2B — Thursday, December 5, 2019
b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

B-SIDE: MUSIC NOTEBOOK

For better or for worse, black metal broke the mold 
in the 2010s. It was a long time coming, too. From its 
inception in the early ’80s until shortly before 2010, 
black metal, with regard to both its sound and its 
culture, had barely budged. In any other genre, this is 
a completely foreign idea — artists are supposed to live 
and breathe, experiment and develop. But not in black 
metal. In black metal, bands are supposed to live within 
the common sounds of the genre, nudging up against the 
boundaries but never pushing (or even breaking) them. 
Before, artists were supposed to look, sound and carry 
themselves a certain way, or else they were doomed to a 
lackluster, dead-end career. In the past 10 years, though, 
bands suddenly stopped caring and started doing their 
own thing, and some bands became very popular as a 
result. To some, this was a long time coming. To others, 
though, this was damn near the end of the world. 
You see, metal purists (especially black metal purists) 
want to be familiar with every piece of music they hear. 
They want to be surprised by how each artist bends the 
genre to meet their desired sound, but they don’t want 
any curveballs. They want what they know, and they 
don’t care about anything else. So when black metal 
began to turn outward in the early 2010s, heads from 
every corner of the music world turned. Critics began 
to find themselves drawn to new black metal musings. 
Casual music fans began to dip their toes into the 
subgenre. Notably, though, metal heads began to turn 
a blind eye to the progress that lay in front of them. As 
black metal began to turn to the sky, the heads began to 
look to the stagnant pond that is metal, pretending their 
world remained unaltered.
The first band to really break the mold was Liturgy, 
a group of Brooklyn hipsters (largely unversed in 
black metal) led by vocalist/guitarist/theorist Hunter 
Hunt-Hendrix. In 2009, Hunt-Hendrix released a 

manifesto titled “Transcendental Black Metal: A 
Vision of Apocalyptic Humanism” at a black metal 
theory conference. The manifesto explained the idea 
of transcendental (American) black metal, a subgenre 
of metal that could transcend the “Haptic Void,” the 
imaginary boundary that contains all other forms of 
metal, a task that Hyperborean (Scandinavian) black 
metal could never accomplish given its fixation on death, 
executed through its signature pummeling and lifeless 
drum technique, the blast beat. Transcendental black 
metal, focused instead on life and growth, was to be 
accomplished through the burst beat, a drum technique 
that lives and breathes as each song progresses. Don’t get 
it misconstrued, though: the music is still heavy, but it 
attempts to reach a higher plane. Given the radical ideas 
and rampant experimentation they fostered, Liturgy 
was met with some serious backlash. In fact, some 
claimed that they were nothing more than hipsters set 
out to ruin another good thing. Others claimed that they 
were too pretentious and didn’t carry the spirit of black 
metal.
Liturgy came close to realizing transcendental black 
metal with the release of 2009’s Renihilation (the opposite 
of annihilation), but it didn’t quite meet the mark. It was 
still heavily influenced by the so-called Hyperborean 
black metal, but moments like the chilling, evolving 
“Ecstatic Rite” show the potential of transcendental 
black metal. The band came even closer with 2012’s 
incredible (and incredibly polarizing) Aesthetica. The 
album broke the boundaries of black metal with songs 
like “Sun of Light” and “Red Crown,” but it didn’t quite 
transcend the Haptic Void. After 2015’s misstep The Ark 
Work, the electronic and hip hop influenced release that 
left fans flustered, it seemed that the band had run its 
course. The Ark Work simply was not metal, nor could 
anyone consider it to be metal. Liturgy, specifically 
Hunt-Hendrix, jumped too high and inevitably missed 
the mark. However, after an electronic release from 
Hunt-Hendrix and four years away from the genre, 
2019’s surprise release, H.A.Q.Q., set Liturgy back on the 

right course, keeping things metal as hell but correctly 
introducing electronic and glitch elements. From heavy 
hitters brimming with life and humanity like “GOD 
OF LOVE” and “HAJJ” that utilize electronic stutter 
steps in lieu of sonic progressions to challenging yet 
palate-cleansing interludes like “EXACO I,” H.A.Q.Q. is 
evidence that even though it will not be easy, eventually, 
Liturgy will transcend the Haptic Void. Black metal 
purists be damned, the band has already begun to 
transform, and there’s no reason for them to stop in the 
next decade.
Similarly, the advent of atmospheric black metal 
has ruffled the feathers of many metalheads. Bands 
were creating rock and alternative-infused black metal 
that more resembled the Cure than it did Darkthrone. 
Expectedly, metalheads were largely unhappy, and no 
band made them more unhappy than San Francisco’s 
Deafheaven. Formed in 2010, the band released Roads 
to Judah in 2011. Musically, the album was typical black-
metal fare, but with a twist. Rather than an onslaught 
of destruction, the violence was often broken up with 
glistening piano and acoustic guitar ballads. They 
are, like so many other boundary-pushing black 
metal acts, inspired by Japan’s Envy, one of the 
first bands to blend black metal with countless 
softer, more accessible genres. Lyrically, the album 
diverged from black metal’s typical depictions of 
the wilderness and critiques on various religious 
and governmental institutions, instead focusing 
on vocalist and lyricist George Clarke’s substance 
abuse and general tomfoolery. The album was 
generally a success, finding a home on several year-
end lists, but it started to make purists grumble. 
Once again, the hipsters were dead-set on ruining 
yet another good thing.
Deafheaven didn’t stop there, though. Their 
next release, 2013’s Sunbather, blew the iron gates 

of black metal wide open. First of all, the album cover 
was vibrant peachy-pink. Never has this color ever been 
associated with black metal. Second, the music — it was 
beautiful, often crushingly so. Just listen to “Dream 
House,” far and away the band’s most popular song. 
Guitarist and songwriter Kerry McCoy introduced 
elements of shoegaze and new wave (two very un-black-
metal genres) to the band’s sound (hence The Cure 
comparisons). Third, and finally, the lyrics. Similar to 
the idea of Transcendental black metal, Clarke writes 
about life. However, he writes about man’s never-ending 
pursuit of perfection and man’s accompanying, inevitable 
failure. Critics adored this album, which made black 
metal purists hate it even more than they already did. On 
top of this experimentation, the members of Deafheaven 
are conventionally normal looking and could potentially 
function normally within society, which is inherently 
not very metal. Worse yet, the members of Deafheaven 
like other genres of music, including hip hop, a genre 
generally disliked by metalheads for its materialism and 
supposed lack of lyrical depth.

The fear, fame and faces of black metal in the 2010s

JIM WILSON
Daily Arts Writer

To Ricardo & our friends at the 
printer: Words aren’t enough to 
express how grateful we are to 
you. As far as best-ofs go, you’re 
it.
XO, Arts.

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

The best selling poet of 2017 wasn’t Shakespeare, 
Homer or William Blake. It was Rupi Kaur, a 27-year-
old Indian-Canadian woman whose success can be 
largely attributed to her following on Instagram. In fact, 
so-called “Instapoets” made up 12 of the top 20 best 
selling poets in 2017.
Anyone with a passing interest in poetry has likely 
encountered Instapoets in their social media feed. 
They’ve come to define much of the literature of the 
decade. Their poems often deal with themes like 
relationships, loneliness and mental health. Their 
meanings are clear so a reader can usually “get it” on the 
first read. Most importantly, they’re short, making them 
perfectly suited for the brief encounters social media was 
structured for. 
Instapoets have almost single-handedly brought 
poetry back into the mainstream, and yet they’re taken 
less seriously than “real” poets. There’s a tacit assumption 
that their poems are about just feelings and emotions and 
can’t be compared to their print-only counterparts. The 
critique, when fully thought out, is that Kaur and other 
Instapoets too often oversimplify their work, hoping to 
appeal to a large audience, and supposedly resulting in 
poetry that’s hollow and boring.
While there’s truth to this claim, it would be 
irresponsible to dismiss Instapoets without asking why a 
social media presence seems to diminish their legitimacy. 
One similarity among many popular Instapoets is that 
their pages aren’t simply free spaces where they casually 
share new pieces; these pages are polished, deliberate 
and well thought out. More than just a platform to share 
poetry, they are an effective marketing tool. There are 
promotional materials, book release dates and clear 
intents to build a brand. They’re reminiscent of the pages 
of Instagram models — they blend a carefully curated 
marketing message with an intimate space to share and 

interact with fans. 
The use of social media as a business tool isn’t an 
innovative practice. It is difficult to find a sizable company 
without a twenty-something “Social Media Specialist” in 
its marketing department. It would simply be an oversight 
to sell anything without having some kind of social media 
presence, so any poet trying to make money will follow 
suit. Social media, however, tends to favor smaller units 
of content as many accounts compete for the limited 
attention of users. Platforms reinforce this tendency with 
character limits, dense layouts and systems of ranking 
posts with an eye for maximizing advertising revenue at 
the expense of long-form content.
What we find is that medium dictates form. Poets 
have to meet their audience where they are, and where 
these readers reside is a space that is hyper-commodified. 
Everything, right down to a user’s attention, can have a 
price tag and be sold to the highest bidder. Poets, whose 
content can’t cleanly fit into this paradigm, are forced into 
the impossible task of competing with actors willing to 
instantly gratify a user’s base impulse in search of profit. 
It is then unsurprising that Rupi Kaur’s specific 
brand of poetry is notoriously able to capitalize on social 
media’s potential for content promotion. That being 
said, the success of Instapoets on social media is not an 
affirmative indictment of their quality. Despite what a 
tenured English professor might have to say about them, 
Instapoets have attracted an otherwise disinterested 
audience to poetry. In doing so, they’ve expanded into 
subject matters that were previously ignored, and have 
been highly inclusive of marginalized communities. 
These are poems that are worth something to many 
people, and there’s no reason to be concerned about that. 
Instapoets as they exist aren’t the issue. It is the limiting 
constraints of social media that keep so many Instapoets 
from ever being called poets.

Instapoetry, then and now

SEJJAD ALKHALBY
For The Daily

B-SIDE: BOOKS NOTEBOOK

In January 2010, I sat in the waiting room of a 
doctor’s office, squirming impatiently in an oversized 
chair — the entire room was designed for adults, but 
I was only 11. On the side table next to me sat the 
obligatory vase of fake flowers and pile of severely 
outdated magazines. On top was the previous 
December’s edition of TIME. The front cover offered a 
sneak peek of the issue’s topic: a decade in review. The 
rest of that memory is quite blurry. I don’t remember 
where the office was or what I was there for, but that 
red cover sticks out like a bright light. Barely older than 
a decade myself, the concept of 10 years was hard to 
wrap my young head around. I remember wondering 
where I’d be the next time TIME had to make another 
decade in review.
And here we are. I haven’t checked in with the 
offices of TIME, but The Daily will do.
Despite my ongoing disbelief and denial that 2020 
is right around the corner, I will acknowledge that I 
feel quite removed from that girl in the doctor’s office. 
She is hidden deep inside the dustiest of my brain’s file 
cabinets. I don’t remember the specifics of her day-to-
day thoughts, but in retrospect I do know that she was 
in for a whirlwind of a decade.
In 2010, the iPhone was barely three years old. None 
of my friends nor I owned any sort of cell phone and 
the only screens in my house were an old box TV and a 
desktop computer.
Later that year, Instagram came to fruition. In 
2011, Snapchat would be founded by a trio of friends 
at Stanford University. Vine started in 2012, only to 
receive an ongoing international mourning upon its 
demise in 2016 — that same year — TikTok was born.
All of this is to say: my 2010-childhood world was 
teetering on the brink of an unprecedented social 
media revolution. At the same time that our parents 

and grandparents grappled with a world turned 
upside down, my generation became tasked with 
finding our places within the rubble. This challenge 
came alongside a decade of pop culture that would 
permanently define our coming of age.
Such experiences made for many interesting 
debates, a handful of seriously influential events and 
a constant cascade of new memes. I gave up on my 
attempt to list all of them. Instead, here is my highlight 
reel. Consider it my own version of a Vine compilation.
2010: At the MTV Music Awards, Lady Gaga walked 
the red carpet in perhaps the most infamous fashion 
statement of all time: her meat dress. I was barely old 
enough to be deciding on middle school dance outfits, 
none of which involved steak.
2011: The final Harry Potter film hit theaters and 
ended a full childhood of fandom.
2012: I was in eighth grade when a man shot and 
killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook 
Elementary School. I remember sitting in my morning 
English class the day that the story broke, looking up 
at a teacher who I worshipped. He’d been teaching for 
far longer than I’d been alive, but I still remember the 
look of his eyes that day, searching for answers that he 
did not have.
2013: The Jonas Brothers cited “creative differences” 
upon announcing their breakup, wreaking havoc on 
pre-teen fans across the world.
2014: Over Thanksgiving vacation I watched 
my cousin, a St. Louis native, stream the footage of 
Missouri v. Darren Wilson after the police shooting 
of Michael Brown. After the officer’s acquittal, I saw 
friends and strangers rally behind the newly formed 
Black Lives Matter. At the time, I did not realize or 
understand the importance and longevity of the 
anger that sat behind the hashtag.

Identity, through the years

ZOE PHILLIPS
Daily Arts Writer

B-SIDE: COMMUNITY CULTURE NOTEBOOK

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

B-SIDE: STYLE NOTEBOOK

The thoughtful thrifter
On Aug. 27, 2012, Macklemore released his 
hit single, “Thrift Shop.” In it, the Seattle-
raised rapper lists the gems he’s discovered 
at his local thrift store, from a leopard-print 
mink to a flannel button-up donated by 
someone’s grandpa. He pities all the jerks who 
waste money on designer clothes and flexes by 
telling us how little his pre-worn pieces cost 
(“I’m gonna pop some tags / Only got $20 in my 
pocket”). Bragging about saving money was a 
massive lyrical departure for the mainstream 
rap of 2012 — the year’s other chart-topping 
songs included Drake’s “Started From the 
Bottom,” an anthem for getting rich or dying 
trying. Still, “Thrift Shop” soared high, 
spending six weeks at the number-one spot on 
the Billboard Hot 100.
“Thrift Shop” didn’t do well in spite of 
its anti-mass market messaging; it did well 
because of it. Just two years into the second 
decade of the millennium, the youth of 
America were ready to embrace a new form of 
conspicuous consumption, one that finds more 
allure in a pair of old gator shoes than a $50 
T-shirt.

The 2010s introduced the U.S. to a wave 
of conscious consumerism. National media 
warned us to watch out for greenwashing, 
or 
misguided 
marketing 
schemes 
from 
corporations 
hoping 
to 
appear 
eco-
friendly. Once a burden to mass production, 
sustainability became the focus of a new 
generation of Instagram-friendly clothing 
brands 
like 
Reformation 
and 
Girlfriend 
Collective. 
Perhaps 
the 
most 
accessible 
sustainable practice to gain traction during 
the decade? Secondhand shopping.
From 2010 to 2019, my wardrobe has 
transformed 
from 
a 
collection 
of 
mall-
purchased clothes to a mish-mash of mostly 
preowned pieces. If my estimates are right, 
I’ve purchased no more than 30 new garments 
in the decade, which isn’t a lot considering I 
went through puberty during that time frame. 
In my 10 years shopping at predominantly 
vintage and thrift establishments, I’ve come 
to the conclusion that there are three kinds of 
secondhand shoppers: those who know it’s the 
most sustainable way to shop, those who want 
to save money and those who, like Macklemore, 
just want to wear your grandad’s clothes. All 
are valid reasons to choose used over new 
clothing, and they’re not mutually exclusive. 
You can thrift because you fear climate change 
and because you’re tight on funds and because 

you love the look of an ’80s windbreaker.
As the 2010s draw to a close and the impacts 
of climate change become more dire, I realize 
that no motive for secondhand shopping is 
more dignified than the next. If you’re doing 
it, you’re hurting the earth a little bit less than 
you could be. It doesn’t matter why.
— Tess Garcia, Daily Style Writer 
The 
cosmetic 
connoisseur
The 
past 
decade 
has 
witnessed 
a 
shift 
in 
consumer 
preferences 
to 
beauty products that are 
better for the environment 
and 
society. 
The 
2010s 
saw 
us 
moving 
toward 
brands that contain more 
ethically sourced, natural 
ingredients 
that 
provide 
sustainable packaging. The 
decade started off with 
companies 
prioritizing 
performance 
above 
all 
else, 
characterized 
by 
color cosmetics and pop 
looks. However, the beauty 

industry shifted gears some time in the past 
few years, and the spotlight shifted to clean 
ingredients, “no-makeup” looks and more 
positive associations with concepts like the 
aging of the body. This is reflected by the 
changing popularity of brands, as shown by 
companies like Glossier and Philosophy gaining 
traction while demand for traditional industry 
leaders like Olay and Estée 
Lauder has slowed down. 
Additionally, 
terms 
such 
as “sustainable,” “ethical” 
and “vegan” are now more 
commonplace 
than 
ever, 
with a 175 percent increase 
in the launch of vegan 
products between 2013 and 
2018. However, the impact 
of these shifts has been 
restricted by a single factor: 
the price tag. Even in 2019, 
the most popular products 
that meet the golden trifecta 
of being clean, ethical and 
sustainable tend to be way 
out of the price range for an 
ordinary college student.

Daily Style doing the decade’s best sustainable fashion

DAILY STYLE WRITERS
Daily Style Beat

COURTESY OF EMMA CHANG

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

