Last month, the Swedish dance-pop star Zara Larsson wore a weird minidress to P3 Guld, an awards show that the Norwegian radio station RK P3 puts on every year. As Revolver points out, the dress in question had the logos of the death metal bands Cannibal Corpse and Behemoth, and it also had bits of the Burzum logo and the album cover of Burzum's Filosofem. Burzum is the now-defunct one-man black metal project from Varg Vikernes, the Norwegian convicted murder and unrepentant neo-Nazi. This was a bad idea!
Before going to P3 Guld, Zara Larsson posted a TikTok video of herself in the dress with the Burzum logo.
@zaralarsson Dress on short short #canttameher
♬ Can't Tame Her - Zara Larsson
Varg Vikernes was sentenced to 21 years in prison for crimes including the 1994 murder of Mayhem guitarist Euronymous, and he served 15. Since his release, Vikernes has continued to make music and to publish online hate-speech. In 2013, he was arrested in France for "planning a massacre," though the charges were dropped. He's not a good guy.
In a statement that she sent to Sweden's Aftonbladet a few days ago, Larsson wrote, "Oopsie, had no idea. Just thought my clothes looked cool... It was unfortunate... To clarify, it was not their merch I was wearing." (That's Google Tranlated from Swedish, but I have to imagine that "oopsie" is funny in any language.) According to Revolver, Larsson claims that the dress was a Raf Simons design.
About a decade ago, there was a widespread fascination with Burzum in the indie world. Stereogum has posted Vikernes' music, and we even premiered a track once. We shouldn't have done that! At this point, it should be clear that Burzum should not be reclaimed, and we should get that shit out of here.
