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Do I even fucking know what metal is anymore? Did I ever??? It was not always like this, not like this. … … right?
I would say this problem mostly exists in black metal, and blackened subgenres. Not saying it doesn’t exist in other metal genres, bit it’s much rarer.
When I was in high school, the worry was finding a cool punk band and discovering they were skinheads.
Or you can not be a little crybaby
Reading these comments is making me sweat nervously because I made an 80s-themed submod for a racing game with era-appropriate metal music, and it seems that a decent chunk of the bands I chose for the soundtrack turned out to be fascist or fascist-sympathizing 😓
Wasn’t there literally a metal singer named Herr Warcrimer
Probably, I dunno what pointing that out does though, unless you think that it means all metal is nazi
It’s not, but clearly it is enough of a concern that people need to check…
The amount of rock musicians who are far-right homophobes is… alarming pretty much any media with Kid Rock or Ted Nugent has aged like milk
Just don’t worry about it. Once upon a time a couple decades ago, we didn’t know anything about musicians’ private lives, other than what was released through their PR managers. It was a happier, simpler time. After years of being disappointed with the people whose work I respect, I finally just started avoiding learning anything about the people themselves. Of course people who are idolized by millions of other people, have unlimited money, and are surrounded by yes men are going to be cringe in one way or another. I don’t want to hear about it, I want to enjoy my music.
Once upon a time a couple decades ago, we didn’t know anything about musicians’ private lives
Oh sure. Famously, nobody read tabloids or did muckrack journalism prior to 1990.
And there certainly wasn’t a hotbed of right-wing media focused on outing popular musicians as gay or slandering artists for being minorities or women.
This is my take, too. Do I condone their shitbagged-ness? no. I’m not guilty by association for listening to their music, which is practically free to me, unless I identify with their lyrics and stuff.
Some verified non-nazi metal bands, of various sub genres.
Agriculture https://agriculturemusic.bandcamp.com/
Witch Fever https://www.witchfever.com/
Nuvolascura https://nuvolascura.bandcamp.com/
Genital Shame https://genitalshame.bandcamp.com/album/chronic-illness-wish
99% of metal bands aren’t nazi. The only way it’s even kind of likely to find one accidentally is to delve into the depths of black metal, and even then it’s not that common
Gojira
I like Gojira too!
When looking for Black Metal, I can recommend the Antifascist Black Metal Network Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtjazZuy6AJ0rRtZ5bligMA
Also there’s Grimestone Records for Black Metal and some other miscellaneous stuff: https://grimestone.bandcamp.com/
Definitely did that with Sabaton
Bold of you to assume I know anything about the artists I listen to
I can’t be expected to research every individual in every band I listen to. That’s hundreds, possibly thousands, of musicians.
Art and artist can be separated. I mean, even this painting shows technical merit?
That’s some nice architectural art, who did that?
Not enough to get him into art school.
Damn shame, in hindesight. A bit more mediocre art on the pile could have spared us the implosion of Central Europe.
There’s definitely a timeline where he just paints paintings of government buildings to hang inside those buildings
Do you really believe that without hitler, the fascists wouldn’t have found another leader?
I think he was more talented at galvanizing an audience than Himmler or Goering, and prettier to look at than Goebbels.
In the same way Ted Cruz and Ron DeSantis will never draw the same crowds as Trump, The Dolph had that special sauce that congels people around a movement.
I can see a history in which Rosa Luxembourg was the firebrand that ignited a national movement but doesn’t end up invading Poland over some delusional vision of a New Reich.
For a middleschooler? Sure. For an adult trying to pursue a career as a painter? Nah. IDK if he didn’t draw guide lines with a pencil before painting or what, but that’s pretty bad on an entirely technical level.
Please explain how that could only be good for a middle schooler because that is obviously someone who is extremely good at painting
Hey that’s actually not bad at all
Nazis ruin everything. Just like how the Nazis ruined the skinhead subculture.
The Youtube algorithm just showed me a video about that the other day. I didn’t even know that they originally had nothing to do with being right-wing fascists.
My entire understanding of skinheads was “skinheads are fascists” and I never delved any deeper into it. Until the other month when my barber told me I should consider getting a chelsea cut, my gut reaction being “why would I want to look like a neonazi?”
But one simple online search later, and I went back for the shave. The original sentiment of the skinhead culture is slowly being reclaimed, though there will always be two potential interpretations of what someone with that style stands for, I’ll happily rock my skinbird cut at union rallies and antifa protective counter-protests when actual nazis try to raid our local queer clubs.
… Is google pulling up the wrong kind of Chelsea cut? You must have some interesting barbers lol.
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=h_&q=chelsea+cut&iax=images&ia=images
but that’s bing 🤓☝
Skinheads against racial prejudice – SHARPS.
Unfortunately any anti-establishment counter-culture movement that is predominantly white will attract Nazis. And these nazis sometimes don’t even know they are one. You even see it in some far left movements. There are people in those movements who call themselves lefties yet have espoused right wing fascist ideology
How predominantly white were the original skinheads? Because it was hugely Jamaican influenced.
For what it’s worth, Wikipedia says:
In addition to retaining many mod influences, early skinheads were very interested in Jamaican rude boy styles and culture, especially the music: ska, rocksteady, and early reggae (before the tempo slowed down and lyrics became focused on topics like black nationalism and the Rastafari movement).[1][12][13]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinhead
Which sort of implies it was a white people thing that was influenced by black culture but not when it was too black.
I have no real idea of the demographics though. I shave my head, but it’s because I hate sitting in a barber chair making smalltalk and I save money not doing it.
Which sort of implies it was a white people thing that was influenced by black culture but not when it was too black.
I can see why you might think that from reading about it in 2024 but I’d suggest to you that the tempo slowdown is the major factor. Ska is an uptempo party music. Rocksteady slowed the tempo down and Reggae generally kept the tempo at that slower pace.
Also there was a progression of people leaving skinhead for rock following more high energy bands like The Who and The Small Faces and going through the psychedelic changes into Rock at the end of the sixties.
The fans of ska had no problem with reggae, especially Bob Marley, who was collaborating with Mick Jagger in no time. It’s just they’d moved on from skinhead because the scene had become much more associated with violence. There was also the very deliberate efforts of the National Front to recruit football supporters during the early 70s heyday of football hooliganism. A lot of the people that were into violence were attracted to the second wave of skinhead just as cultural changes to the music in Jamaica and the UK meant that a lot of the first wave were evolving into mods and then some of them hippies and eventually you see the emergence of street punk at the end of the 70s.
As for Rastafarianism, that was not at the time a dogmatic religion like Catholicism or the Moonies but arose out of cultural immersion and community practice in the places in Jamaica where most of its adherents lived. I don’t think it is a matter of being too black, it’s just that it’s very specific to Jamaica and eventually the Jamaican diaspora.
Edit: It’s no accident that the third wave of skinhead was kickstarted by Two Tone and was explicitly multi-racial and also that Two Tone harked back to uptempo ska.
I HATE the small talk! My barber gives me a scalp massage too, really scratching it up, and that’s just awful too. I’ve asked him not to do it but it’s part of his routine and he does it automatically. My ideal barber would let me fall asleep in the chair.
to be fair, it doesn’t help that some very prominent “leftist” “feminists”(see TERF) are signal boosting Nazis, or how for some reason we still allow tankies to call themselves leftists because of American Cold War propaganda (this 1950s-70s Cold War cartoon said the USSR are clearly left, since they are “communism”, so anyone supporting these “communists” must also be a leftist!)
Left Auth is a thing…
yup, there is, but tankies aren’t it.
auth left looks like some form of highly self-regulating society, the problem is the inherent instability in this type of system almost always ends in auth right as a group of elites takes control, or breaks down into non-auth-left when motivation for said society dies down.
Then you’ve got bands that died in the 80s while at the time too obscure to be asked about POTUS or PM. For example: Brocas Helm.
I hear rumours they were totally satanists, and I don’t mean temple, but who knows what is true.
sEpErAtE ThE aRtIsT fRoM tHe ArT
Nobody ever says this about mediocre acts that are really great people in their personal life. You’ll never hear someone say “This song is kinda mid but thats because they recorded it while working at a refugee camp!”
Normally I wouldn’t care what person made the music I enjoy, but if they turn out to be a total bag of shit, I just can’t bring myself to enjoy the music, no matter how good it might be.
Its kinda funny how I used to see bands that had really good music and shit politics, because the political views were trendy but the music scene was very open and diverse.
Now I see musicians that suck absolute dog turds somehow squeezing themselves up and out the ass of the Billboard 100, because some douche noozle billionaire bought a million copies of their album sound unheard just to get them trending on Spotify.
Whether its “Rich men north of Richmond” or Whatever the Fuck This Is these attempts at music are comically bad. At this point, I would happily trade whatever leftist-ish club music we occasionally get as trickle down for some modern day Morrissey.
“Rich men” was a catchy tune though. You just don’t like the genre or perhaps what the lyrics say
“Rich men” was a catchy tune though
It had a catchy beat. But the lyrics were a muddled mess. Guy can’t figure out if he’s doing ABAB, AABB, ABCB, his stanzas are an absolute trainwreck and there’s some ackward repetition.
And the production? Some of the worst acoustics possible.
You just don’t like the genre
The genre of folk/country or the genre of whiny acoustic beatnik? Garth Brooks this guy ain’t and I don’t see him landing a spot in the Charlie Daniels band with that low energy strum.
Yeah i dunno bud, I ain’t a musician but I like what i heard. Least he sounded real, Garth is pretty phony sometimes.
Least he sounded rea
He sounded like he was playing a guitar in the woods. 90% of Bandcamp has better production value.
I really enjoy the tune of “Rich men”… Too bad listening to it makes me feel dirty
Something else just came to mind because it’s late\early and i’m having a insomnia. Remember when Alabama covered Tom T Hall’s “Song of the South” and cut all the lyrics related to being in favor of socialism and and the New Deal? IDK why they felt they needed to pretend southern democrats of the 30s weren’t pretty socialist, and lost the best line of “They oughtta kill rich men till they vote like that”
So he talked some shit about useless obese fucks on welfare. Drive around any poorer rural area of Virginia or Alabama or Montana and you’ll eventually find the parts of the county or town where the meth addled idiots and useless bitches with 5 kids live in a shitty trailer or rented house with a yard full of trash subsisting on welfare and theft. Apparently it’s only ok to make fun of them if you’re a progressive votes “properly”, not someone actually from there sick of it.
I think there can be a more nuanced conversation to be had about that, like say what “The smiths” were and what “Morrissey” actually seems to be. To be honest there’s not a whole lot of good art made by outward racists. None of those people will see a single dime from me but if you’re discussing in good faith i don’t necessary think it’s completely a dumb idea.
Meh, I personally believe in that but I’m not going to go tell other people what to do
i can remember back in the late 90/early 2000, that the right wingers pushed hard into the goth and metal scene here, looking for new recruits. it definitely felt like a targeted approach, and they did the same with the techno scene before (where they were mostly thrown out). they had more success in the folk scene, but they slowly gained ground over the last years. this sucks :-(
they had more success in the folk scene
Who could forget the absolute renaissance of ultra-nationalist country songs that inundated the country after 9/11?
I was practically begging for some Big and Rich just to get people to stop playing that Ted Nugget slop, by the time I was out of college.
Well, they had plenty of success with skinheads before…
Going back ten years to people trying to explain away Kanye’s BLKKK SKKN HEAD by pointing to the brief moment of time where skinheads weren’t all Nazis is pretty funny now though.
I dunno anything about the Kanye incident, but skinheads started and there continue to be non racist skinheads everywhere. It wasn’t a brief period of time at all.
Sure bro
Lol, sure bro
Ah got it. You’re just a shitty troll
They didn’t realize that most of the metal scene has connection with the punk scene, and the punk scene is full of anarchists and anti-fascists. It’s weird how much success they had with the country music scene.
Who would have thought that country music, which originated in the South, would be so receptive to white nationalism??
Pre-9/11 and Toby Keith a lot of country music was anti-establishment and anti-fascist.
Some, but for every Phil Ochs there was a Marty Robbins.
Or even outright anarchist.
I was gonna say, I don’t think metal has a higher rate of nazis. You look at country and you basically have to accept they’re all MAGAts (another reason to just avoid country). I think most people in metal are pretty progressive, that’s why they’re in metal. Honestly Dero Goi is a great example: he jumped down a conservative rabbit hole and left metal.
If anything, it’s just that the nazis are always a vocal minority and when they’re into metal it’s some confirmation bias for close minded people who don’t like metal.
No, the issue is that metal has a lot of iconography which outright attracts Nazis and the like (e.g. heavy use of crosses, mentions of war and sometimes glorification of ancestry, viking culture, classically western icons like medieval knights and the Crusades, etc).
We have to push really hard against their co-opting of our symbols if we don’t want “Skinheads: Metalic Boogaloo” to become a thing.
