from the band's politics. I bet they wouldn't have bothered doing that had the band explicitly aligned itself with communism rather than Nazism. In the case of Varg Vikernes, the one-man band behind Burzum, politics are the least of the problems he poses. The lovely Varg is a convicted arsonist and murderer, after alltwo things we can't pin on Wagner, though some might like to tryand I have a couple of Burzum albums. By purchasing these, am I perhaps showing some form of private support for a criminal? Admittedly, as with the Bruckner symphonies mentioned above, these are things I've thought about, but they don't really bother me much. I think that if you stop for too long to question all your motives and whether or not you should do a thing, then you will soon wind up doing nothing. (And Peaceville Records evidently didn't feel strongly enough about Darkthrone's dubious politics to refuse to make money from them.) But a vague feeling of what might be called guilt by association does kind of linger in the background. By venturing into the muddy waters of black metal I may have wandered a bit from Wagnerand in musical terms I certainly have, though many of the bands may be accused of having similar pretensions to pomp and grandeur if on a cheaper scalebut even so, I think all of that ties in with things I've said earlier about how there are things you're supposedly not allowed to like and also Wagner's posthumous association with Nazi Germany. My own political leanings do not incline towards Nazism, but I don't think that means I can't find Burzum interesting. And yet, perhaps that's why some people are wary of Wagner. Whether or not the Third Reich was his fault, the association's still there and perhaps people are afraid to commit firmly to Wagner because of it. Maybe they think that if they side with Wagner, in some way they're also siding with the Reich. Guilt by association, as I said. Can you let yourself like Wagner? Can you allow...
