Showmanship as Neutralization in Black Metal Criminality

• In Event: Violence, Hate, and Power in Musical Performances

Abstract

The second wave of Black Metal emerged in Scandinavia in the late 20th century as an extreme and Satanic/Neopagan take on Heavy Metal music. This new genre gave rise to a subculture that quickly became associated with numerous crimes, the most infamous of which was church arson. The Black Metal scene stands out as a unique extremist subcultural group with limited attention in the general scholarly community and little or none in criminology. We examine crimes perpetrated by members of the Black Metal community through a criminological lens, specifically Neutralization Theory. We find that members of the Black Metal scene employ idiosyncratic techniques of Neutralization consistent with their criminality and subculture. Specifically, the present study proposes a new approach to Neutralization Theory which we dub “Showmanship.” This concept reflects the unique ways crime-involved members of the Black Metal community use Neutralizations of their behaviors centered on the culture of the music scene rather than the music itself. This analysis is based on the exposés and interviews from popular press writers like Moynihan and Søderlind (2003) and Patterson (2013), along with the limited scholarly writing on the subject from other disciplines.

Authors

• James Michael O'Berry, Georgia State University

• Volkan Topalli, Georgia State University