"Fuck the scene."
Fenriz, Total Death commentary
Nine trillion bands is a problem. Nine trillion black metal bands is the opposite of black metal.
I have been listening to black metal since childhood. I would like to keep listening to it and discover new artists. They don't make it easy. Most of the time all I discover is flatlining creative betrayal.
My favourite artists made the music they couldn't find. Picking things out of a catalogue is a terrible approach. Without innovation, independence and bold ideas we wouldn't have black metal in the first place.
The members of Dimmu Borgir keep mentioning bands like Thorns, Darkthrone and Burzum in their interviews. Dimmu Borgir has never produced anything that feels like early Norwegian black metal. You can't just write something that sounds like it. Dimmu Borgir is romanticism.
Being the biggest fan of something doesn't make you an artist. Fanaticism is never the answer. Fanaticism gives you the same old crap over and over again. Community for community's sake is not the answer either. It will only enforce personality-driven, transactional bullshit.
What is the answer? The answer is a smaller number of unique bands and artists. That's what I'm always looking for, in black metal or anything else.
No comments:
Post a Comment