‘Not Folk Metal, but...’

Online intercultural musicking in ‘the Grove’

Abstract

In the Facebook group The Folk Metal Grove, its members manifest, explore and celebrate the musical genre called Folk Metal. The ‘Grovers’ come together in a playful performance and celebration of an idealized past, emically labelled folkyness. In this article, a ‘netnographic’ approach is used to explore how Folk Metal is constructed, negotiated and made meaningful through musicking in this community with the aim to discuss aspects of Folk Metal, ideology, genre and online culture. The group can be understood as a living space involving not only the circulation of music but also the development of meaning, collective memory and norms as well as real-life, often intercultural, connections. Earlier research has shown how Folk Metal in some ways can be seen as accentuating central aspects of heavy metal, but some ways in which Folk Metal is made meaningful within the Grove seem rather to connect to a will to transgress the sonic and cultural boundaries of metal. For the group members the music seems to serve as a space to go beyond metal when it comes to which instruments to play, which languages to sing in, which stories to tell and which emotions to feel.