The Podcast, Episode IV: Metal and Politics – Correctives

I’ve only listened to the first half hour of this, so far. But I think it’s a very keen observation, how you point out that politically-minded people (especially on the left) tend to view and treat their music-listening habits as an extension or reflection of their personal politics. I vaguely recall some quote from Mark Fisher, which you may have brought up in one of your articles or podcast episodes – it was something about how people heavily and obsessively politicize their personal consumption habits and those of others, when they are divested of any real power to enact concrete change in the real world. In the face of material powerlessness, our drive to change conditions concretely in our real lives is redirected to the realm of abstractions; rather than to DO what we believe is right, the imperative is instead to BE what we think is right – and this is defined primarily by what we consume. I’m a progressive on the right side of history, so I applaud inclusivity in Disney live-action reboots and boycott Netflix series that make sexist jokes.

Personally (and I don’t mean this as some implicit self-aggrandizement, as if to pat myself on the back for being “above it all”), but I’ve genuinely never cared much at all as to what politics are held by the artists/bands whose music I love, or “what my faves say about me.” I mean, my own political views have been subject to a number of jarring changes over the years, and have more recently shifted towards Marxism-Leninism, so it would take a lot more crate-digging to find bands that I could use as an emblematic signifier of my convictions. But even back when I was a more, let’s say garden-variety lefty progressive type, I never really felt any contradiction in going around wearing a Burzum or Death in June t-shirt, and I never felt obliged to get into Liturgy, Oathbreaker or some other “Vice metal” that would’ve been far more aligned with the Bernie bro wing of the contemporary metal community. Maybe it’s in part because I live out in the sticks, I’ve never gone to shows, my (now almost two decades-long) tenor as a metalhead has always been nurtured first and foremost by the Internet, that for me, my passion for metal and other underground music is almost inherently a private, inward affair (other than sporting metal band merch that next to no-one I know or cross paths with, out in “meatspace” recognizes).

This is probably turning into an overly autistic personal tangent, but I figure it also bears some relevance to your recent-ish remarks on how the digital age has relocated metal fandom from the streets and live venues to private scrolling on laptops and smartphones, where one needn’t ever cross paths with a fellow metalhead “IRL” to nurture a private, autistic fixation with heavy metal music, and all the sundry trivia and tidbits that go along with and bolster the whole mythos of it.

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