Varg on Tributes and Toxicity

varg-vikernes-mayhem

Varg Vikernes expressed how he felt about tributes to Burzum and the toxicity of the Norwegian black metal scene centered around Euronymous of Mayhem in a new black metal history video to this ThuleanPerspective Youtube channel. Varg stated that the tribute bands are creatively inspired by him:

Just like I was inspired by “white label” underground house and techno music, Destruction, Iron Maiden, early Kreator, Pestilence, early Paradise Lost, early Bolt Thrower, Bathory, Tchaikovsky, Jean-Michelle Jarre, and more.

Remind yourself that Varg has said repeatedly in the past that he considers the first two, Paul Di’Anno fronted Iron Maiden albums to be among his favorite metal albums.

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86 thoughts on “Varg on Tributes and Toxicity”

  1. The first two are the only Maiden albums I listen to at this point. Everything else got too poppy, despite having some standout songs (“The Trooper”).

    1. zobi says:

      wow you’re such a hardcore underground metalhead your point of view is so important to us. thanks

      1. Dr Khan says:

        LOL

      2. Brett Stevens is a poser says:

        HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!

  2. wldklwkdl says:

    I wonder if he’s even heard any Burzum clones. Making a cartoonish one-dimensional ripoff of something and watering down all its edge and ambiguities isn’t the same as being inspired by something.

    1. lol says:

      The “Burzum ripoffs” he’s referencing to are Enslaved and Emperor lol

      1. I may disagree with him on a literal basis, but the contributions of Burzum/Immortal to black metal are usually understated in preference to more popular bands.

        1. S.C.A.T. says:

          Outside of blatant pop metal, those bands are as popular as it gets within the genre.

  3. Roger says:

    Dm.org:

    When news is slow, we go to endless stock footage of Varg Verkines talking about himself.

    1. Anthony says:

      Nobody cares, Roger.

      1. Roger says:

        It never works to claim that NOBODY cares, in response to someone’s opinion. It’s like claiming that there is no such thing as truth.

        As soon as you’ve opened your mouth you’ve invalidated your own statement.

        1. You have now eternally lost your right to criticize others for being autistic.

          1. Roger says:

            Logic is not the exclusive realm of the autist.

            1. Taking “nobody” literally, however, is.

              1. Rainer Weikusat says:

                Resorting to sophistry in order to “score points” in a debate, presumably based on the assumption that this must be something like schoolyard brawl and nothing but downing the opponent somehow matters, isn’t particularly autistic — it took me a long time to recognize that, understand the motivations behind it and cope with it.

                1. I know, he’s acting quite neurotypical.
                  I am defeating him in the arena of sophistry.

        2. squishy crackers that got rained on says:

          god damn Roger

        3. Pepe says:

          He’s calling you a nobody. Subtle humor is completely lost on you though isn’t it?

          RrrrrrrrrrEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

        4. Chad says:

          Everybody doesn’t care, Roger

          Sincerely,
          Somebody

    2. Rainer Weikusat says:

      That’s not “stock footage”, it’s all been recorded fairly recently. Further, while this always ends (so far) with either advertising Burzum or Myfarog (the RPG), it’s not “Vikernes talking about himself”, that’s just what your somewhat deficient automatic input filter reduces this too.

  4. Roger says:

    BRETT WHEN WILL YOUR CONTINUE OUR DISCUSSION, I’M GETTING ANXIOUS:

    I would also like an answer to my line of questions, cintinued from above, as the dialectic is right where i want it to be:

    Roger:

    So tell my why your desire to promote heavy metal over plastic pop music, or the nuclear family over some other arrangement, is not “based solely upon preference”…

    Brett:

    It is based on consequentialist reasoning

    Roger:

    Your DESIRE to promote heavy metal over plastic pop music might be CAUSED by consequentialist thinking: in thinking about the consequences of a world populated with plastic pop music, as opposed to good music, the VALUE JUDGEMENT ‘I don’t like this thought’ pops up in your head.

    But that value judgement ITSELF is your own, arbitrary, subjective, human-centric, individual-centric, etc, value judgement.

    Right?

    1. Cintinual [sic] says:

      It’s not arbitrary. It’s consequentialist reasoning, not based SOLELY on preference. Partly, maybe so.

      1. It’s arbitrary in that it’s based on the nature of the arbiter (him), but it’s not arbitrary in that he can’t change it.
        He can not change what is good to him, or what is evil to him.

      2. Roger says:

        I’m not following your point.

        There are two aspects to consider:

        1. The act of mentally representing the future consequences of an action (as opposed, say, to who it offends in the present), and:
        2. One’s emotional reaction (read: value judgement) to this mental representation of the consequences of the action.

        When it comes to (1), let’s assume that Brett is pretty accurately representing to himself the future consequences of, say, a policy supporting a world with an eventual 9.5 billion, multicultural, people living in it: environmental degradation, malls as far as the eye can see, plastic culture, etc.

        When it comes to (2), however, or Brett’s emotional reaction to his mental representation of the consequences of such a policy, THIS IS COMPLETELY BASED ON ARBITRARY PREFERENCE

        Get it?

      3. Roger says:

        I.e. Brett might recoil, emotionally, at such a future. But some other person, say Hillary Clinton, might revel in it: safe spaces, no snakes to bite people, and no traditional religion censoring music and tv.

        THERE IS NOTHING IN THE ACTUAL, PHYSICAL, WORLD TO DETERMINE THAT BRETT’S EMOTIONAL REACTION IS ‘CORRECT’, WHILE CLINTON’S IS ‘INCORRECT’.

        1. No one claims that there is

        2. THERE IS NOTHING IN THE ACTUAL, PHYSICAL, WORLD TO DETERMINE THAT BRETT’S EMOTIONAL REACTION IS ‘CORRECT’, WHILE CLINTON’S IS ‘INCORRECT’.

          This is the point of Nihilism: the intent of individuals reflects who they are, not some “objective” and analytical stance.

          1. Nathan Metric says:

            This sorta of philosophy where we reject all moral absolutes because we don’t like our enemys using morality against us is like trying to solve a headache with a decapitation.

            1. That’s not the reason to reject it.
              The reason is that truth is sacred, and objective value does not seem to truly exist.

              1. Roger says:

                Truth isn’t ‘sacred’, if this implies anything inter-subjective. It’s what you value.

                1. What a witty retort.
                  I didn’t see it coming.

                  Stop being autistic and listen to what I obviously mean, rather than trying to interpret what I am saying in the worst possible way.

              2. Nathan Metric says:

                “That’s not the reason to reject it.
                The reason is that truth is sacred, and objective value does not seem to truly exist.”

                Are you saying I OUGHT to respect the truth that there is nothing I ought to respect? Are you saying I ought to adhere to the truth that there is nothing I ought to adhere to? This statement is clearly self-contradictory. It’s presupposing the virtue of the truth in order to deny the virtue of the truth.

                1. “Are you saying I OUGHT to respect the truth that there is nothing I ought to respect?”

                  No, I am not.
                  Are you trying to not understand me? Are you trying to make me seem self contradictory?
                  Or can you genuinely not grasp the ideas I am presenting?

                  1. Here is some thing to consider for you autists out there like Roger:

                    If I say that a thing is good, or evil, I am saying that it is good or evil to my nature. I am not making any claims about objective value.

                    If I give a reason for doing a thing or thinking a thing, I am giving you the reason for why I do it. If you are similar and this reason appeals to you, then you should follow your nature and do the same. If it does not, then we are different, and if we are critically different, we are natural enemies.

                    1. Jerry Hauppa says:

                      The whole “autist” insult reeks of meme bandwagonism. Show someone they are retarded through argument- having to resort to the hit internet slang if the week here to assert gradeschool dominance is what “others” do.

                    2. I will never stop calling Roger an autist.
                      He acted like one while calling me one.
                      Now he will live with that.
                      :)

                    3. Rainer Weikusat says:

                      In the hope that it is good for something: I bought a new pair of glasses earlier this year because the old one had been knocked off my head by “funny guys” a couple of times at various concerts so I thought I should really have a 2nd pair so that I can afford to lose one if need be. As my eyesight seemed to have gotten worse, this started with me booking an eye test. After some backward and forward talking, there was a guy standing in front of me who asked “When would you like to come?”. I just stared at him completely speechless, trying to figure out what kind of reply he was expecting to that —- after all, I didn’t know anything about the dates they had available and the only answer I could think of at that moment was “Not at 3 in the morning!”. After about half minute of me looking at him and him looking at me, he repeated his question more pronouncedly. Still baffled by the question, I stared at him somewhat more but noticed that he was getting into “stupid foreigner who doesn’t understand English well enough” mode. This meant I had to do something in order to stop him from going down that road. With all the courage I could muster and all the experience I meanwhile have with dealing with people and their incomprehensible utterances, I bravely jumped into the cold water and returned the question (very impolite) as “When do you have dates available?”.
                      Apparently, this was the right answer because he then told me a few days and times and I could chose a suitable one.

                    4. Roger says:

                      “there was a guy standing in front of me who asked “When would you like to come?”. I just stared at him completely speechless”

          2. Roger says:

            Ok great. I don’t know why it took us some time to agree.

            Anyway: so your project is essentially to show people that their values reflect who they are.

            Then what, out of interest? I’m supposing it can’t be to reason them into things you deem worthy…

            Or is the hope that when certain people ‘go through’ nihilism, they will, as a result of dropping belief in slave-morality, reach for higher things?

            Thanks.

            1. Babo says:

              I think Brett either reads more Crowley than he leads on or would agree mor with him than he knows.

        3. Cintinual [sic] says:

          What do you WANT out of this, dude?

          1. Roger says:

            Truth.

            1. Cintinual [sic] says:

              Okay; well, the nigga who asked ‘What time would you like to come?’ was saying ‘CUM’. Ejaculate. Jizazm. He was hitting on you, about to suck your dick.

              Then I didn’t read the rest of your diatribe.

      4. It’s consequentialist reasoning, not based SOLELY on preference.

        And as you note, consequentialism erodes intent-based reasoning, which causes “preference” to be re-assessed. The magic of nihilism.

        1. Chad says:

          Consequentialism is the evil normative ethical theory, Mr. Lifelong Blasphemer.

    2. C.M. says:

      Preference entails a whimsical style of decision making in a situation where the results are basically arbitrary, assured, or impossible to foresee.

      This is different from making a decision toward pursuing a goal in the case of consequences being largely predictable.

      For example; eating is not a preference – you must eat or you will die (consequence). If you would like more or less salt on your food – that is a preference.

      1. Living rather than dying is a preference. A preference that is part of your fundamental nature.
        Values, moral or otherwise, can be the same.

        1. C.M. says:

          Begone with your obfuscatory semantic meddling, foolish Swede.

          You can’t tell me with a straight face that instinct and preference can’t be clearly divided. Eating, sleeping, fucking, and generally taking precautions to avoid death – those are all instinctual. Preference comes in when you begin making decisions on what to eat, where to sleep, who to fuck, how hard you try to avoid dying, and such.

          1. Eating, sleeping, fucking, and generally taking precautions to avoid death – those are all instinctual. Preference comes in when you begin making decisions on what to eat, where to sleep, who to fuck, how hard you try to avoid dying, and such.

            I separate it out this way: instinct includes certain tendencies that resembles principle, choice is interpretation of those, including the ability to deny them.

            And, as said before, “free will” is for people who drink from septic tanks.

            1. Rainer Weikusat says:

              […] “free will” is for people who drink from septic tanks

              I’m assuming this is meant to be a rejection of the concept, however, what precisely is »free will«? There’s a Christian concept of this which is usually used as an explanation why so many people, even so many Christian people, don’t act as the presumably all-seeing and all-powerful God wants them to act: Humans are not just God’s puppets but they have a free will and can thus either accept or reject his commandments. Not all [sub-]religions of Christanity agree with this, though, and neither do [some] other religions.

              Outside of the domain of religion/ metaphysics, the concept quickly becomes very hazy: Functionally, I’m (like everybody else) a subordinate of the cell-aggregate known as my body and whatever ails that ails me, no matter if I want it or not. Eg, I presently have a fading cold and I certainly didn’t want to get that. My conscious personality can be switched of by a mechanism outside of my control for extended periods of time whenever this is deemed necessary (sleep would be the prominent example) and also, just when it isn’t needed at the moment[*]. Even insofar I’m allowed to participate in the activity of this thing, my options are bound by it’s physical abilities and by numerous external constraints.

              Lastly, assuming it was possible to define »free will« in some sensible way and determine its presence or absence experimentally, would this knowledge be good for antyhing? I don’t think so.

              1. Rainer Weikusat says:

                Also belonging in here: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. (Worueber man nicht reden kann, davon muss man schweigen, Wittgenstein).

                Discussing theories reaching beyond the possibilites of human experience, such as whether not person XYZ could have acted differently in the past (IOW, made a ‘free’ descision), is a waste of time: There’s no way to know that.

          2. “You can’t tell me with a straight face that instinct and preference can’t be clearly divided.”

            One can be a subset of the other.

            1. C.M. says:

              True. Instinct is the basest aspect of self and informs all other aspects in some way or another.

              Instinct > principle > preference

              “If I breathe water, I die” > “I stay out of unsafe water” > “I like my pool to be at least 80 degrees”

              Instinct and principle are likely to be aligned closely but principles may come from strong outside influences and overcome instinct. Preference is the most likely aspect of self to be swayed by external influence and therefore the most likely to run counter to instinct. That’s why society works; instinct doesn’t have to dominate our decisions.

        2. Living rather than dying is a preference.

          Foes of nihilism do not recognize this. We cannot prove that living is better than dying on an objective level, or that it is entirely subjective, since it is influenced by objective factors (genetics, external surroundings, past words read).

          1. Rainer Weikusat says:

            We cannot prove that living is better than dying on an objective level

            It’s better to be dead than alive. Simple proof: Living means constantly dealing with the problem of staying alive so that you can keep dealing with the problem of staying alive. Any pleasure is transient and leads to grief because of this. Only the dead rest in peace. But that’s an intellectual argument and all these mutated protozoons making up the body I’m inhabiting don’t care for that. They’re hardwired to stay alive. And because of this, so am I.

          2. “…or that it is entirely subjective, since it is influenced by objective factors…”

            This is why I claim that subjective things are a subset of objective things.
            All things are objects, but some things are both subjects and objects.
            Thus all things are objective, but some things are also subjective.
            An example is a thought, idea or emotion. It is an objective fact that I am not experiencing fear this moment. It is also a subjective fact, as my feelings are part of a subject.

    3. But that value judgement ITSELF is your own, arbitrary, subjective, human-centric, individual-centric, etc, value judgement

      You may be a bit off-base here. Nothing is subjective; instead, it reflects who we are.

      1. Nathan Metric says:

        Saying he is “off-base” and then to say 1 second later “nothing is subjective” is a total contradiction.

      2. Roger says:

        By ‘subjective’ i mean the same as you do by ‘shows who you are’. There is no argument there.

    4. Hræsvelgr says:

      Here’s an idea: Perhaps the endless amateur-philosophy debates could be conducted in the forum and the comments section be used for … well, comments on the blog posts?

      1. Roger says:

        But there is no forum anymore..

      2. It started out as a relevant discussion about nihilism in the post about the nihilism book.
        Roger brought it here.

      3. Rainer Weikusat says:

        The problem with professional, that is, paid, ‘philosophers’ ‘debating’ anything is that there’s a good chance they end up debating some fictional question whose answer can’t be determined and wouldn’t matter if it could for 3000 years or until funding runs out, whichever happens first.

  5. Cornrose says:

    Roger,
    Nobody cares. There is no truth.

    1. Vigilance says:

      It’s funny to watch a culture descend into irrationalism. Thanks, NEETzsche.

  6. some guy says:

    Roger is cool

  7. Rainer Weikusat says:

    This is an attempt at rewriting both Vikernes own statements from the past, eg, from Until the light takes us, were he was much more positive about ‘the scene’ and statements from other sources. For instance, in the earlier documentary, he talked about “the scene” being about a number of bands each trying to do their own thing, specifically naming Darkthrone, Enslaved, Immortal and Emperor as examples, “because all the death metal bands had started to sound the same” (referring to the Sunlight studio/ HM2/ Entombed-like sound). There’s nothing about “Enslaved ripping of Burzum” (quite an absurd idea) etc in there.

    As I already wrote in an earlier comment (really referring to this video), his description of Oystein Asareth is that of an ‘evil’ RPG NPC. Real people are not so simple, in particular, they always have positive motiviations for whatever they’re doing, albeit these can be quite far-fetched at times.

    1. Roger says:

      I agree with (and understand) you, for once.

  8. fart inhaler says:

    This is neat and all but where’s the new Ungod and Dark Funeral reviews?

    1. Clueless says:

      Soon!

  9. Anthony says:

    Looks like vaccines do cause autism

  10. Cintinual [sic] says:

    Side note: I’m just discovering that Death in June ‘Nada’ is electronic body music. What the FUCK? I thought they were fascist neofolk!

  11. Svmmoned says:

    I’m curious what kind of music he really have on mind when he say about house/techno and how does it actually sound. I know that Scandinavians have their own take on it.

  12. Billy Foss says:

    I don’t know that much about this guy, but I wasn’t expecting those last few lines of humility. Threw me pretty hard actually.

  13. Flashback: The Quest for Identity says:

    HLTO and Hlidskjalf. Everything else is hits and misses.

    The message of the 2nd Atrocity album have more “existential weight”.

  14. harsh critiquer of vest patcheses says:

    Speaking of the Freewill, that awful pussy coddling sugar snack from Rush, that part where Mr.Lee sings “you still have made a choice”, you can practically hear the construction of his inbred tiny elf jaw in all its malformed hideousness (crooked mouth and Leprechaun teeth next to a mic) . For all the effort of pointless gore slurggle poppoppop bands trying to be disgusting, there is in fact no other bit of a song more disgusting and sickening than the chorus to Freewill.

  15. EpiTapH_Zer0 says:

    What the f*ck is wrong with all of you? This is an irrelevant, ill-conceived, babble of stupidity being presenting as a debate… Damn God, just drop your balls already and stop making fools of yourselves.

  16. EpiTapH_Zer0 says:

    Also, myfarog rules! Do yourselves a favor and buy the books, it’ll give you something to do while you wait on that puberty.

  17. harsh critiquer of vest patcheses says:

    The cut throat approach to being competitive is still prevalent in metal today. It’s a bunch of delusional men peacocking for approval from “connected” individuals, it is almost homoerotic. Scenes are for homosexuals, a real artist pays that nonsense no mind and creates. If it is worthy it will stand out and the audience will eventually find it, even if it takes decades.

    1. Masculinum Maximus says:

      Its called male bonding.

  18. Roger is OK Computer says:

    Hey, Roger, I’d like to get together for some ‘just friends’ spooning.

    You’d be the big spoon of course.

  19. not-a-troll-srsly says:

    “His motivation to create this extremist scene was to sabotage the efforts of others. He didn’t want them to succeed, so he raised the bar too high and made it impossible to be accepted, and if you weren’t accepted then you could just stop playing according to him… I’m sorry, but there was nothing positive to say about the scene.”

    LOL, Immediately thought of ANUS & DLA culture round a decade ago. Healthy scenes are built on working together, not knocking each other down. Metal is too elitist to be able to produce good music because nobody’s able to grow and develop. There’s no support for people who have more feeling than sense: emotion is looked down on in favour of some arbitrary notion of “compositional complexity” and the result is mediocrity across the board: the people who can write music have nothing to say, and the people who have something to say can’t write music.

    ’80s forever – even if you’re shit it’s cool if you really mean what you’re doing. That’s why we all like Celtic Frost.

    1. not-a-troll-srsly (for real) says:

      P.S. Not that DLA & ANUS was bad, just that it seemed to be an extension of exactly what Vikernes is talking about in retrospect.

    2. Cintinual [sic] says:

      Healthy scenes need to have a healthy culling process, though, no?

      I’ve been more affiliated with Rock scenes in my life, and there is like NO elitism, no constructive criticism even; just “Yeah man they were great!”
      Contrarians are seen as destructively negative. Everyone gets automatic high-fives after playing a boring, weak show where they sang with closed eyes steadily like pussy-ass niggas.

      So, under elitism, nobody’s able to grow and develop?
      Nah — perhaps only the strong survive. People who have more feeling than sense will persevere if they can draw the strength from within. Trial by fire. Vision over circumstance.

      “Real niggas don’t die.”
      -N.W.A.

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