13/10/2025
Black Metal and the Age of Moral Commerce.
The same system that once banned extreme art now celebrates it, as long as it behaves. The language of resistance now comes packaged, approved, and certified, complete with moral checklists and hashtags.
We live in time where power hides behind empathy, and censorship speaks in the name of protection.The slogans have changed, but the method is the same, control through shame, obedience through fear.
It’s almost funny until you realize how deep the rot goes.
Because it’s not just the activists or trend merchants, it’s the entire cultural machinery that now defines what can and cannot exist.
Very few within the Black Metal world ever cared for politics beyond provocation. But the climate has changed. It now rewards compliance and punishes discomfort. Festivals, bookers, and agencies have learned to navigate risk by filtering expression. Not through open censorship, but through quiet avoidance, reputation management, and silent hesitation.
And here lies the core of the issue: money. Cash flow. Reputation. The unspoken currency that decides what can and cannot be said.
The institutions around “Black Metal # have turned caution into a product. They sell safety disguised as responsibility. Art has become a risk assessment. Expression has turned into crisis management.
And here’s the paradox.
Black Metal, as an artistic and spiritual outlet, was never meant to exist within a climate built on approval and restraint. It was never meant to adapt ,it was meant to offend, provoke, and destroy.
But today’s atmosphere doesn’t reward danger. It rewards obedience.
Censorship is no longer imposed from above it’s internalized.
Artists (not all), promoters, and organizers alike often find themselves measuring their moves not by authenticity, but by what keeps the door open. Not because they lack conviction, but because the structure itself demands restraint.
In a way, self-censorship has become the modern entry fee, the silent agreement required to remain visible.
But perhaps the strangest thing in all this is how natural it now seems that someone else, some external body could have any say in how, where, or whether a Black Metal artist performs at all.
How distant is that from where this whole thing began?
Born from rejection, forged in filth, now waiting for approval, risk assessment and stage clearance.
Somewhere along the way, the idea of a “Black Metal career” entered the vocabulary.
Think about that. A career. Something to be developed, polished, managed. Something with measurable goals and milestones, discussed in the same language as mainstream entertainment.
What was once a weapon, raw and defiant is now often treated as a resume item.
The pursuit of acceptance has replaced the pursuit of transcendence. When the goal becomes being a respectable performer rather than an unforgiving voice, something essential has already been lost.
You can’t plan a career in chaos.
And the moment you try, it’s not chaos anymore.
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Freedom and fear cannot coexist.
Once the scene starts fearing loss more than meaning, the spirit of rebellion has already died.
When rebellion becomes profitable, it dies.
When art becomes afraid, it stops being art.
Maybe the last true underground today isn’t about sound or violence or imagery. It’s about thought.
The refusal to conform, to apologize, to seek permission.
One that seeks to please is already kneeling to power.
-COMMANDER-
No agenda, no manifesto. Just thoughts, observations, and a few questions that refuse to stay quiet.
