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Forever Underground
Metalhead

Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2018 7:35 am
Posts: 1150
Location: Galiza
PostPosted: Mon Jul 03, 2023 7:33 pm 
 

I don't want or intend to present a concrete idea in this post, basically because I have varied and diffuse ideas of the subject I want to deal with and I would like everyone to contribute their vision of the matter.

In the title it says NS, but the subject is not limited to this type of ideology. This includes any music that contains a message of hatred towards any minority or collective, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia and a long list of others.

I thought about this topic as a consequence of the recently finished 11th Diamhea Memorial Review Challenge, where the most reviewed band has been Vothana, a NSBM band, and this has caused some comments about it, including an indirect one from me in another post.

I want to make it clear that this is not a personal attack to Slater922! Everything he has shown about himself in his comments in the forums makes me see him as a person with a good heart, common sense and a progressive ideology and I would say that I am almost sure that he is a person who condemns this kind of hateful ideologies, but that doesn't stop him from enjoying NS music and reviewing it and valuing its musical aspects. But taking as a reference the case of his 9 incredibly positive reviews of Vothana in this challenge (plus the two he had already done) two questions arise for me.

1º: How much promotional value do the reviews in MA have? Are they impactful enough to represent considerable support for these hate-promoting bands?
2º: Should every review that deals positively with such bands have a space where the author condemns the ideology that the release promotes?

I personally am also guilty of reviewing bands with hateful ideologies, and I plan to continue to do so in the future if the band gives me the musical motivation to want to talk about them either positively or negatively. I also thought that in all my reviews of this kind of music I always criticized and condemned the ideology of the band, but looking into this issue I have realized that, although in most cases I have done it, I have reviews where I don't condemn it directly and it is much more ambiguous, and I think that happens because I am so clear to myself my disdain for those ideas that I forget that the person who might be reading me doesn't know my position. That's why I partly empathise with Slater922 when I see that he doesn't make a single reference in the 9 reviews of Vothana to his problematic ideology.

These are kind of my thoughts on the subject, I don't know if it's a topic that has been discussed before in the review discussion, but I think it's important to talk about this topic especially for the record for future young reviewers who intend to contribute to the musical discussion of this kind of bands.

I read you attentively.
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Slater922
Metalhead

Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2020 6:24 pm
Posts: 2342
PostPosted: Mon Jul 03, 2023 8:08 pm 
 

Reviewing NS reviews can be a bit of a tricky one, but as long as you know what you're doing and not trying to make it into a "Nazi good" argument, it can be done. In the case of me giving NS releases a good review, I do make it clear that in no way do I support the national socialist ideologies behind the band members or the lyrics, but the instrumentals and vocals themselves are still good, though. I've also had my fair share of giving negative reviews to NS records that were god awful, and I've also given some positive reviews to RABM bands that not only promote progressive and left-leaning thought, but also have some excellent riffs. Hell, even with my recent Vothana review series, I did gave Game Over a 60%, which while I did like, had a lot of problems that easily made it the weakest of his studio albums.

As for the two questions you've asked, that sort of depends. For question one, it varies on what kind of band it is. Some of the more well-known NS acts like Goatmoon or Nokturnal Mortum are generally gonna draw more attention, but I personally don't think reviewing a lesser-known release would do much, especially if the review is a negative one. As for the second, I personally think it's doable for a reviewer to have a space where they can still like the music while also condemning the ideology as stated earlier. But I will add that there is an unwritten rule on this site where actively trying to promote the controversial lyrics as a good thing is a big no-no. Recently, a bunch of reviews for Arghoslent's Hornets of the Pogrom got removed since they weren't that good and spent an awful lot of time focusing on the "cool" lyrics, and looking back at some of them on the Wayback Machine, I don't blame the mods for trashing them.

Of course, this is my take on this stuff, and I know some are gonna disagree. Hell, I won't blame folks for not wanting to get into bands like Vothana considering all the controversies and shenanigans behind that particular project. I am more interested in seeing how others view these questions.
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Empyreal
The Final Frontier

Joined: Thu Nov 30, 2006 6:58 pm
Posts: 35177
Location: Where the dead rule the night
PostPosted: Mon Jul 03, 2023 8:11 pm 
 

I really cannot respect or take people seriously who are writing these kinds of reviews for that band. I mean do whatever you want but it seems like a completely pathetic fucking waste of time to treat them like they're worthy of respect.
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morbert
Metalhead

Joined: Wed Mar 14, 2007 2:36 am
Posts: 1276
PostPosted: Tue Jul 04, 2023 2:29 am 
 

Well, this is hard to explain. NS bands often play subgenres (like black metal) I do not care much about anyway.
Most bands people mention that are NS are probably bands I never even heard.

However you mentioned 'hate' as well and since hate has always been a big thing in metal, in general I have no issues with it but it all depends in what shape/form it is presented to me.

"Won't see me on my knees. Take my soul and save it, please
Ten hail Mary's for my sin. Paying heaven to get in
Got no money for your basket. A million times you can ask it
Find your bible far too odd. Ain't got time for your god
I've made my decision, Don't want your religion"


D.R.I. - No Religion

I admit, there is no real hatred presented here but pure personal rejection.
I still love many bands rejecting any (form of) religion.

But bands promoting or glorifying genocide are a pretty painful experience for me. Whether it's a band glorifying (or blatantly denying) the holocaust, bands justifying the atom bombs on Japan, a band justiying the Holodomor (they exist) or denying the Armenian genocide... you're evil in my eyes. (there is no 'change my mind' option/button here so don't try)

Now onto reviewing suchs bands.
Well, if they're on M.A. people can write whatever they want if the review is up to standards.
Because censorship is a tricky subject and on principle I am against it.
However..
Will I read it? Probably not.
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Derigin
The Mountain Man

Joined: Sun Jan 01, 2006 6:25 am
Posts: 5998
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Tue Jul 04, 2023 12:20 pm 
 

Well, from MA's point of view, our fundamental purpose is to be a comprehensive database of all bands with metal releases out there, which does include those which have problematic content. However, that's the limit of what we aim to do. Beyond the basics, we do not want to promote or enable NS/racist/etc. content on the site. MA has to balance its purpose, which is to be an informative and ideally objective source, while at the same time not falling into the trap of being a tool for promotion or recruitment. We know that bands do use the site as a promotional tool, even though that isn't its purpose, but we aim to limit what NS/racist/etc. bands can do for using us to promote their ideologies and beliefs. For instance, we've blocked and removed links to merch and other websites which don't serve to support MA's informative purpose. We also remove promotional material on the forums, as well as on band and artist pages. We're also less forgiving when it comes to bands and their themes. It's not a perfect system, but it's one we are proactive on.

Reviews provide a complication, arguably, to this balancing act. On the one hand, they do help our purpose by being informative about describing the music of the album. On the other hand, they're not particularly objective, and arguably anything beyond describing the music of the album, its history, and how it was developed are superfluous to MA's purpose. This is one of the many reasons why we stress that reviews should focus on describing the music of the album. We're not a soapbox for individuals and their beliefs. For the most part, this has meant that many reviews for problematic albums actually do get rejected more often than not, because some reviewers can't help using their reviews to spread their beliefs. Sometimes it's subtle, but other times it's not, but in both cases it's clear when a reviewer only wants to review an album, not because they genuinely care about the merits of the music, but because they want to use it to support and promote an album's content. When we say that we judge reviews of problematic albums more harshly than others, this is largely what we mean. It is often pretty hard for some people who review these types of albums not to inject their own bigotry into the writing of the review. We notice, and we reject. In the past, some review mods didn't care as much about that, and so there are some reviews still on MA that should be removed, but that's an ongoing process.

That said, yeah, reviews of problematic albums which are undoubtedly positive could pose an issue when it comes to promotion, and I'm not entirely sure what the solution is there - if it warrants one. Even if a reviewer was to write the most acceptable review which focuses on describing the music of the album, and their rating is still positive, that can be used by the band to spread their ideologies. The band could point to that review, spread it themselves, or even just let people organically see the positive review and rating on their own, and let the album and the beliefs underlying it gain clout and popularity that way. In reverse, yeah, negative reviews do much the same, just in that case discouraging people from checking out the album. Up until now, our policy is that you can review any album on the site, but should we maybe consider disallowing reviews of certain albums or bands? How would that work, and what should be the limitations there? Or, should we just continue on as we are now? Or, do we only accept negative reviews, even though that opens up the fact the site would be interfering and manipulating information, which is not something that fulfills our goal to be overseers, not participants in the data we collect. I'm not entirely sure.

On a personal level, I do feel the system we have in place now where we scrutinize reviews of problematic albums more carefully is a good one, but I will admit that seeing the review challenge used as a vehicle to drop 9 mostly positive reviews for a NS band is a little disheartening - even though I have nothing against the reviewer for doing so. You didn't do anything against our rules. But, taken from an outsider's point of view, I could certainly see how some people might say that it shows we as a community condone those positive reviews and therefore the band and its albums, and that the challenge is comfortable with it.
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Zephirus
Metalhead

Joined: Wed Aug 03, 2005 1:37 pm
Posts: 575
Location: United Kingdom
PostPosted: Fri Jul 07, 2023 7:05 am 
 

as said above , if they are on the site they should/can be reviewed according to the MA standards
going down the censorship route would be a slippery slope, where do you stop with what people find offensive

the reviews are vetted and any hate inciting would be caught and rejected

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