Phew – What a blizzard! Black metal and the UK popular press

Abstract

Abstract The second wave of black metal, with its most notorious moments emanating from the Oslo-centred scene of the early 1990s, was somewhat inevitably a media phenomenon in its native Norway, as the extensive television and newspaper coverage of the time demonstrates. This article will focus on one particular nation’s coverage, however – that of the United Kingdom, and how it covered and responded to the antics of the Norwegian black metal scene up to and including the trial of ‘Varg’ Vikernes in 1994. An initial study provides a disparate picture. The niche media of the United Kingdom (such as Kerrang!, Terrorizer and other extreme metal publications) could certainly be trusted to provide coverage of this provocative and indeed often dangerous fringe musical movement. How it was covered by the politically influential UK popular press, however, is another matter. If the discourse of early 1990’s black metal with its aggressively transgressive and aesthetically rigid approach made good tabloid fodder, the UK popular press with its own traditions, hobbyhorses, aesthetics and vitriolic right wing politics might at first seem a good combination. What, then, did UK press coverage reveal not just about black metal at this time, but also its own mores and attitudes? Was black metal seized upon by the UK press or ignored, and why? Finally, what does this reveal about UK journalism and black metal itself?