ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the Romanian black metal scene during the 1990s and 2000s as a case study of cultural migration of an underground music genre which adapted to the popular culture of a post-communist country, only to emerge as part of a transnational cultural trend which dominated the start of the twenty-first century. It construes the dynamic evolution of black metal as a music genre in post-communist Romania, taking into account its particular domestic audience as well as its juxtaposition of a globally shared musical ethos and national post-communist ideologies and subcultures. Using music fanzines, bootleg tapes and demo CDs from the late 1990s and early 2000s Romanian scene, as well as oral history interviews with band members and music fans, this chapter explores several key aspects of music marketing within the black metal music industry in order to explain how black metal migrated to a cultural periphery, only to reintegrate in the global scene of 2000s metal music.
