Talk:Pagan metal

Merge?

I removed {{mergeto|black metal}} as there is no discussion of that merge on Talk:Black metal. Hyacinth 08:28, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

i put it back as the corresponfing mergtag was still on Black metal. if you remove them, remove them both please. Zzzzz 11:12, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

I think this should be merged with [Folk Metal]. I've never know anyone who thinks Pagan Metal and Folk Metal are different. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.35.124.25 (talk) 02:32, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

I don′t know where you come from, but it is common in Europe. --Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg, formerly active using the static IP adress 132.187.3.26. 12:27, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Actual genre?

I remembered this as a redirect page to folk metal way back when which was entirely reasonable and now it's an article. Though really now, I know there are sources here but can this actually pass as a genre or style of metal? Viking metal in a way seems more understandable and viable since Quorthon started the term. Here in this article, In the Woods... are associated with different genres, whereas Bathory's Hammerheart was recognized solely as Viking metal. The term may in a way seem vague with the sorts of bands that are listed. FireCrystal (talk) 06:08, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Of course there are several genre terms, since In the Woods... went through several style changes. The early stuff was pagan metal, and then went progressive and let pagan metal behind.

Some of Quorthon’s statements are doubtful, he either was a liar or liked to screw with the press and fans. Unless there is no other proof for him using the term before Enslaved, it remains doubtful.

Viking metal is no real genre but a term for bands singing about Vikings, Norse Mythology and so on, musically inspired by Norse metal and folk music, like Bathory and Enslaved, but not called black metal or folk black metal because it is not about Satan, although the first Enslaved records would fit the sound of Norwegian black metal bands. These first viking metal albums were close to folk black metal, as mentioned above, whereas now, the term is also used for bands like Ensiferum, with no relation to that sound, power metal-influenced bands like Nomans Land and Equilibrium, Týr’s prog/heavy/folk metal/Kvæði mix without any guttural vocals, and some even wrongly try to apply it to Amon Amarth, Unleashed or other Norse mythology-related death metal. So how can this be a genre?

Same goes for black metal for being about Satanism (compare Darkthrone, Rotting Christ and Impiety to get my point), pagan metal, a term supposedly made up by In the Woods..., for their music resembled Norwegian black metal bands but didn’t focus on Satan. And whereas viking metal is about Norse mythology, pagan metal is a wider term, so you have Slavic as well as Germanic lyrics, and the term fits In the Woods..., Menhir, Graveland, Evluveitie, Arkona and many others. The German Legacy magazine, a bigger one mostly about extreme metal, released a special pagan metal issue one or two years ago, I think, but as I don’t own it, I can’t say anything about its content, but I can assure the term is widely used in Europe, but seems to be unknown in the USA. I therefore remove the deletion template. The accusation to have made this up is insane and proves this deletionist’s ignorance. --132.187.3.26 (talk) 08:53, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

nope you've just proved your own ignorance of how wikipedia works. all the stuff you've said is totally your point of view, it's all original research, and therefore it's all meaningless. i'll just take it to the deletion section where it'll quickly be made into a redirect unless you can show some sources. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.129.192.189 (talk) 11:47, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

apparently I can't create the deletion discussion, so here's the reasoning: not enough sourcing, the odd mention of the phrase "pagan metal" here or there doesn't mean anything there needs to be a selection of sources describing a GENRE in detail not just using a phrase. supposed "genre" not supported enough to justify article and it's mostly just original research obviously just something a user made up. users talking all about the genre and so on doesn't add up to anything because it's all original research. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.129.192.189 (talk) 12:04, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

• If you had done a Google News search you would have seen that there are plenty of sources that provide in-depth discussion and coverage of the term. That most of them are in German is irrelevant. If the comments made above are "original research," your judgment of the term's notability likewise does not seem to be based on research. You might look, for instance, at this article, from Berlin magazine Freitag. Drmies (talk) 02:08, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Dear 86.129.192.189, your accusations of ignorance are nonsense. Pretending each sentence about a topic you don’t know anything about not marked with a ref tag is POV is pure ignorance. If you want to delete stuff that was made up, remove blackened death metal and blackened thrash metal from all Wikipedia articles, as, unlike dark metal, pagan metal and gothic metal, these actually are merely uselesss term for bands merging black metal and death metal or thrash metal elements.

Dear Drmies, I know Dornbusch is controversial, but I put the ref tag in again (you can see that on YouTube), and removed Danzig and Samhaim, since these band have nothing to do with pagan metal (nor does hatecore) and I have no idea how anybody could come up with that. I have no interest in offending you, but these sources suck and their authors seem to have no idea what they wrote about. I reverted major parts of your edits and gave sources for at least a few bands. --132.187.3.26 (talk) 11:46, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi 132.etc., the point is that Dornbusch simply cannot count as a reliable source--it's the equivalent of citing John Stewart from The Daily Show. Not everything they say is fiction, or satire, or humor, but enough of it is. Now, as far as Danzig is concerned, you may not like what they're called, but that's really original research, given that the Washington Post is one of the most authoritative and reliable newspapers in the world. Drmies (talk) 17:16, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

BTW, I may not like it very much either, and that author for the Post, Marc Jenkins, is the only one to use it for them (at least according to Google News). You see, I'm trying to give full disclosure here (I just searched again), and it is possible that he meant something different (in the mid 1990s) from what more recent writers understand the term to mean. But the fact remains that he does, in three different articles, and that lends automatic credibility to the usage, even if, for purposes of WP:N, two different sources are better. But then we might really be arguing over minutiae, such as you accuse others of who coin terms like "blackened metal." It's only in the metal industry that these fights over genre demarcations are fought so vehemently. Drmies (talk) 04:03, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Dornbusch is one of the most well-known people among the kind of critics accusing pagan metal of ridiculous constitution of manliness, relation to blood and soil ideology, and so on; so his views may not be reliable, but more relevant than those of many other critics. That is why I had put his ref in again; otherwise, it wouldn’t have stayed in the German Wikipedia either, and that is where I got that source from.

There are no really relevant ties between hatecore/NSHC and pagan metal, unlike, say, folk metal and pagan metal, or NSBM and pagan metal; furthermore, the link doesn’t back up this absurd claim.

The Washington Post may be an authority, it may be reliable, but it is no authority on an European underground subculture and is not expected to be either. Its general reliability is no reason to use it as a reference for obviously false facts, as is to call Danzig an example for the pagan metal scene. The band might refer to paganism and metal, but it is no pagan metal in the same sense as the pagan metal culture we are discussing here. Glenn Danzig has a horror punk background, whereas pagan metal has its roots in black metal and folk metal/folk music. The difference is obvious. By the way, Tales of the Macabre (which I referred to in my yesterday edit) was a magazine well-known in the black metal/thrash metal/heavy metal subcultures of the nineties, and Pagan Fire (which was used as a source since the moment this article was created) is a current magazine about pagan metal. These are more of an authority on the topic than a general newspaper. I know you try to save and expand the article and edit in good faith, but it is obvious you don’t have no idea about the topic. I am no member of the pagan metal subculture either, but I know about what I put into the article. --132.187.3.26 (talk) 08:47, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

As I said, the way to go about Danzig is to make the terminology clear in the article. That will require better sources on both pagan metals--if there are two. Removal of content is not the way, and your personal opinion, as informed as it is, is not quite relevant.

The NSHC thing: you are partly right--the source did not back it up, and you'd have been perfectly right to remove. I'm glad you didn't, cause now I could figure out why--I had pasted the incorrect URL in the reference, and I'm sorry for that mistake. But now read the article in Netzeitung, which seems pretty reliable. And there are clearly "relevant ties": they are to be found in the "volkisch" aspect of their respective ideologies. That doesn't mean Moonflower are Nazis, of course.

Finally, your other points: the incomplete references for those magazines detract from the credibility of the source. Better references, and better yet, access to those sources, would surely help. That something is allowed to stand in the German Wikipedia has no bearing on this discussion, and vice versa. Doornbusch may stand as a critic of sorts, but only if the wording is changed, from weasel words to specifics, and if that phrase "knowlingly imparting values such as honour, masculinity and militarism through a martialist habit" is changed to something--a "martialist habit" is not very clear, to say the least.

Now, you can go around calling me ignorant of this kind of music, and I could explain to you how untrue this, but then I would accept that rude remark and I don't; what I'll accept is an apology. I am sure there is an equivalent of WP:CIVIL on the German Wikipedia also. Oh, I don't think you realize that I'm probably on the same side as you are here. Drmies (talk) 15:21, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it was the wrong link. For the ties, I meant rather personal than ideological ones. And hatecore is no typically European term, it came from an American punk band called SFA and was later misused by (probably not solely European, though I have no proof for that) neo-nazis to describe their kind of hardcore music (hence NSHC, which seems to be a newer term).

Did you mean Moonsorrow by Moonflower, or was that some kind of other pun I don’t get?

For the sources, I once read these myself, so I know they said that. I also know the German Wikipedia is not the English one, nor vice versa, but still, the German Wikipedia is, when it comes to relevance, stricter than the English ones (try to find album stubs there, for example), and with higher quality standards and people always ready to discuss or remove what is deemed dubious.

Hey, the German Wikipedia article has nothing compared to this one. They may not allow album stubs, but they do allow a whole bunch of dubiously sourced info. They have that Doornbusch and the critique on Metalstorm--and since both are critiques, they can hardly count as independent of the subject. Perhaps you should go and propose their article for AfD, just for the hell of it. :) Drmies (talk) 01:19, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I am not on a mission trying to do you wrong (sorry if I did), but the edits I reverted after you did them the first time didn’t really fit someone knowing about the subculture we are discussing, so you may understand how I came to that conclusion, be it justified or not. --132.187.3.26 (talk) 15:53, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

By the way, I think all album stubs should be deleted here, too; for its basic information, people could as well check the band sites, average fan pages or something like Discogs. --132.187.3.26 (talk) 08:40, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Haha, no, I was mistaken--I must have been thinking of Carlos Santana as I was typing it. Sorry. I'm going to go have a look at the German article. Look, I'm not against using any kind of reliable source, as long as I have a way of establishing that they are reliable. And I'll gladly take your word for it, but I do need more in the way of bibliographic information--that's what I do for a living. Besides listening to metal. Preferably black or bluesy. Drmies (talk) 01:03, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

The Tales of the Macabre issue cited can be downloaded here. I will try to find out who was the author of the Pagan Fire article and then reference In the Woods....

And the German Wikipedia may have another reference policy, but I think the users would still prefer (obvious) facts being badly sourced to sourced untruth, whereas I have the impression it is the opposite around here. --132.187.3.26 (talk) 14:11, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I have now restored the In the Woods... reference, but I didn’t include the author’s name (Christian Wachter) since it is only his article but not his magazine. --132.187.3.26 (talk) 12:21, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Drastic cutting

83.218.158.202: Please refrain from those drastic cuts to the article. You deleted a lot of the "representative" bands, and those bands are perfectly fine there--the list does not say "notable." Redlinked bands, esp. in an article that is actively being worked on, are fine. Given that you started the AfD discussion, your edits seem much too tendentious. Thank you. Drmies (talk) 14:59, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

they're only representitive in YOUR OPINION which, according to wikipedia, is meaningless. so if they really ARE representitive, find a source for it. that's all you have to do. 86.138.90.54 (talk) 22:03, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

And note many of them are notable and among the most well-known pagan metal bands, which is one more reason to defend their place in that article. --132.187.3.26 (talk) 16:08, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

again, where is the source to show they're "among the most well-known pagan metal bands"? without a source, it's meaningless. 86.138.90.54 (talk) 22:03, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

How about this: accept the sources as they are provided for in the article, and withdraw the AfD, then we'll talk. Yes, unverified material can be removed, but that doesn't mean editors have to run through and cut everything. Esp. since you got the AfD started, such editing on your part can look fishy. Obviously a lot of work is being done on this article, by IP 132 and by yours truly. I mean, I could easily slap an "under construction" tag on it, or put a vandalism warning on your talk page--oh wait, I see you went through that list again. Let me just give you one example: Menhir is cited in the article, explicitly. You have no business deleting them. Drmies (talk) 01:03, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

i'm not going to be bribed or bullied into ignoring rules. there's nothing "fishy" about enforcing the rules: if there's a source, i suggest you add it to the band name. if not, i'll just keep removing it as unsourced content. and i'll accept the sources when it's explained why they're reliable: as i said, i never said they weren't. just that it wasn't clear why they were. and indeed, when you explained one, i looked at it, and indeed it seems good. so don't take such a snooty attitude about it. 83.218.158.202 (talk) 07:48, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I think you're not getting the point. There's no bribe and no bullying; I was trying to be nice. The AfD will expire and end in a keep, because the article, by now, is well-sourced, as is recognized by a number of well-established editors, all of whom are more experienced and smarter than I am--and then this one-person (well, two IPs) crusade will be at an end. Drmies (talk) 14:31, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

and so you are STILL not addressing my points, but rather seem to be dodging them. remember that a deletion isn't a headcount: it's about who makes the best points. and you still aren't doing so: you still haven't given any good reason why we need an article to say "some metal bands have pagan lyrics". so nope, not going to end anytime soon. it'll end when you show the justification for a "pagan metal" article. if you do, i'll be happy and satisfied. 86.138.90.54 (talk) 16:31, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

this is for any other users who want to try to revert my edit as "vandalism" (which it isn't by the way. you all need to READ that rule before you try pushing it):

• Adorned Blood - no source
• Arkona - no source
• Falkenbach - no source
• In the Woods - no source
• Menhir - non-notable band. lists should not include bands that aren't notable enough for an article.
• Odroerir - also non-notable. plus, bad source: a band's own website is a biased source, and so can't be used for their genre.
• Riger - non-notable.
• Runic - non-notable.
• Totenburg - non-notable.
• Wolfchant - the metalstorm website isn't reliable as far as i know. if i'm wrong show me where it says so.
• XIV Dark Centuries - non-notable.

so, if you want those bands in, all you've got to do is source them/make their page, including their notability. 86.138.90.54 (talk) 17:37, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

You must be either joking or ignorant. Only Totenburg has nothing to do in this list for being only NSBM. Bands fitting into both NSBM and pagan metal would rather be Nokturnal Mortum, Absurd and Graveland, and I doubt any of these is as important for such a list as Menhir, Odroerir and some others actually are. --132.187.3.26 (talk) 12:21, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Rewrite

Sorry, Drmies, but I'm taking out most of the German articles that you used as sources in an attempt to salvage this article. In the first place, I have finally found some reliable English sources, which makes the use of the German articles somewhat unnecessary. Secondly, I felt that the use of the German sources gave this article too much of a German-centric perspective that has little relevance to the many non-German bands out there. Finally, I find that the sources do not always support the broad statements they are being cited for. I am going to give some examples here:

1. This biography for Odroerir is just a biography for one band on their official website. It is not enough to support a general statement about how "pagan metal bands associate with the culture of their perceived ancestors in their home country, though some bands freely combine Celtic and Germanic mythology".

2. This frankenpost article does not mention anything about how "at other venues, pagan metal bands play alongside folk metal and black metal bands". There is only one usage of the term black metal and that is to a band also known as pagan metal, Primordial.

3. The netzeitung article is not about pagan metal. It is about hatecore and there is only one passing mention of pagan metal in it. Given that we have evidence that the term pagan metal has been used in different ways, we do not really know exactly what they are referring to here by the use of the term. That sort of passing mention is simply not sufficient to support such a contentious claim that pagan metal bands often share a deep "volkisch" view of history. I certainly do not think that statement is true for the left-wing libertarians Skyclad or the Irish bands like Cruachan, etc.

4. This looks like a blog entry.

5. The freitag article was used to support the statements that "Especially in Germany pagan metal is quite close to neo-Nazism and anti-Christian sentiment" and "Critics accuse the pagan metal scene of association with neo-Nazis and sharing neo-Nazi ideology". I was not able to locate either point in the article. What I do see in the freitag article is a statement about how on internet sites such as myspace and lastfm, there are recent increase of messages such as "pagans against fascism" or "metal fans against Nazis". The only other thing that connects pagan metal to neo-nazism in that article was a sentence about how the normalization of right-wing symbolism is given a boost by pagan metal along with gothic and neo-folk music. Also, the use of the terms "especially in Germany" suggests that pagan metal is also close to neo-Nazism outside Germany but the freitag article does not appear to be discussing anything outside of Germany, which is another problem in itself since the article was also used to support the description of pagan metal as mostly using clean vocals with lyrics that romanticizes a return to "Germanic" paganism. I think the first point is really inaccurate given that many pagan metal bands do not eschew unclean vocals at all, including some of the more prominent names like Korpiklaani, Eluveitie, Moonsorrow, etc. The second point is a German-centric description that is not applicable to the many non-German pagan metal acts.

I have also removed The Washington Post article on Danzig for the reasons I mentioned in the AFD. Like the Netzeitung article, the pagan metal term here is just used as a passing mention and there is no indication whatsoever as to what it is supposed to mean. There is no connection, comparison or relationship being drawn up here between Danzig and any other pagan/folk/viking metal act. Since the same author also uses the term pagan-punk, I see no reason to think that the author was doing anything more than indulging in a neologism without being aware of other uses for the term. --Bardin (talk) 11:01, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

You probably noticed my dialogues with Drmies concerning their sources and therefore can imagine I am not too sad to see some of them removed. Some of your edits did very much to improve the article, but you still shouldn’t have totally removed the criticism and ideology parts, which are important for the article and the view of this subculture. And I think the Bathory/Manowar citation is totally needless for any article not mainly about Bathory as a band or any Bathory album; Quorthon only said his drummer liked the band and maybe was a bit inspired by the Manowar rhythm, and I don’t see Bathory as a Manowar clone (nor as a Venom clone) either, by the way. --132.187.3.26 (talk) 12:44, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Both sections gave undue weight to POVs that are not representative of pagan metal as a whole. The first sentence of the ideology section used the phrase "especially in relation to Germanic peoples" but there is nothing Germanic about the ideology or lyrics for pagan metal bands outside of Germany. The stuff about the Neo-Nazism accusation was re-written and incorporated into the history section. The only thing not included is the sentence about how organizers of concert festivals try to downplay the issue and the paragraph on a single individual's POV that was written on what appears to be a blog. This one isolated example does not support the general claim that "criticism also comes from within the metal scene". As for the Bathory/Manowar citation, you are referring to an interview cited as a source in the Viking metal article, not this. There is no citation here to any interview from Quorthon. There is a statement by a representative of a prominent pagan metal band who credits Bathory as the first pagan metal but notes that they were copying from Manowar. Finally, I noticed you added a statement about In The Woods back into the article. I have not been able to find any online evidence that a magazine called Pagan Fire even exists so how are we other editors to know whether it is a reliable source, let alone whether the cited statement is adequatedly supported by it? --Bardin (talk) 13:50, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

The Pagan Fire issue in question is this one. The cited article was called “Progressive Heiden” (“Progressive Heathens”) and was about progressive elements in the music of bands like In the Woods... and Enslaved. By the way, I think the German-centric perspective was not such a big problem, since Germany, has a large metal fan base, many critics (Dornbusch, Antifa groups, BIFFF, Apabiz [see [1]], and so on) and the Ragnarök Festival, which is the most important pagan metal festival.

I never said there was any reference for Quorthon in this article, I just wanted to point out that the Manowar copycat comment is is neither shared by the majority (nor Quorthon) nor important for the pagan metal article. --132.187.3.26 (talk) 08:40, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Just a general comment, I don't think Viking Metal is considered a sub-genre of pagan metal, and thus I think think Turisas should be removed. Soxwon (talk) 14:26, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Ah, but there's a reliable source describing them as "pagan metal" (ref 1 in fact), so there's no reason to remove them from the list. Of course, there's no particular reason why they can't be listed under multiple genres... they're not actually mutually exclusive terms, contrary to many people's opinions. Blackmetalbaz (talk) 14:37, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I wanted to reply months ago. The Pagan Fire magazine is a Legacy spin off, and Legacy is a relevant music magazine, the best-selling about extreme metal in Germany. That is a valid source, and, by the way, the current German Metal Hammer issue also writes In the Woods… was one of the first bands described as pagan metal. So I think I could use both to back that up when putting the band into the article again, and you may add the reliable source you mentioned. I have also seen an old flyer with that description, which I do not own though. The band used that description due to its sound being close to Norwegian black metal, but without the Satanic background that defines black metal; thus comparable to Enslaved’s viking metal and Immortal using the term “holocaust metal” in the early 1990’s. --Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg, formerly active using the static IP adress 132.187.3.26. 16:58, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

100610, Another band that accomplish with the Pagan Metal definition is "Aiumeen Basoa" from the Basque Country, http://www.myspace.com/aiumeenbasoa. Last work published on 2010. I will be pleasured if you will add it to the list, please. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.30.40.136 (talk) 07:50, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

WolfChant

I find it quite funny to be honest that WolfChant arnt on the list of paganmetal bands. Listn to: A Paganstorm, Rewvenge, World In Ice, Wolfchant From the Mountainside etc.

They even describe themselves as "Epic Pagan Metal from Bavaria" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.135.70.218 (talk) 16:16, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Infobox

It′s needed an infobox here. --XXN (talk) 23:19, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

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