD & Skrewdriver) is different, and that intent is important; but when people rail against post-1st album Skrewdriver because of the lyrical content, state their admiration for SOD and then proclaim the 1st album & prior Skrewdriver material acceptable, there appears to be a lack of continuity.
Why? Because the intent of Skrewdriver did not change; but their method of presenting themselves (primarily) lyrically did. So to draw a line in the sand, and proclaim this Skrewdriver ok & this Skrewdriver bad because of "racially offensive lyrical content", and then proclaim S.O.D. acceptable because of the difference of intent.... that's inconsistent.
Now, I'm all for some measured inconsistency, but when people blithely present themselves as morally superior because they don't listen to album X or band Y and then present an ill conceived argument as to why.... it's annoys me, quite a lot.
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And the public's PERCEPTION of the music (which I know you are not stupid enough to give much credence) matters, but only slightly.
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This is a difficult statement. I agree that in most cases popular public opinion has little resonance in the culture of underground music; however, there is group think in the underground, and certain popular cultural ideals remain cherished holy cows in the underground.
I'd like to discuss this later, as I don't think a thread on Skrewdriver is an appropriate venue, and (more importantly) I've yet to clearly make sense of it to myself. But there is a weird phenomenon wherein persons such as Buzz find it acceptable to listen to Burzum but not Skrewdriver... and I don't get it.