marurun wrote:I actually do not know what distinguishes black metal from other metal. Enlighten me, bone!
CliffsNotes version.
Black metal is a type of underground metal that initially began in Western Europe, in tandem with the rise of other types of extreme metal (death and [non-trad] doom).
The genre was refined during its "second wave" which was geographically situated in Scandinavia (primarily Norway). This infamous scene was comprised of a bunch of various weirdos: edgelord teenage Tolkien/D&D LARPers to violent criminals.
As far as musical tropes go black metal typically features (purposefully) lo-fi production, an emphasis on atmosphere rather than technicality, hypnotic repetitious riffs, fuzzy guitars, tremolo picking, muddled bass, prominent "synths" ($100 Casio keyboards), blast beats, and screamed/snarled vocals. Thematically, the early Scandinavian scene has/had a reputation of being "Satanic" though most of it was really more focused on paganism and nature-worship.
Since those early days the genre has spread worldwide and this style of music is embraced by people of all stripes. There's an extremely unfortunate white nationalist black metal scene, as well as anarchist and Marxist-Leninist bands. And Christian black metal. And anything else you can imagine. It's a mess.
I prefer the 90s classics. Here's one of the genre's defining tracks (if I had to pick one):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iaj2w7Bp58Here's an atypically good song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk86M3xUbXwprfsnl_gmr wrote:If the album art is also the cover of an old Psygnosis game, it’s black metal. I think that’s the key distinction between it and K-pop music.
This actually isn't too far off.
Also, one prominent old black metal band was caught plagiarizing tracks from
Agony (the Psygnosis Amiga game).