Distributing NSBM? I’m NAZI-ing a Problem
Brenocide is a metal musician and top-tier S-Rank elite centrist whose status as consistently above-it-all allows him to objectively hear out and logically consider every side in any major political or politically charged heavy metal debate.
First and foremost I just wanted to tell you that unequivocally, unconditionally with 100% objectivity: NSBM, white supremacy, racism, and all things “alt-right” are bad, wrong, totally fucking stupid and not worth an iota of caring or thought from anyone. I will remind you I feel this way seven or eight times before you are finished reading, almost as if I don’t quite believe it myself. Now that I’ve convinced you that I’m a good person worth hearing out and that I think NSBM fans, labels and artists are the worst, here’s a multi-thousand word, community college level essay on why we should give them exactly everything they want.
I can hear you exiting your browser now. “Fuck this guy” you brashly declare as you shun me and my opinion forever before allowing yourself the gift of genuine enlightenment. I still love and respect you friend, may you have a long fulfilling life and I wish you all the best in your journey ahead. I wish you this because I am a good person like you and I am not racist.
Are they gone? Good. For those of you that have made it this far, congratulations. You have proven yourselves truly worthy of ascending to the next level of widely awoken understanding. You are the one true master race of internet centrist. You are nothing like the limp-dicked, sand-headed, fairy heart losers who have catastrophically failed on their weak-ankled journey towards the one infallible truth I can offer them by ceasing to continue reading 23 paragraphs of me tripping all over my own point.
I said “sand-headed” because they have their heads in the sand, ok? Like denial? I am not a racist.
Recently Metal Sucks posted an open-letter by an anonymous group threatening to boycott Headbanger’s Ball if they don’t stop showcasing NSBM music or music that’s produced by known racists. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m pretty certain Hell’s Bells has been off the air for a while now, so I don’t get the point. I don’t have cable anymore so I’m not positive, but not even a level 100 bromancer like Jamie Jasta could save that train from getting itself wrecked. I do however, commend the anonymous group that penned the letter for pointing out that American Head Charge doesn’t always promote racist music and still has its merit. I find this to be true of the entire metal scene as a universally established agreement to disagree. I met Jamie Jasta before and the other dudes from Hell Patrol and they’ve never been anything but nice to me. Me being a white guy probably doesn’t have anything to do with that.
Now, you will need to maintain your patience with me. I’ve heard from a number of sources that anyone who has to hear me out on anything requires a lot of it. Heavy metal is historically a melting pot of diversity and ideas. Something like rap music is probably not, so this is what makes metal special. We need everyone involved and allowed in heavy metal music; especially the people whose complete reason for being is telling everyone exactly the opposite. How can we truly call ourselves an all-inclusive genre when we go out of our way to exclude people whose life mission is to ensure this is NOT an all-inclusive genre? Sounds pretty hypocritical if you ask me, guys.
Look, metal has all sortsa folks doing all sortsa strokes and you’re gonna have to deal. Some of us drink Bud, some of us drink Miller. Some of us like black metal, some of us like death metal. Some of us are married with kids and some of us are gearing up wistfully for full blown race war. You don’t have to like it, you just have to allow yourselves to disagree over some things. Regardless of their beliefs, these people paid the same price of admission you did, and they have just as much right to be there hate-moshing on people of color in the crowd as you do. How hard is it to coexist over our mutual love of savage riffs? If you’re a minority getting bullied at a venue you paid money to be at, just ignore it. That’s what my mom told me about bullies and mommy always knew best.
Mommy also told me that no one likes a tattletale. If you publicly shame an organization for endorsing racists, what does that make you? A no good, nosy, negative Nancy! Mind your own beeswax, blabbermouth! If little Robby or Ronny or Kristy wants to use music as a platform to recruit hatemongers in strong enough numbers that their right to vote and run for office ensures a legal landscape in our nation that panders to bigotry, and you don’t like it, just take your ball and go home!
Let me put this into perspective for you. Some people want every man woman and child of any given marginalized group erased from existence without exception. I don’t understand that and I never will. Some people think the band Finntroll is a good band! I definitely don’t understand that sentiment either. So I guess where I’m seriously fucking confused is how disagreeing over either of those things could possibly be any different? So what do you suggest Social Justice Warriors? That I punch every Finntroll fan in the face because I don’t agree with them? Yeah, ok, sounds reasonable. Punching people is the tactic of racists, and I am not a racist.
If a young, white, Christian man who was raised Christian in a majorly Christian nation and was surrounded by Christianity his whole life becomes an ex-Christian and makes anti-Christian music; somehow, in SOME WAY that gets a free pass! But if the same white Christian majority nation born guy wants to perpetuate stereotypes and advocate the oppression of Muslims in his country, all of the sudden it sends everybody in a tizzy. Religion is religion you gits, haha duh!
Metal music by definition is provocative. Its imagery is meant to shock and offend. It is extreme music for extreme people. It only makes sense that everyone in the genre should be an extremely dumb person too. And it’s not like Nazi imagery hasn’t been played around with before by bands that everyone loves unconditionally now and forever. Slayer proudly used Third Reich symbolism on all of my favorite t-shirts and accessories. How can we possibly have a legitimate conversation over avoiding/banning this type of imagery and behavior when Slayer was and is Slayer? Whenever there is an opposite argument of any sort and my rebuttal is “SLAYER” then regardless of topic, I have soundly won the debate. Just like always. Guess I’m not really a racist apologist then. Try again, ANTIFA.
Here’s some food for thought: What is genuinely more fascist in the whole wide world than someone trying to dissuade their fellow man from being a full-blown heartland fascist? If you’re impeding on another person’s god-given rights to take away other’s rights, do you really even care about rights at all? Guess the ANTIFA becomes the ANTIANTIFA after all. You hypocritical super fascists protested – no— CENSORED two or three metal shows that the venue owner probably didn’t feel like the 30 or 40 tickets sold over was worth the trouble and canceled. Someone, anyone at all, please do your very best to try to explain to me; how that is in any way worse than the Holocaust? ANTIFA are nothing more than real-life Nazis committing acts of genocide against a narrow base of underground artistic expression.
Censoring metal music of any kind takes us all right down a very existent slippery slope. Yeah, maybe Graveland is getting a show shut down right now, but pretty soon, Guitar Center is going to go under and out of business due to what can only be attributed to ANTIFA-related boycotting. Once that happens, say goodbye to all music forever, chumpkins. Plus, if all we do is talk about all the bad metal out there, then people on the outside are going to think that all metal is bad! If we don’t show all the pop, indie, country, hip-hop and alt rock fans that metal is pure and good, they might not listen to it. That’s just not a reality I want to imagine…
I also think it’s important to remember that art and artist are separate from each other. Beethoven is infamous as being an enormous, mischievous canine whose zany hijinks —while ultimately proving friendly fun for the whole family — could’ve seriously hurt someone given the size and strength of his breed. Regardless, his music is universally revered even to this day! Rob Darken too — in his own sort of way– is really just a slobbering, mess-making, uncontrollable Saint Bernard, but that doesn’t make the music of Graveland any less (or more) enjoyable. So sorry to spoil the ending for you, but he’s part of the family, and we’re keeping him.
If I’ve said it once before, I’ll say it again: I’m not racist. Actually, the grand majority of metal artists and fans are open, friendly, radical dudes who accept everyone in the genre all of the time probably. There are so many cool, easy going fellas in the metal genre out there producing good, fun time, innocent metal music. Which makes it all the more confusing that I decide to listen to NSBM anyway like I don’t have endless other choices. Let’s be real here, sick riffs are sick riffs. I’m not gonna let something puny like my core moral values get in the way of appreciating some tasty tone. It’s not like you have to pay for music anymore anyway, so what’s the harm?
“But Brenocide!” I hear you quack like a predictable penguin atop your idiot iceberg. “It’s so easy for you to separate art from the artist because you’re a white man and none of this affects you!” You’re actually right about that. I just don’t actually care. I want to listen to it anyway and you can’t make me care. I’m gonna come back and try to edit this paragraph to make my underlying point sound a bit more nuanced and intelligent. For now I’m just gonna say I don’t give a shit so I can remember to come back to this and flesh out that exact sentiment a bit more before posting this. Boy, I hope I don’t forget to do that, that would be embarrassing.
In conclusion, metal has always been about a confrontational defiance towards the mainstream norm. In that way, NSBM has just as much right to be a part of the metal genre as any other subgenre. The fact that you don’t like it just means that it’s working. Sure, white power groups are a specifically conservative movement that push to protect long-established cultural norms that systematically oppress marginalized groups to keep the members of the top at the top. And yes, these hate groups are essentially bootlicking billionaire errand boys who allowed themselves to be successfully distracted by the highest earning individuals at the top of this country who are ACTUALLY actively fucking them over; but instead opt to fight over the scraps at the bottom thrown to them under the table with their fellow lower middle-class countrymen over something as benign and totally fucking arbitrary as cultural background in the context of economic anxiety. But fuck, that’s just politics, baby.
Since most metal is combative towards the norm, being combative towards the norm in metal is now the norm. Therefore, since NSBM is being combative towards being combative towards the norm, they are being combative towards the norm by being supporters of the norm. Right? Right.
And hey, let’s be real. Most of these NSBM guys are mouth-breathing, acne-laden, near-sighted, basement dwelling, lip-touching, socially outcast ultra flabby losers who have never grazed a vagina in their entire pathetic lives save for the ones they plopped out of. When they’re not listening to or writing their nationalist trash, they spend their time cranking their yanks to all genres of hentai imaginable. So how about we just let these hopeless fucking dorks slink over their own jizz-encrusted frames in the darkness and let them have NSBM all to their lonely selves?
Oh, let me have it too. I think it’s pretty great:
– Brenocide \,,/
