Not sure why there isn’t already a thread on this. Felt it was probably better to create one than to have everyone continuing to post to the Death Metal thread.
Black Metal surely gained most of its worldwide notoriety from the actions of a select group of individuals in the early '90’s, but there were already some bands making waves before all of that news broke. It helped even more with Death Metal going through a state of stagnation…due to an over-saturation of sub-par bands being signed.
I’ll just start this thread with the bands who really pulled me in. Sure, bands like Venom, Hellhammer, Celtic Frost, and Bathory may have come before…but these are the ones who really set the stage for what Black Metal was all about and what it would become.