Landmark Events in the History of Black Metal

The Rise of Black Metal Labels

The first label to dedicate itself solely to the genre of black metal was Oystein Aarseth’s Deathlike Silence. Deathlike Silence's stated goal was to release records by bands "that incarnated evil in its most pure state". The label would become home to Aarseth's own band, Mayhem, as well as other black metal acts like Burzum. The rise of Aarseth’s band, and the label with it forced more band’s from the black metal genre to gain acceptance with main stream labels. Many bands that had been refused earlier by these labels were reconsidered and signed for large sums of money.

Church Burnings and Arson.

Headliners of the black metal scene claimed responsibility for inspiring, if not necessarily perpetrating over 50 arsons directed at Christian churches in Norway from 1992 to 1996. At the centre of this religious storm was the one man band Burzum’s Varg Vikernes, a Nazi ideology follower. He burned down the Fantoft stave church in Norway thus perpetrating the largest crime in the string of arsons.

Murders.

Vikernes also murdered long time friend Aarseth in 1993 and was tried and imprisoned for the murder. Vikernes stabbed Aarseth twenty three times over some sort of disagreement in their store Helvet. Aarseth’s murder by Vikernes was later confessed by the latter to be a way to try and out do Bard Eithun’s, of the band Emperor, murder of an allegedly homo sexual man in Lillehammer the year before.

The black metal scene has been increasingly anti social in recent years with greater opposition to Christianity than ever before.