Quote:
Originally Posted by hip hop bunny hop
I really don't know of any other genre of music that's had explicitly racist bands so widely accepted by the genres fans. I mean Varg Vikernes has been put on the cover of magazines; and not just underground rags, either.
Anyways, explicitly racist bands aside, how many bands are there that play with fascist symbolism and lyrics? How much controversy has surrounded Slayer for "Angel of Death"? Or what about Malevolent Creation, who've proclaimed themselves to be anti-racist, yet ended an album with "**** you ******s!"
This leads us to the question of what can be called "coded language". Is there any point at which anti-christian lyrics and imagery become anti-semitic? What about when a band speaks of smashing the race of christ? Or when a band, even a multi-ethnic one such as Vital Remains, paints Christianity as both foreign & harmful? Then there's the case of bands who celebrate their particular (almost always white) heritage - such as Absu, or Amon Amarth....
I guess my general point is: we can argue about whether metal, in particular underground metal, is generally racist. However, I've very, very little doubt that the popular media would've no problems labeling the vast majority of these bands racist. I mean, if Don Imus gets fired for calling some girls "nappy-headed hos", how in the hell would they react to "Panzer Division Marduk"?
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People like Varg Vikernes appear on magazine covers because they`re controversial and a guarantee of magazine sales and that is all, sure he can be seen as being representative of black metal, but he`s certainly not representative of metal the metal genre in any way.
The fascist symbolism & lyrics are no different to the symbolism & lyrics associated with satanism and topics of extreme violence etc that a number of metal bands can sing about, its just an image and subject area to base their material around and again nothing more. I`d say the % of bands that actually practiced what they sang about would be a very small number anyway. The Slayer example is actually quite a poor one when you quickly dissect it. Sure they sing about extreme subject areas of which Nazism is one such subject area, but just look at the members of Slayer and you`ll see that 50% of them are of latino heritage, that in itself is nothing startling, but it takes on greater significance in a country like the USA where they are based, as they form part of an ethnic minority that white extremists wouldn`t see as part of their ideal society, for this reason alone Slayer can hardly be seen as rascist.
The underground metal that you speak of again as being anti gay or racist, largely centers itself again around black metal once again, hell these *******s even participate in the burning down of churches, proof that besides hating diversity in society, that they also hate the established traditions of society.
To summarize, I`d say it was fairly safe to say that metal wasn`t anti any of the things that have been discussed here in general and out of the 20-30 genres that make up the genre, only sub-genres like black metal and some other bands from other sub-genres would fall into the category of being rascist and homophobic.