Advertisers all over the world have long understood the marketing value of music. That's why Coca Cola is paying Jack White to pen a tune for its commercials, and why Pepsi spent more than $80 million hiring Britney Spears for a promotional campaign (before firing her for drinking Coke). It is also why, in at least five continents over the last several years, white supremacist organizations have been shifting their focus from public rallies and camo-gear to CDs and band merchandising.
Since the popularization of the Internet, international civil rights groups and anti-racist musicians' fronts have noted a dramatic increase in the number of bands identifying with known hate groups in countries all over the world. These artists, though spread across a number of genres and dozens of languages, are linked together by the white supremacist sentiments they express in their lyrics, as well as the relationships, both philosophical and economic, between many of the bands and 'white power' political organizations and leaders.
The current trend of close association between the racist music scene and white power groups gained prominence in the United States in 1999, when Resistance Records (at the time our country's largest white power music label) was purchased by William Pierce, the head of the neo-Nazi 'National Alliance,' which was, until his death in 2002, considered the largest and most dangerous hate group in our country. Since the loss of its leader, National Alliance has declined in size and power to the point where it is nearly irrelevant.
Mirroring the split of many large white power organizations into a mass of disorganized groups, the racist music scene has similarly decentralized. However, whereas groups like the neo-Nazis have declined in size and strength, the popularity of white power music has greatly increased. The website for Turn it Down, a national campaign against racist music, lists more than 500 known white power bands worldwide, with names ranging from the obvious 'Hate Crimes' to the perplexing 'James Mason' (because he played Caption Nemo?)
Turn it Down also makes an attempt to group bands by genre, and though it's interesting to note a few general trends (skinhead punk and hardcore bands dominate the United States, 'National Socialist Black Metal' tends to be most popular in Europe), the categories misleadingly imply a stylistic limit on the scene. Any genre of white power music can be created simply by tacking the prefix 'hate' on to an existing genre, like 'hate-folk' or 'hate-ska.'
Although the similarity of the ideologies of white power bands leads to a certain number of shared lyrical themes between groups (racial superiority, poorly worded calls to action and so forth), the style of lyrics varies significantly based on genre. Racist skinhead acts tend to mix working-class anger with the condemnation of minorities. National Socialist Black Metal bands couple their racist diatribes with allusions to Norse mythology and a serious Viking fetish. Whatever the variety, though, all styles of white power music seem to be expanding, as supporters of the genre claim the existence of thousands of bands worldwide while civil rights groups like Turn it Down continue to make additions to their lists.
Come back next Thursday for more on the current white power music scene, including its attempt to merge with mainstream music, its controversial marketing strategies and its ironically progressive distribution system.
