so just what genre is all that NorsePlay music?

Before we get into the title's sticky naming question, let's look at a working example of this issue: Back in July 1997 CE, Details Magazine featured a retrospective entitled The Gloom Generation on the Gothic genre of music, using quotes from all the formative goth band heavy hitters and names: Robert Smith of The Cure, Siouxsie Sioux of Siouxsie and the Banshees, Peter Murphy & Daniel Ash of Bauhaus, Ian Astbury of The Cult, and Rozz Williams of Christian Death. It was an amazing survey of dark creative luminaries responsible for post-punk teens homebrewing black nail polish, Rit dying all their clothes black, and adopting an undeath aesthetic that will endure forever as their legacy.

Except the article reveals that none of these artists ever considered themselves or their music Gothic. They rejected the title, claiming in this comprehensive survey that they never encouraged that label, and that they didn't want responsibility for it.

But that didn't matter. It didn't change the outcome of where those bands get categorized in the retail music aisle bins and placed into online genre streaming channels with the laurels of Gothic. Unwanted or not, that is their legacy, how music history has defined them, and that's how it works out.

In the recent cybervikingsphere there's been alot of noisy talk (and I'm not going to get into who said this or that here) about what musical artists are calling their music with all those NorsePlay'd tropes: the throatsung vocals, taglharpa, goavddis, lur, kravik-lyre, ringjern, langspil, bone flutes, bukkehorn, ringjern, cowrie rattles, bells, mouthharps, nature samples, and/or synthesizers that use a same/modded/different array of sounds to achieve the same/different complimentary effects, all strung with lyrics that use literary & historical references to the Norse Lore. (We're not including Viking Metal within this essay for its obvious differences, plus Amon Amarth, Týr, Skálmöld, Eluveitie, and others rowing this boat don't seem to have any issues with that specific subgenre label.)

What we can generally agree upon is that this well-defined sound palette evokes a sense of deep memory, historical yearnings, a healing release, mythological callback, and ritual sound. It touches us in a new and unique way that has a specific flavor. And for all its striving and emotional success in encapsulating the past by using some ancient & medieval instruments, objectively this music is a confabulation that hasn't much actual historical basis. There are no extant compositions much less recordings, so no one really knows what any of those instrument artifacts preserved into museums in their temporal context intentionally sounded like, yet there's a visceral feeling that just maybe it's somewhere in the same landscape. That's not the same thing, and we can't say it is, so there's reasonable hesitation from some to call it Viking Music or Nordic Folk, which are the current dominant labels that imply continuity.

[Einar Selvik of Wardruna on taglharpa.] 

Also in this vein there's larger arguments that "Viking" and "Norse" are both inaccurate and incorrect, but those ships sailed long ago and will never sink no matter what vehement academic essays get torpedo launched at them. Plus there's this want to define something as an expert, to be taxonomically in control and correct about what we call a thing, but remember this hardline to categorize the world is a fairly recent Enlightment convention.

But back to how what names a genre works out in light of the Gothic example first cited above. It's the vox populi/almannarómur, the listeners to whom it means most, who embrace it passionately, who get to define it since by & large they are the audience. Like the crowds who made soooo much effort to show up in the late 1970s for Bauhaus in widows' weeds and porcelain deathmask foundation, it's ultimately the ones now paying triple digits for the tickets to sold out shows and limited edition physical releases who will be posting concert footage and proudly unboxing their colored vinyls in Viking garb on cameras who will pick the words that label the genre they love and whose content defines the artists' impact. Another huge example of this in art was Degas' categorization as a core founder of Impressionism, but he loathed & rejected that term, and yet still this is his stylistic label & legacy.

[Eihwar on the nutshell vambrace.]

And when we look at globes and maps, it's the exonym the world's nations are labeled in that tends to be the default, not what the actual nation tends to call itself. We're not saying that's right, just pointing out that it's what happens for the sake of establishing commonly needed global identification.

[Maria Franz of Heilung on frame drum.]

So it doesn't have to be spot-on correct, it just has to be a good enough identifier to let people know what each other is talking about, and convey what their niche musical interest is.

[Eivør banging the frame drum for a The Last Kingdom cameo.]

Alot of the conversation has to do with why it shouldn't be called this or that, yet this caustic deconstruction doesn't actually move towards the solution of what it should be called, but again that's more out of strident critical circles and less so in populist fan ones.

We must point out that the feels of a potential past verisimilitude, and the idea that music must have been part & parcel of sacral religious communion and/or formalized narrative storytelling are what charges this conversation about this music on a stronger level, which is why it's been more reactive and held of deeper importance. We all love this genre, what it does for us within and without, and thus feel it deserves more careful consideration and respect.

So what do we call this Viking Music or later Nordic Folk instead if the objections against those two labels win this verbal arm wrestling match (both of which I'm totally okay with, just considering if we came up with something else)? As per NorsePlay's function, I'm going to throw a few in the water here (after all, I did already name a song within this genre for Valhyr), just off the cuff:

Norsetrak
Vikambient
Skáldcore
Nordwave
Bragaljóð
Nýfólk

And though from our title NorsePlay as a concept is far broader than just music, I'd be pretty flattered if it were adopted, and certainly wouldn't argue against it if that's what the people wanted.

What constructive genre label suggestions do you have, NorsePlayers? Do post them in the comments below!

[Side note: NorsePlay still wants a VolvaHaus subgenre.]

#    #    #

Guillermo Maytorena IV knew there was something special in the Norse Lore when he picked up a copy of the d'Aulaires' Norse Gods and Giants at age seven. Since then he's been fascinated by the truthful potency of Norse Mythology, passionately read & studied, embraced Ásatrú, launched the Map of Midgard project, and spearheaded the neologism/brand NorsePlay. If you have employment/opportunities in investigative mythology,  field research, or product development to offer, do contact him.