Metal is problematic

Submitted by deckardsdream in Music

I'm white and I love metal. Lots of my favorite bands are literally the worst though. When I say that I am speaking specifically of nsbm, death metal, and industrial bands.

Half of me wants to make a rabm band in protest to the nsbm bands but the other half of me feels like that would only be a statement to a niche group of people, and to the rest of the world it would be another school shooter band.

That said, there is this other half of me, yes I am 3 halves, that listens to the music as a constant reminder of how disgusting and putrid aspects of the world are. As my gay ass, yes I am gay, sits in my room listening to Abusrd, it's extremely depressing, but at the same time it kind of gives me the energy to continue supporting the (queer) community. As I listen to Arghoslent on the bus I dig the tunes but can't help but be disgusted by the racism, this too is motivation. It's motivation to punch a Nazi!

I guess what I am getting at is, am I broken? Am I a self-hating racist gayboy? Are there others who have similar struggles? I don't want to stop listening to all of this music but it's really been hard this last year and as the pandemic continues it's not helping. I barely listen to metal any more and it's fucking annoying.

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ab5 wrote

Why would you listen to nsbm? I can't bring myself to listen to any band with racist or misogyny themes or members, much less literal nazis. There is an absurd amount of music out there, so maybe you can try stepping out of your classics and find less problematic sounds that are great. We could use this forum or any other one to share our findings.

Also note that if you are streaming that stuff, you are giving them money and exposure. If you already have the stuff pirated I guess the case is less clear.

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deckardsdream OP wrote

Because when I was a lot younger I didn't know then as I learned about the gross shit I was like 'who cares, that's the band is like, not me.' As I got older it's started to impact me more.

I also know a huge amount of bands that I enjoy, politically and sonically. But doest it really matter when my neighbours see a white dude blasting metal and feel threatened? That notion is why I made the claim of metal being problematic in general.

Good call on the streaming. I do not stream it though. I've downloaded all this stuff from various people on Soulseek.

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thelegendarybirdmonster wrote

Lots of metal bands carry a humanist and loving message. Just don't listen to the racist ones.

Gojira for example are pretty wholesome, and trivium is pretty cool too. ETHS is cool too.

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rot wrote

dawn ray'd, feminazbol, baneblade, sankara, antichrist siege machine,

and that's just explicitly leftist/antifascist metal

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deckardsdream OP wrote

I've never heard of ETHS, I'll have to check them out.

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thelegendarybirdmonster wrote

Whoops I got them confused with OTEP.

ETHS is still a cool band thought. They're part of the soundtrack of my adolescence. I hope you like them.

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malvarosa wrote (edited )

I deal with similar issues, although nothing I listen to is quite as overt as what you’re describing.

Sucks because it seems nearly everything is problematic, especially if your tastes are cursed like mine and you love mostly old things. Misogyny, racism, gender binary, and heteronormativity are virtually inescapable in old films and music. I try to balance my indignation for these things with a wholesome/anti fascist palate cleanser. It’s nice to have a playlist like this on hand for when you need a reboot.

I had a pirated copy of skrewdriver’s first album, before they came out as fascists. I copied that cd (real compact disc hours) so many times until my copy finally became unreadable.

Shamefully, I tried to find it online (for free of course) and it was actually really difficult for me to find in my halfhearted 10-15 minute search (not tech savvy whatsoever—remember cds).

I was comforted by this. Even though I think that album is one of the best punk records of all time: fuck those dudes! They deserve to be deplatformed into obscurity! Whatever pleasure I may have gotten out of it is ultimately not worth lending fascists any more exposure. And that first album is no doubt an entry point for their abhorrent work that followed.

But then I absolutely listen to problematic rap. I just have to assume that we are all doing our best with what we’ve got and being mindful of the garbage we consume. And your best might actually be one third greater than everyone else since you are in fact 3 halves of a person!!

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NOISEBOB wrote

i dunno.. "filosofem" is pretty good. i listen to it from time to time, for historical reasons.

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monday wrote

Maybe is not the genre itself (metal) but this niche nsbm thing.

A couple of weeks ago I found that a band, Negro Terror, was doing versions from nazi bands as a way to reappropriate the scene. Sure they did some changes in the lyrics. Anyways my point is, one thing is the symbolic act of supporting nazis by listen to their garbage and propagating it (like user/ab5 said about streaming), and other thing is at personal level you listening this shit to achieve some mood.

About the second one, maybe is hard to change with the age, as we have some formative years that leave some imprints in our tastes, as for myself I am stuck with 90's rap and it's misogyny and homophobia and toxic masculinity, but I am stuck because I choose to ignore some more problematic songs.

And always with this kind of comment we are giving advices from a stranged position. I for example (the only good example I have) deal with this toxic masculinity everyday, and why I have those feelings and etxc.

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catachresis wrote

Make music for yourself, not for other people. Anti fascist black metal would be cool and I’m sure a lot of metal fans like you would appreciate the change.

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deckardsdream OP wrote

That's what RABM (red and anarchist black metal) is and it's awesome.

Some bands I really enjoy:

  • Alda
  • Skagos
  • Panopticon
  • Fauna
  • Wolves in the Throne Room
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tabby wrote

Take this with a grain of salt because I'm new to this style of music, but most stoner/doom/sludge metal I've come across seems alright as far as not being racist or hateful or anything (unless I'm just not catching it). Everyone feel free to let me know if there's any prominent bands in those genres that do support that stuff that I should be aware of.

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free_appalachia wrote

stoner doom is one of the most problematic sub-genres of metal I would say, with bands like bongzilla and eyehategod constantly flying confederate flags. That's actually become a staple of that genre and I can't look the other way with that shit. I feel like the best you are gonna do with heavy stoner stuff is electric wizard, which seems more or less apolitical.

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deckardsdream OP wrote

Hahaha I would say you are right about stoner/doom/sludge. I do love me some doom metal

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free_appalachia wrote

Skagos(https://skagos.bandcamp.com/) is an amazing RABM band. I totally understand why OP is upset though. Agalloch was one of my favorite bands for years until one of the members took to FB to make anti-semitic remarks. I am continuously disappointed when I find out about the politics held by a lot of my favorite metal bands. At least Crust/Dbeat is a pretty safe genre as far as heavy music goes, bands like Tragedy, From Ashes Rise, Nausea, etc have a lot of dark metal influence and within Doom there are bands like Yob that seem to promote some positive messaging. Death Metal seems even worse than Black Metal, though often bands seem apolitical at first and then subtly introduce hateful imagery and claim artistic license to do so. It gets tolerated way too much for the sake of music we like and don't want to think too much about. I stick to bands that don't maintain racist pedagogy or propaganda at this point. It's crucial to promote music with messages that we agree with over hateful artists. I think Amerikkka has shown what happens when you let that shit slide for a decade or two. It seeps out of artistic expression and into the mainstream collective consciousness. Now open racism is further justified by these pieces of art that serve as a monument to the ideologies they represent. It's not too much of a burden to find very talented musicians that don't ascribe to hateful ideologies, so just do that. In addition to skagos, check out iskra, a cloud forest, contravene, sorgsvart, martyrdod, ash borer, dodsangel, gulag, I'm sure others can expand on this.

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deckardsdream OP wrote

Skagos will probably be one of my favorite bands until I die. I got to see Ash Borer in Seattle a long ass time ago, it was cool but it sounded like there was way too much reverb either in their mix or in the venue; love the bad regardless though.

I have heard of a lot of the groups in that list thought so fuck yeah, thanks!

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