ABSTRACT
The story of Hungarian black metal tells us about the pitfalls of influence. What happens when a genre that is defined by obscurity and adversarial attitude earns wide recognition and becomes acknowledged beyond its own territory? The ideology of black metal does not merely determine the boundaries of the genre but also aims to control its reception. However, Hungarian black metal has crossed not only national borders but the boundaries of the scene as well. This contradiction between the story of Hungarian black metal and the genre’s ideology is what this chapter is about. Hungarian black metal exemplifies the taming of a genre that follows from the loss or lack of transgressive practices that would trigger controversy (Hjelm et al. 2011). Black metal in Hungary became widely known without provoking conflicts and the moral panic that have characterized the reception of the genre in other countries.
