A fuckton of musicians also using suspicious nazi aesthetics, being open to performing/collaborating with fashy bands, etc.
It even extends to more innocuous seeming stuff.
Oh, an experimental industrial album from 1970? You see, one of the members actually did some work with nazi black metal musician Euronymous in the 80s. Oh, an innocuous sounding 1985 synthpop album? Oh you see one of the band members did a lot of work with the neo-nazi band Death in June. Not to mention the more problematic artists around without a political reason for it.
Germany is apparently especially bad for this kind of thing, in the goth scene, because of course. I don’t know what your politics are, if I can even find that information, but if your band is named for example Ost+Front (Eastern Front), I am going to be suspicious of you even if you claim to be communists and as a foreigner am sure as hell not considering going to a performance where you or people who like you will be around even as spectators.
The deeper I dive into less than mainstream music, the more I start realizing that it is bad.
Did Imagine Dragons base their musical repertoire on the basis of the work of Varg Vikernes? Do they insert Nietzsche into their lyrics? Are they going to perform in festivals where you play Russian roulette whether the person you are next to has a Hakenkreuz-tattoo?
Probably not is the answer to all of the above.
spoiler
at least Depeche Mode and the Cure haven’t done anything too problematic, as far as I know.
Me listening to Rammstein and trying to convince people I’m not a nazi
They’re not afaik. They did have a sex-crime related scandal recently however.
They definitely aren’t nazis but listening to heavy metal German music around my friends makes them question things. Especially the song Deutschland
Ah, I see how it might be seen as sus I suppose.
I live in Germany myself, and it feels like half of the metal bands here are super-cheesy power metal. Admittedly, I’m not much of a metalhead, even though I dabble sometimes.
I could swear I seen the band actually come out and say they are anti-fascists but I might be talking rubbish
They are certainly anti nazi and some of their songs reflect that