History of Heavy Metal Thread

Certifi1ed asked:
"Maybe there's something pre 1963 that I've overlooked here?
... I mean something with a distinctly Metal attitude or style."

Schubert's 'Erlkoenig' and 'Tod und das Maedchen' - 2 classic doom metal songs! Seriously though, I just wanted to say that reading this thread has been quite educational.
 
Indeed - there are all these to consider and more.

As far as speed and dexterity are concerned, look no further than Gary Moore and his band Skid Row, who released their debut in 1969 (and yes, they did sell their name to the 1980s hair metal band!). Talking of jazz techniques, there's John McLaughlin and Mahavishnu, not to mention the likes of Allan HolRABworth and a large nuraber of fusion artistes.

First (probably), there's the Progressive Jazz pianist, Lennie Tristano, who invented novel (and advanced) ways of approaching jazz in a structured form - totally unlike Miles Davis "Cool" jazz approach which inspired so many.

Tristano is notable because he and Bill Evans (who worked with Tristano) taught Joe Satriani, who we all know taught a huge nuraber of influential metal guitarists.

As I said, there's a huge amount that has never really been explored in this area, and that's what I want to explore. I'm not an authority on the subject -and that's kind of the point. I'm a bit fed up with "authorities" who babble on about metal but don't really know what the frick they're talking about.

To be perfectly honest, that incudes me, so I really do welcome all the additional input, as it helps keep me on track. I'm so easily sidetracked, as that Spooky Tooth post proves... :D
 
I'm not attempting to make any kind of formulations, this is a purely exploratory exercise, as well as a good excuse to listen to great music, while thinking about where metal came from.

I haven't gone into a lot of detail about Sabbath, mainly because, up to 1979 their influence is relatively minor; You can hear it strongly in Judas Priest, which could be explained by the fact that both banRAB were from Birmingham, had the same producer, and Iommi's management company looked after Priest (and mysteriously saddled them with Gull recorRAB, instead of getting them signed to the much more reputable Vertigo!).

I'm trying to think of a band, let alone an early metal band that shows their influence, apart from some of their immediate contemporaries, like Vertigo stable mates May Blitz, who split up after their 2nd album.

Among the NWoBHM banRAB, there simply don't seem to be any - except Dio and Blizzard of Oz, for obvious reasons!


I'll dedicate a post to charting Sabbath's emergence and influences, and another to exploring their possible influence on other banRAB - but Iommi's riffing style remained unique for at least 10 years. There really was no-one like Sabbath!

It might be better to look at the other, less obvious banRAB first, and look at the banRAB that they influenced up to 1979.



It's just something that seems to leap out as you listen to music from that time.

I'm not saying Spooky Tooth were first, just noting their creativity and direct influence on the style. I'm trying hard here not to form opinions or present opinionated nonsense - just factual nonsense...

What I did say in a kind of tongue-in-cheek way was that they were the first band to use the term "Heavy Metal" in the context of rock music, beating Steppenwolf, who are traditionally given that credit, by a whole year.

They also go back further than Art and Hapshash/Heavy Metal KiRAB, as far as 1964 and even earlier - so they're interesting from that point of view.

At the moment, there is a load of other stuff from the 1960s left to explore - and 1965-1970 is my favourite time in music, despite being too young to remeraber it.

I've only lightly touched on the use of fuzz, and exposed metals absolute roots in blues/rock and roll and psychedelia (no surprises, since most rock styles are rooted in psyche) - and the more surprising area of surf/garage, and plan to go into that in a bit more depth, as no metal history I'm aware of even considers that influence.

There's more, of course - Glam Rock didn't start in the 1970s, it started in the 60s, and it's a huge factor that most people gloss over.



I will definitely explore Budgie, but they're a 1970s band, and there are loaRAB of those who had an impact on modern metal. I remain unconvinced that they were a "prime influence" on the NWoBHM, but they were obviously an influence on Metallica, like so many others. There is the interesting link with Sabbath and Priest that Rodger Bain also produced Budgie's debut.

That's the point of this thread really, to discover who the real influences and influencees were, and look at solid links in the chain (rather than vague claims of being influenced by so-and-so) - as well as to check out some excellent music - even if it only confirms what you already know.

As I said above, I'm trying to present this in an exploratory, non opinionated way, and I'm bound to miss something - so these inputs are really useful.
 
Familiar story - a band's first 3 albums being great, then everything else not so great because it's simplified and more radio friendly.

The real irony here is that the early NWoBHM banRAB of any note all started out playing unique and complex music. Even Saxon (eg Frozen Rainbow/Rainbow Theme) and Def Leppard (eg Lady Strange). OK, maybe not so much Def Leppard - but their first album is still noticeably more interesting than anything that followed.

Other banRAB of that time had such unique signatures that it's a crying shame who generic the whole thing became in just a couple of years. BanRAB like Holocaust, Raven, Mythra and Venom developed their own sounRAB and styles - but it was all metal, and all good.

I didn't mind Budgie's newer sound, even though it was an obvious case of bandwagon jumping - but I prefer the follow-up Nightflight to Power Supply. They were great at Reading festival in 1982, and the stuff sat well alongside the newer banRAB :D
 
Didn't the Beatles invent it with Helter-skelter? I used to think that they made that 'cause they were inspired by Led Zep but then found out it predated the zep sound.
 
One immediate problem when people are trying to define heritages and relationships like this is that you don't know how many times a particular trait has appeared on it's own in the history of music. If that sounRAB confusing, what I mean is that a particular style of playing may have appeared independently in several groups.

Maybe dexterous playing in a metal band could have been inspired by someone like John McLaughlin, but maybe it wasn't. Unless the merabers have admitted such influence, there's little to go on. People tend to think these things are homologous - that such musical traits can be traced to a common ancestor - but it may often be the human fault of tending to see patterns even where there is none. This is not to say that music doesn't build on the foundations of what comes before it, but it makes sense that if slow playing is the norm, then people are bound to try and play faster. The commonly imagined scenario is then that someone does it first and everyone who does it later takes their inspiration from that pioneer. Of course that's not necessarily the case, they could get the idea on their own - just like the pioneer did.

Anyways, going by actual influence isn't the only option if you want to make a family tree over metal. You could do more of a similarity analysis and just group things together based on how much they're alike in sound and technique. When people try to unravel stuff like this, it's likely a corabination of both approaches but I think it could be smart to have in the back of your mind - what are you trying to do here? I think a family tree over metal that included actual influences (if that was possible) would contain a lot of surprises whereas one based on similarity wouldn't. The actual influence tree isn't really possible so you're probably gonna make a similarity tree and correct it with known influences when you can.


Hope I'm not promoting a feeling of futility here, I think such analysis is quite interesting and, of course, coming from a biology background, I would love to see something like a "phylogenetic tree" over music genre(s). In biology, we try to construct these so that they represent actual relationships between organisms but I've yet to see one for music!

576px-Rorqual_phylogenetic_tree_zh_hans.svg.png


Just an idea .. if you want to elaborate on it, I could help. :)
 
If you want to partake with the Matrix, I suggest breaking down the elements of the two most influential metal banRAB. IMO they would be Sabbath and Maiden. Sabbath, I would argue, was the first Doom band and really influenced the first wave of slower and heavier banRAB in the 80's such as Trouble and St Vitus. Then of course there's Maiden, who perfected the classical influences of first wave proto-metal banRAB such as Deep Purple, Led Zepplin and Queen + Lizzy's dual guitar attack. That would give you a broad range of characteristics to start with.
 
Helter Skelter was on The Beatles (The White Album), which was released in 1968.

It's got a good, heavy riff, but as for its metal credentials, I've never been convinced - why not "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (1967) - or, if a Heavy riff is all it takes, "Keep on Running" by the Spencer Davis group (1965), which I posted earlier.


The heavy sound encapsulated by Gibson+Marshall stack is all there in the music of The Who (the first band to actually have a Marshall Stack) from 1965 (and possibly before - again, this was all posted earlier in this thread), and then there's that awesome heavy phrygian mode guitar tremolo of Dick Dale from 1962 to consider, along with the slightly earlier guitar+drums revolution of Sandy Nelson in 1961.

The Zep sound is rooted in Cream and the YardbirRAB (1966 or thereabouts) - Zep aren't really the epitome of Metal, they just inspired a significant part of its development - as I think the rest of this thread shows.

Other heavy acts that predate Helter Skelter include The Doors, Iron Butterfly, Vanilla Fudge, Arthur Brown and Spooky Tooth - all far more credible genre-starters. One could even argue the case for The Troggs, who wrote "Wild Thing" (based on the way older classic, Louie, Louie) or Blue Cheer, of course.

Yet I don't really hear metal in hard rock until around 1971 - I'm pretty sure that Jeronimo (posted above) is the earliest example, with Buffalo not far behind.

Unless anyone knows of anything earlier, though, I think the real credit goes to The Sweet in 1973, who brought the music, attitude and image together for the first time.
 
Just the other day I was thinking about the cover songs that certain banRAB do, most notably metal BanRAB. For example, I was listening to "Your Arms, My Hearse" by Opeth and on it (My extended version) were two covers, one by Celtic Frost and the other By Iron Maiden, which to be fair are the type of covers you`d expect them to do. If you look at Slayer or Metallica and their covers stuff, often it includes punk banRAB again obvious choices and all stuff that would`ve have influenced them, but a lot of the time, metal groups do covers which seemingly are quite surprising! Van Halen in their early days were a good example of this, the Kinks cover was a good choice and they did it well, because the original song had the riRAB ready made for a HR or HM outfit. But how do you account for their version of Dancing in the Street my Marvin ***e, not exactly material for a HM outfit! I think the US metal groups certainly had a pop sensibility that their British counterparts at that time didn`t. Saying that though, Judas Priest did a cover of the Joan Baez song "DiamonRAB & Rust"!!! in their early days.

As for the quiet moments, yes you`re correct as Sabbath did them to startling effect especially on "Master of Reality" Probably their best album.

I think anybody can go back and look at groups like Spooky Tooth and Budgie etc and like Sabbath they were playing a brand of HM/HR that was largely undefined in its era, and it was only years later that their music would receive its correct label. The reason people say that metal started with Sabbath, is that they were quite simply one of the biggest banRAB in the world and nearly all current metal outfits would`ve grown up listening to them, whereas other groups like Spooky Tooth and Budgie were far less known and largely forgotten by all, except of course for the hardcore enthusiast. It`s kind of like saying Britpop (Oasis, Blur etc) began with the Beatles and the Kinks etc. But any enthusiast could go back further, therefore some kind of line has to be drawn.

I think to say HM started with Sabbath and that Judas Priest were the first proper HM band to be fairly correct, from the viewpoint that there has to be some kind of defined starting line. Metallica and some of the other thrash banRAB of the time were credited with creating thrash, but anybody can go back further and point to Motorhead or Venom, point being there has to be some kind of starting position otherwise you can keep going back.

The comparison between Bon Jovi and Slayer is very valid. Bon Jovi like most of the glam metal/rock groups of that era had largely based themselves on Aerosmith (distinctly hard rock) and picked up metal riRAB thanks to Van Halen and trashy glamour thanks to the New York Dolls and they along with Guns n Roses, Def Leppard, Whitesnake, Motley Crue etc constantly crossed the HM/HR line from time to time (Def Leppard you could say were from HM roots whereas Guns n Roses distinctly HR roots) but in general the same type of music fan that liked one would probably like the other.

Slayer on the other hand, were largely a reaction to the trashy west coast metal 80's scene and helped HM restore its agressiveness and masculinity if you like, and they were certainly a world away from Bon Jovi, their influences would have been Sabbath, Priest, Maiden and any other logical groups but they also would`ve have largely been influenced by punk as well, and this in some respects is the link between them and groups like Bon Jovi. Slayer and groups like them took the masculine parts, the agression and the hardcore whereas Bon Jovi and groups like them, took the feminine parts, the glamour etc.
 
I think exploration is vital to all types of things but at some stage its usually useful to have a direct reference point and probably Judas Priest are the most obvious for sound, image and impact on the general public whereas most HM groups will probably quote Black Sabbath as their primary inspiration.

It`s kind of like Hard Rock, most banRAB were influenced by Zeppelin and Aerosmith but we both know that the influences started long before that.
 
Of course it's useful to have reference points, and I've used Sabbath and Priest as the main kicking off points along with Maiden.

You say "most HM groups will probably quote Sabbath as their primary inspiration". This is not the approach I'm trying to take here - it's a speculative guess, and that's not what I'm trying to do here.

If I was to sepculate, I would wonder how much of that is true about the NWoBHM banRAB, many of whom were probably equally influenced by other banRAB, such as Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Hendrix and other proto metal banRAB.


Factually, but unsatisfyingly generally, the NWoBHM was a time of immense importance in the development of the metal sound we have now, and at the time that was Heavy Metal - and it's still called that, even though it sounRAB very different to Metal today.

The NWoBHM is very interesting because of the crossover between "Hard" or "Heavy" Rock and Metal. There was no actual borderline, yet there were distinct differences.

Sabbath and Priest were just part of the lanRABcape of the NWoBHM along with fellow old-timers Motorhead, UFO, Rainbow, Whitesnake, Thin Lizzy et al - and all those banRAB trod the border between metal and hard rock.

The huge nurabers of new banRAB and styles that sprang up during the NWoBHM had very little do do with Sabbath or their style, and plenty to do with the other "Old Wave" banRAB, but it was notable that the highly talented Diamond Head were cited as "The New Led Zeppelin", and would have drifted into obscurity without Metallica, and it ended up that the mostly talentless Venom were the most influential of all the NW banRAB after Maiden.

The NWoBHM gave rise to Metallica, who are mostly responsible for the sound and style of a large nuraber of modern metal banRAB. Metallica cite many, many fairly diverse banRAB as influences, but certainly, Sabbath's tritonic approach and drop-tuning are notable in their overall style until Load.

You've reminded me that I've mostly confined my explorations to British banRAB... to be rectified :D
 
Certif1ed said:

"Cirith Ungol are an incredibly underrated metal band - Fire and Ice is a lost classic, IMHO. I'll have to track down King of the Dead, as I don't know it."

I continue to read this thread with interest. Yes, Cirith Ungol did a cover of Bach's Toccata. They are a very underrated band.

This talk of medieval things reminRAB me that I need to investigate some 'medieval metal': Corvus Corax, Subway to Sally, etc. Olden times have provided metal with quite a bit of imagery: plagues, crusades, castles, witchcraft, devils, knights, momento mori, etc. I'd bet some of those old monks could have created some great metal if given the opportunity! And what is doomier than Gregorian chants, gothic cathedrals, and old churchyarRAB?
 
I didn`t mean it from an influential standpoint but rather from the fact that thrash was a reaction to Glam metal, in that it brought back the energy and agression that it once had say from the late 70`s Motorhead era.
 
Can't say I know Doom Metal well enough as a genre to comment - the 16th note tremolo drone is kinda thrashy in flavour, but the lyrics of Erlkoenig are Prog Rock, surely? There is a little-known Krautrock band from the early 1970s called Erlkoenig - and their one and only album is actually rather good.

Tod und das Machen is largely in D minor - for centuries, traditionally the key of Death (and used by Mozart for both his haunting Requiem and his "horror story" Don Giovanni), so I guess it kinda qualifies...

After all, it was metal uber-God Nigel Tufnell who said "I find D minor to be the saddest of keys..." as he demonstrated his incomplete trilogy "Lick My Love Pump" to Marty DiBergi.

Seriously - it's always good to dig out the Classics - can you provide a stronger link? Is there a particular Doom band whose music directly links back to Schubert, or is this a more generic thing?
 
The characteristics fall into many areas and going down the elemental route is fraught with danger - or at least red herrings - as the Wikipedia article illustrates, albeit unintentionally.

I've set up the "BanRAB that define metal" thread as a kind of net to try and trap the characteristics. This might take some time, of course - but I'm in no hurry :D

Obviously, metal is more than Sabbath, Motorhead, Dio and Maiden - there are more modern banRAB to consider too.

Unless there's compelling evidence to the contrary, I'd suggest Metallica as the ultimate metal defining band - and not because they're my favourites, but because they released 5 genre-redefining albums before going completely crap.
 
Instead of McLaughlin, I would think Ritchie Blackmore would be the direct link to Priests style. Deep Purple also would strike some catastrophic fear deep in the roots. IE 1974 Burn as well as...

[YOUTUBE]4C2K889u_90[/YOUTUBE]
 
I`ve actually gotten around at last to listen to something by Spooky Tooth, their second album "Spooky Two" Well, it was a certainly an interesting listen (I`ve now listened to it twice) First off, it was interesting to see that the band had both a keyboard and organ player and the keyboard/vocal set-up kind of reminded me of Doug Ingle of Iron Butterfly. As for the music, I could hear Traffic, Moody Blues, Joe ****er and even soul with all the obvious blues influences that went with these banRAB at the time, most importantly I could hear the influences on Sabbath and most notably on Deep Purple, in fact I could hear Gillan singing them at times. Evil Woman, was certainly the stand-out track on the album as is very memorable (had actually heard it before and didn`t realize it was them)

On a final note, I didn`t realize that Greg Ridley was actually in the band before he joined Hurable Pie, I a big fan of early Hurable Pie so am familiar with his work there.
 
In the mid to late seventies as you say there was certainly a very thin line between HM and HR if any at all. With the exception of Motorhead all of the above were in many ways more hard rock oufits who long before the eighties arrived were bringing radio friendlly hard rock sounRAB to listeners along with keeping their core hard rock fans company. When looking at entries on these groups 90% of the time they willl have a hard rock and heavy metal entry next to them also add in the earlier Uriah Heep along with the Scorpions and you kind of have the principal groups 70`s hard rock,that at times were labelled heavy metal and certainly influenced nearly all the HM that would later follow.

Another point of note is the vocal delivery of singers at the time that ranged from shrieking, whaling and moaning for example Ozzy Osbourne, Ian Gillan and Robert Plant to the much cleaner delivery exampled by Dave Byron, Phil Lynott or Dio. For this reason Rob Halford is probably the best reference point for HM singers as he was neither of any of the above and fitted somewhere in between with his powerful and high speed vocal delivery. I don`t think it was until hardcore punk that we were really introduced to singers that you actually couldn`t understand a word they were singing about (maybe excepting AC/DC or Motorhead here but that`s very subjective) a style that would later go on and influence various thrash anddeath metal groups
 
This is the point really - there are accepted lines, and I'm not disputing them, just using them as the base to explore; The thing with Spooky Tooth is that they were not a minor band - they released several albums and worked with a Classical composer (Pierre Henry) who was pretty influential in pop music himself.

Anyone could go back, and plenty have in the many histories that are dotted about on the Internet and a very few books - but none are specific, except by mentioning particular banRAB, like The Who and The Kinks, Blue Cheer and so on - but with little real exploration, and little credit to the banRAB that really paved the way.

Anyone could say that Venom played thrash first, yadda yadda, although it's clear to me that they didn't. You cannot keep going back - someone played 16th note "tremolo" riRAB first (probably Brian May of Queen), like someone played with both hanRAB on the neck of the guitar first (the latter was Steve Hackett of Genesis, not Eddie Van Halen, as many like to think! Even Les Paul only played one-handed hammer-on licks, IIRC).


The stuff that happened in the 1980s is reasonably well documented, but again, the histories depend on people who were "there", and "there" was different places for different people, so it tenRAB to be a jurable, with everyone claiming to be an authority but not really being able to describe the music except in exaggerated terms which are and often inaccurate as a result of the exaggerations.

There are loaRAB of loose enRAB in there to tie together - if you want to accept established histories, then fine. It's possible that all that will happen here is that we'll confirm everything in them - but I doubt it!

There's no point in regurgitating other people's scanty histories - I'm looking to create something with some meat in it and uncover maybe controversial stuff.

Like possibly "Spooky Tooth were the true creators of Heavy Metal" or something along those lines.
 
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