venom is black metal... death metal!??!?!?



laughs*


NEVER EVER.. they were EVEN CLOSE to any of those 2 genre's...

Not sure what I'd class them as, but they certainly influenced the thrash, death and black metal scene. From Venom, Slayer went one way, Possessed went another and Bathory went the other. Back in the 80's they would have all been lumped in with thrash (I can remember a 'Mega Metal Kerrang: Thrash Special' where Slayer, Possessed and Bathory were all included), but nowadays people think of Bathory as black, Possessed as death and obviously Slayer as thrash. But Venom was the starting point.

So are Mercyful Fate and Slayer black metal too? They were both called black metal in the early 80's.

I think that when Venom coined it, they were referring to the sound itself, although yeah, at some point I think it was used for just that.

I often hear people calling Mercyful Fate black metal, but then saying Venom aren't. I don't see how that works.

Genres evolve, as black metal did. It doesn't mean that the originators aren't still part of it, and bands that resemble Venom often consider themselves to be black metal, or at least in some way associated with it.

I don't know about that. The statement stems really only from the fact that he didn't want Venom to be lumped with bands like Foreigner and Van Halen since they clearly saw themselves as something more evil than that.

Black Metal is more than just music. Black Metal is very much about the attitude, feeling, aestethics and so on. Its not a style with more rigid rules like let's say thrash or doom or even death metal. This is why its an enourmously diverse genre, anything can be black metal from the more primitive, raw stuff, to the ultra avantgarde, to symphonic, epic, to extremely blasphemous blasting, to the thrashy stuff.. and even more stuff that i can think of right now. Venom are definitely pioneers of the black metal music/ideology.

It's pretty clear Venom weren't distorted enough or had any hardcore influence to be thrash....