(The psychic damage caused by working in retail, the pain of 80’s music, the guilty pleasure of listening to a black metal band play that 80’s music . . . DemiGodRaven gets it all off his chest.)

Earlier this January, MetalSucks.net put up a quick little post about a group called Necrocomiccon, a joking sort of internet project that ‘fused’ black metal with 80’s music. Basically, it breaks down to a bunch of goofballs who sat around and covered 80’s music with some black metal vocals. While the joke didn’t quite ring true with the editors over there (some get it, some don’t), I found myself chuckling at the idea and giving the music a download. It’s free over on the Necrocomiccon Facebook page, so if you want, you can hit them up there or on their bandcamp, where the guys have been kind enough to link everything in case the free bandcamp downloads run out.

The post itself was interesting because I think it actually reflected a little microcosm of metal music these days and how the internet has had an effect on it. The internet and its vast reaches have basically given rise to the art of gimmickry as an art form, and if a band has a decent gimmick, it is highly likely you’ll see it taken up by the louder voices on the web and spread like wildfire.

This phenomenon can have huge, lasting implications — it popularized the crabcore movement as a whole, for example, taking what was a bunch of assholes on the internet enjoying stuff ‘ironically’ and transforming it into a whole style that has jumped past the point of being mildly self-aware to a full blown ‘serious’ style, at least to the people who listen to it.

While none of this has had a direct effect on Necrocommicon, I think it helps explain how something like this could have been birthed. I find this whole idea fucking hilarious, and the music actually interesting from the standpoint of it being a novelty. You also do have to appreciate the fact, though, that something like this really shouldn’t work because it only appeals to to two types of people with one unifying factor. They either have to love 80’s music or, like me, be trapped in retail where you’ve heard every single one of these songs to the point where emptying out your skull with some well-placed buckshot seems better than hearing Phil Collins ever again.

That unifying factor, however, is the whole gist of the joke: You have to find that adding black metal to anything is fucking hilarious (which, to be very clear, I do). Continue reading »