Just aesthetics or something more? Neofolk as a vehicle for the dissemination of extreme right-wing ideology
Keywords:
music, extreme right-wing, neofolkAbstract
Popular music has been used as milieu for political mobilization. Examples of this are American folk, la Chanson Française or portuguese Música de Intervenção from the 60s and 70s and their anti-war messages. Punk, hip-hop, rap, or Riot Grrrls in recent decades have also sought to raise awareness of racial issues, gender inequality, or the patriarchal oppression of societies. Less attention has been paid to the use of music by the extreme right as a means of spreading their ideas. Neofolk has been pointed out as one of the means that is used to divulge fascist ideology, and much of this association is due to the aesthetics used by these bands. This article aims to clarify if the use of fascist symbology and clothing is only an aesthetic resource or something more. Doing document analysis and netnography we investigate interviews, videos of live performances and videos of songs and albums of some of the bands that are most often accused of trying to hide a political agenda behind their musical projects. Special attention is given to the commentary boxes related to the analyzed videos, in order to understand how the fans perceive the aesthetics used. The analysis leads to the conclusion that there is a certain moral panic around the Neofolk connections to the extreme right, although it is possible to conclude that some of the projects analyzed tend, in fact, to make fans believe that they are defending fascist ideas, as in the case of the Martial Industrial, one of the subgroups of Industrial music.
References
Adorno, T. W. (2020). Aspectos do novo radicalismo de direita. São Paulo: Editora UNESP.
Buesnel, R. (2020). National Socialist Black Metal: A case study in the longevity of far-right ideologies in heavy metal subcultures, Patterns of Prejudice, 54(4), 393–408. https://doi.org/10.1080/0031322X.2020.1800987
Côrte-Real, M. de S. J. (2014). Sons de Abril: Estilos musicais e movimentos de intervenção político-cultural na Revolução de 1974, Revista Portuguesa de Musicologia, 6(0), 141–172.
Diesel, A., Gerten, D., & Wolff, M. (2013). Looking for Europe: The history of Neofolk. Los Angeles: Index Verlag.
Feixa, C., Oliveira, V. H. N., Lacerda, M. P. C. de, & Santos, A. M. dos. (2018). Culturas juvenis e temas sensíveis ao contemporâneo: Uma entrevista com Carles Feixa Pampols, Educar em Revista, 34(70), 311–325. https://doi.org/10.1590/0104-4060.58145
Forbes, R. (1995). Misery and purity: A history and personal interpretation of Death in June. Amersham: Jara Press.
Freire, V. L. B., & Augusto, E. S. (2014). Sobre flores e canhões: Canções de protesto em festivais de música popular, Per Musi, 29, 220–230. https://doi.org/10.1590/S1517-75992014000100022
Gouvêa, M. A. R. (2014). “Você corta um verso, eu invento outro”: O poder linguístico-discursivo da música de protesto no período da ditadura militar, Literatura e Autoritarismo, 0(23), Article 23. https://doi.org/10.5902/1679849X13954
Granholm, K. (2011). “Sons of Northern Darkness”: Heathen Influences in Black Metal and Neofolk Music, Numen, 58(4), 514–544.
Guerra, P. (2020). The Song Is Still a ‘Weapon’: The Portuguese Identity in Times of Crises, YOUNG, 28(1), 14–31. https://doi.org/10.1177/1103308819829603
Guerra, P., Feixa Pàmpols, C., Blackman, S., & Ostegaard, J. (2020). Introduction: Songs that Sing the Crisis: Music, Words, Youth Narratives and Identities in Late Modernity, YOUNG, 28(1), 5–13. https://doi.org/10.1177/1103308819879825
Hall, M. M. (2017). Death in June and the Apoliteic Specter of Neofolk in Germany, German Politics and Society, 35(2), 60–79. https://doi.org/10.3167/gps.2017.350205
Hanley, J. J. (2004). «The Land of Rape and Honey»: The Use of World War II Propaganda in the Music Videos of Ministry and Laibach, American Music, 22(1), 158–175. https://doi.org/10.2307/3592974
Kirk, R. (2009). “Revolt Against the Modern World:” Exploring the Post-Industrial Roman of Neo-Folk, Nota Bene: Canadian Undergraduate Journal of Musicology, 2(1), 88–103.
Kozinets, R. (2019). Netnography: The essential guide to qualitative social media research (3rd edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Leigh, A. (2008). Just Fascination—Extreme Political Imagery in Undergound Industrial Music. https://pt.scribd.com/document/210216506/Adam-Leigh-Just-Fascination-Extreme-Political-Imagery-in-Undergound-Industrial-Music
Marchi, R., & Zúquete, J. (2016). The Other Side of Protest Music: The Extreme Right and Skinhead Culture in Democratic Portugal (1974-2015), JOMEC Journal, 9, 48–69. https://doi.org/10.18573/j.2016.10042
Matzke, P., & Seeliger, T. (Eds.) (2003). Das Gothic- und Dark Wave-Lexikon: Die schwarze Szene von A-Z (Erw. Neuausg). Berlin: Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf.
Möller, V., & Mischler, A. (2020). The Soundtrack of the Extreme: Nasheeds and Right-Wing Extremist Music as a “Gateway Drug” into the Radical Scene?, International Annals of Criminology, 58(2), 291–334. https://doi.org/10.1017/cri.2020.27
Naiman, T. (2018). Camp Fascism: The Tyranny of the Beat. n A. Dillane, M. J. Power, E. Devereux, & A. Haynes (Eds.), Songs of social protest: International perspectives (pp. 334–353). London and New York: Rowman & Littlefield International.
Obodda, S. (2002). Sordid Allusion: The Use of Nazi Aesthetic in Gothic and Industrial Genres. Princeton University.
Powell, L., & Southgate, T. (2020). Judas Kiss. Industrial culture and beyond. Black Front Press.
Reed, S. A. (2013). Back and Forth: Industrial Music and Fascism. In Assimilate: A Critical History of Industrial Music (pp. 237–362). New York: Oxford University Press.
Richardson, J. (2017). Recontextualization and Fascist Music. In S. McKerrell & L. C.S. Way, Music as Multimodal Discourse. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Roe, S. (2020). Against the Modern World: Neofolk and the Authentic Ritual Experience, Literature & Aesthetics, 29(2), Article 2.
Shekhovtsov, A. (2009). Apoliteic music: Neo-Folk, Martial Industrial and ‘metapolitical fascism’, Patterns of Prejudice, 43(5), 431–457. https://doi.org/10.1080/00313220903338990
Shekhovtsov, A. (2013). Music and the Other: An introduction, Patterns of Prejudice, 47(4–5), 329–335. https://doi.org/10.1080/0031322X.2013.850801
Simões, J. A., & Campos, R. (2016). Juventude, movimentos sociais e redes digitais de protesto em época de crise, Comunicação Mídia e Consumo, 13(38), 130–150. https://doi.org/10.18568/cmc.v13i38.1159
Sontag, S. (1975). Fascinating Fascism, by Susan Sontag, The New York Review of Books. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1975/02/06/fascinating-fascism/
Speit, A. (Ed.). (2002). Ästhetische Mobilmachung: Dark Wave, Neofolk und Industrial im Spannungsfeld rechter Ideologien. Hamburg: Unrast.
Sweers, B. (2005). The power to influence minds: German Folk Music during the nazi Era and After. In T. Evans (Ed.), Pop Music and Politics. (pp. 65–86). London: Routledge.
Turner-Graham, E. (2010). “Keep Feeling Fasci/nation”: Neofolk and the Search for Europe. In S. Buttsworth & M. Abbenhuis (Eds.), Monsters in the Mirror. Santa Barbara: Praeger.
Velasco-Pufleau, L. (2014). Reflections on Music and Propaganda, Contemporary Aesthetics, 12, 1–11.
Webb, P. (2008). Exploring the networked worlds of popular music: Milieu cultures. New York: Routledge.
Weij, F., & Berkers, P. (2017). The politics of musical activism: Western YouTube reception of Pussy Riot’s punk performances, Convergence. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856517706493
Wu, S. (2019). “Sehnsucht” for the spiritual pagan homeland in Neofolk: A study on the deviant white subculture. University of Turku School of History, Culture and Arts Studies.
Zuin, L. (2012). Nachtmahr e a estética militarista na música industrial. Em J. E. Menezes & M. Cardoso, Comunicação e cultura do ouvir (pp. 99–124). São Paulo: Editora Plêiade.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2021 Manuel Pereira Soares
![Creative Commons License](http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/4.0/88x31.png)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Cidades, Comunidades e Territórios by DINÂMIA'CET-IUL is licensed under a Creative Commons Atribuição-Uso Não-Comercial-Proibição de realização de Obras Derivadas 4.0 Unported License.Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at mailto:cidades.dinamiacet@iscte.pt.