BECAUSE NOTHING SAYS DIPLOMACY LIKE BURNING DOWN A CHURCH

Norwegian black metal is a genre whose history is fraught with controversy and full of murder and church burnings and all other manner of awfulness.  So, naturally, Norway has now given twenty of its diplomats “a black metal crash course,” according to this report:

“The objective is to show Norwegian culture in all its diversity. In the musical field, it goes from (Romantic music composer) Edvard Grieg to black metal,” its deputy head Steinar Lindberg said, adding he hoped to repeat the experience.

“In Italy, Japan or France, young people are learning Norwegian to decrypt the lyrics. Black metal is an export product and it’s important that future diplomats are interested in it,” he added.

Of course, I’m only kidding about the looming shadow of some assholes from twenty years ago being a good reason not to teach this stuff to Norwegian diplomats. Really, I guess Norway deserves a pat on the back for being so chill. So, y’know, three cheers for Norway.

On a semi-related note, my favorite part about the article where we found this story is that they opted not to use a photo of a member of Emperor or Mayhem or Enslaved, but, rather, a picture of Ronnie James Dio, who was neither Norwegian nor a black metal musician. Oh, the mainstream media. So lulzy when they try to cover metal!

-AR

Thanks to everyone who e-mailed us about this.