This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Black metal article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed Article policies Neutral point of view No original research Verifiability

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: Index, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5Auto-archiving period: 6 months

Red And Anarchist Black Metal was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 22 June 2018 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into Black metal. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here.

This  level-5 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Music/Music genres task force Black metal is within the scope of the Music genres task force of the Music project, a user driven attempt to clean up and standardize music genre articles on Wikipedia. Please visit the task force guidelines page for ideas on how to structure a genre article and help us assess and improve genre articles to good article status.Music/Music genres task forceWikipedia:WikiProject Music/Music genres task forceTemplate:WikiProject Music/Music genres task forcemusic genre Metal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Metal, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of heavy metal music on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.MetalWikipedia:WikiProject MetalTemplate:WikiProject MetalHeavy Metal Black Metal (inactive) This article is within the scope of WikiProject Black Metal, a project which is currently considered to be inactive.Black MetalWikipedia:WikiProject Black MetalTemplate:WikiProject Black MetalBlack Metal

Archives

Index Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4 Archive 5

This page has archives. Sections older than 180 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 3 sections are present.

Tip: Anchors are case-sensitive in most browsers. This article links to one or more target anchors that no longer exist. [[Tempo#Beats per minute|fast tempos]] The anchor (#Beats per minute) has been deleted by other users before. [[Authenticity (philosophy)#In music|authenticity]] The anchor (#In music) is no longer available because it was deleted by a user before. Please help fix the broken anchors. You can remove this template after fixing the problems. | Reporting errors

Black metal as a term and arguably as a cohesive style predates thrash and death metal. This quote feels innacurate. 45.50.22.129 (talk) 18:43, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the great majority of the sources state that Black metal originated as a style from Thrash metal, emerging alongside Death metal. And as a term, most agree that it's mostly associated with Venom's album with the same name, which was a Thrash metal one. ABC paulista (talk) 20:23, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Back in February 2021, ABC paulista changed the long-standing layout of the article, moving "National Socialist black metal", "Red-Anarchist black metal", and "Christian black metal" from the Ideology section into the Stylistic divisions section. The content was split, so now these movements are discussed twice, under both Stylistic divisions and Ideology. The change was not discussed, and I see two big problems with it.

First, it over-highlights these tiny groups of Nazi or Anarchist or Christian bands. Why should these minority movements have two sections each? Surely it makes more sense to deal with these groups in the one place, instead of having the content broken up and 'scattered' over the article?

Second, having these movements under Stylistic divisions wrongly implies that they're distinct musical styles. Most sources don't treat them as such, and even the sources that call them "subgenres" (a vague term) don't say that they're musically distinct. In a related discussion on another talkpage, ABC Paulista agreed with me on this point: "the majority of the sources in their respective articles treat them as mere ideological movements that can span multiple Black metal subgenres, and not as a subgenre themselves" ... "the majority of sources cite them as ideologies rather than subgenres". So why make this change and later revert my undoing of it?

I was the one who added a lot of the sources for these parts of the article, but as I haven't paid enough attention to the article for a couple of years, this change flew under my radar. – Asarlaí ^(talk) 18:31, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see any evidence in the sources that this ideologically heterodox strain of Black Metal (edit: referring to RABM) is stylistically different, so presenting the content about this subtopic as a stylistically diverging subgenre appears to be original research. Despite RABM being called a "genre" or a "subgenre" in some but not all sources--and from what I can tell, not the majority of sources that mention this term--according to the present organization of the article, whereby stylistically, musically, different strains of black metal are listed as subgenres, RABM should not be listed as a subgenre, because doing so necessarily implies a stylistic difference, and there is no meaningful discussion of this stylistic difference in the sources.—Alalch E. 18:53, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Some of the sources do claim that RABM bands draw inspirations from Crust Punk and Anarcho-Punk, thus differing from other subgenres that have no such influences. ABC paulista (talk) 22:01, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

While I still agree with you that these should be considered ideologies rather than a subgenre, both 3family6 and Walter Görlitz did partially convince me there that there's enough recognition of these as subgenres that should be accepted here (and I think that, as the biggest advocates of such view, they should partake in this discussion as well). And if they are treated as subgenres rather than mere ideological movements, that they shoud be cited on the subgenre section, and more effort should be put on distinguishing them from the broader ideological scope. ABC paulista (talk) 21:50, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I honestly don't remember that discussion, they can go under ideologies. Some genres are lyrically rather than musically distinct. Of those three, the only one that could be seen as musically distinct would be RABM, but even that is just typical, not always. if there's going to be an ideology section, it makes sense for those three styles to go there.-3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 22:24, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It seems most of us agree that these should be considered ideological groupings rather than musical subgenres. It's been suggested that RABM might be different because it tends to include crust punk elements or overlap with the crust scene. But as 3family6 points out, not all RABM bands have crust influences, and it isn't what defines "RABM". So I think the best thing is to go back to this layout, but keep one line about RABM in the Blackened crust section. – Asarlaí ^(talk) 10:08, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm okay with any resolution, as long as we mantain WP:COHERENCE for this matter throughout Wikipedia. We can't have articles like this one stating that they aren't a subgenre, while their own ones, like Unblack metal and National Socialist black metal, and others like Extreme metal claiming that they actually are. All of them have to agree on the matter, either being or not being subgenres, otherwise it would be confusing for the reader. ABC paulista (talk) 16:39, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think "subgenre" is a vague term. Usually it means a distinct musical style, but sometimes it's used for groups of bands who're only distinguished by their lyrics or imagery (such as 'Christian metal' or 'Viking metal'). In this article, we list the subgenres under Stylistic divisions. That avoids any confusion and makes it clear we're talking about musical styles. – Asarlaí ^(talk) 13:33, 16 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The "Ideology" section could use a general overhaul, particularly in regards to bands that use imagery or lyrics related to the Order of Nine Angles. While members of the O9A are known for espousing neo-Nazi rhetoric, there are several bands that use imagery related to the Orders spiritual/nonpolitical beliefs while steering clear of any political, or even metapolitical, themes. Not to mention that more "orthodox" (for lack of a better term) neo-Nazis or white nationalists themselves have attempted to ideologically "disown" the O9A.

While politics is obviously secondary here, my point is that lyrical themes and imagery need to be viewed in their own context. Otherwise, we may as well accuse every opera company that has performed Wagner to secretly be neo-Nazis themselves. Metalscholar94 (talk) 22:05, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Metalscholar94 that's fine, you just need to make sure you have reliable sources that support the changes you think are necessary. Because of the contentious nature of the topic, if at all possible I would go for the highest quality sources: books or other traditional print media, and then more pop journalistic sources if nothing better can be found and there's no reason to doubt the reliability of that online source.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 02:07, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I find it kind of odd that there's no mention of atmospheric black metal on this article, or within the ambient black metal subgenre. Indeed, atmo redirects to ambient, and if you click on the the examples given for ambient black metal they're all listed as atmospheric (either on their page or on albums). In my experience fans also use the term "atmospheric" vastly more than "ambient."

Of course, we're completely ruled by the sources and I did try and do a quick Google to find some RS that could be used to introduce the term, but I fell short. Nonetheless I think we should put some effort into finding some as it seems to be a glaring omission right now. Has anyone else had any luck finding some good sourcing that can be used? — Czello ^(music) 18:11, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]