Sonic Revolution and Counterrevolution: Punk and Black Metal’s Influences on Modern Politics

The cover of black metal band Bathory’s 1988 album “Blood Fire Death.” Photo courtesy of Flickr.

Punk and metal are two genres of music joined by the same cacophonic, extreme rhythmic roots. However, despite some of their sonic similarities, these two genres emerged irrevocably in opposition in terms of their political loyalties, an opposition communicated through their lyricism and arrangements. Punk quickly became associated with sonic revolution, or progress via music, in the form of radical Leftism, while black metal rapidly, yet subtly laid the foundations for a relationship with Right-wing extremism and sonic counterrevolution, or regression via music—specifically within the black metal subgenre. The powerful historical force of music and the pop culture associated with it have built up both the fringes and conventions of the modern political landscape over the late 20th century. In other words, punk and black metal are not only expressions of progressive and reactionary political thought but also contributors to it. 

Punk got its first bearings in the United States during the 1950s from a long legacy of African American blues, but with a new rebellious and sexualized edge accentuated by fears around the dissemination of African American influence and interracial mingling during the civil rights movement. The succeeding genre—rock ‘n’ roll—primed the world for a new era unbound by the shackles of tradition. Over the 1960s and 1970s, rock music propelled the Sexual Revolution, and a new resulting counterculture idolizing hedonism and freedom paved a clear road for the classical punk era of the 1970s and 1980s. The actors of this period attempted to reconcile its biggest historical events, including the Vietnam War and the election of President Ronald Reagan, which inflamed the progeny of the mid-century counterculture movement. The actors thrived in New York, Los Angeles, and London, three cities marked by their largely youthful, LGBTQ+, and progressive populations galvanized into protest by their experiences with discrimination and inequality. 

Black metal found its origins later than punk. Though the genre would not have come to fruition without the seed of rock ‘n’ roll, it quickly took a very different route to protest. From the 1960s to the 1980s, metal artists shaped their images with marked misanthropic and pessimistic messages and rhetoric. Metal also incorporated occult imagery, often to shock and ignite reactions from Christian audiences during the 1980s, an era defined by the resurgence of religion in politics, especially in the United States. Controversial bands like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, whose lyrics and aesthetics inspired the Satanic Panic, gave way to the infamous flagships of black metal, born overwhelmingly in the Protestant Nordic countries during the late 1980s and 1990s. Some of the most iconic black metal bands like the Norwegian Mayhem and the Swedish Bathory soon infused the black metal scene with violence, racism, white supremacy, and clear-cut Nazi sentiments. 

Examining these two genres’ inceptions, a clear dichotomy between their respective artists’ messages arises. Punk began and continued urging for revolution and progress in some of the most politically and socially diverse cities in the world. Contrastingly, black metal channeled dissatisfaction with the 1980s establishment into utilizing violence and anger to communicate discontent with certain elements of society, often religious institutions or minorities. 

Today, specific movements, ideas, and events within the punk scene of the late 20th century have impacted politics, primarily in the arena of ideology. As punk flourished in the metropolitan areas of the United States and the United Kingdom, these locations have become the hubs of progressive thought. In fact, in California, the legacies of bands such as the Dead Kennedys, who sharply criticized progressive hypocrisy by boldly highlighting the reactionary aspects of the superficiality of capitalist democracy, remain alive as Leftists push against the rampant spread of neoliberalism in political institutions. Furthermore, punk bands have historically incorporated blatant Leftist imagery into their content, as with the legendary London band The Clash and their 1980 album Sandinista!, whose title references the Nicaraguan National Liberation Front, a socialist party which worked to overthrow the United States-backed Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua. As a result, punk and its descendents have come to associate themselves with Leftist—and often revolutionary—rhetoric, even if just in the form of continuing non-commercial subcultures within these hubs rather than via mainstream channels such as the DIY punk movements that exist today in places like New York City and are driven by opposition modern issues like gentrification. 

Black metal lies in diametric opposition to punk, utilizing attention-seeking tactics and politics to garner attention for political spectacles. Artists within the genre have commonly created cults of personality around themselves by linking their music to exercises of their extreme political beliefs, which initially began as performative ruses to muster attention for their bands. The band Mayhem—black metal’s progenitor—became notorious for a series of church burnings across Norway that have destroyed centuries of national history. The perpetrator of the crime, member Varg Vikernes, has since become a symbol of neo-Nazism and is an active proponent of far-Right ideology on the internet. The band has also committed overt hate crimes that demonstrably clash with the punk values of diversity and progression. For instance, in 1992, Mayhem member Faust murdered a gay man. These hateful sentiments still reverberate across society today, as seen in the far-Right discourse conducted anonymously on websites like 4chan. Black metal has also influenced terrorist acts such as the burning of a historic Black church in Louisiana by a young white man in 2019. 

Additionally, black metal’s many offshoots have left room for white supremacist and Nazi ideologies. Having originated in Norway and spread primarily throughout the Nordic countries, black metal lauds the iconography of pre-Christian pagan Viking society. Understood incorrectly as a white-exclusive culture fueled by conquest, the proximity of black metal’s Norse-inspired aesthetics to neofascism is unsurprising. Viking metal is a branch of black metal spearheaded by Swedish Bathory founder Thomas Börje Forsberg which combines Greco-Roman classical and pagan Viking aesthetics that communicate a longing for the preservation and propagation of the Aryan race, as evidenced by the lyrics in the song “Father to Son.” The lines “defend all of your race … do never bring your flag to disgrace” echo less-than-subtle white nationalist sentiments. Viking metal allowed National Socialist black metal to sprout and unabashedly espouse Nazism. In Nordic countries today, these sentiments still run rampant in groups like the Nordic Resistance Movement, heightened by the reality and concerns of increased immigration to the North. Though the Nordic Resistance Movement’s party has been banned in Finland, it maintains concrete political platforms in other countries and continues to engage in hate speech despite little electoral success. 

Punk and black metal are children of the same seed. Still, punk sought to and continues seeking forward-thinking sonic revolution, while black metal claimed a unique breed of reactionary sonic counterrevolution. Punk became a force for progressive ideology, while black metal, though revolutionizing the genre of metal, has served as a very effective source of hatred, more impactful in comparison to the punk movement. Popular—and unpopular—culture has a deep influence over political ideologies, especially through the conduit of music. Artistic media aestheticizes anything to indoctrinate its audiences into its causes. Individuals and groups contribute to and take from the ideologies of punk and black metal, representing a consistent interaction between music and politics. We must be conscious patrons of the art we consume. Because music has the power to lead us to the extremes of the political spectrum, it is up to us to actively and carefully choose which political stances artists compel us to take. Before we know it, we may end up shaping a new generation of political thought.

Alexia Vayeos (CC ‘25) is a second-year at Columbia College and a writer for CPR who plans to study history. She is interested in 20th-century U.S. history and politics, U.S. foreign policy, and the history of Leftism.