Rock/Metal/Prog Education Thread

A Short History Of Metal​
written by Ian WooRAB and Ethan Smith​

Metal is music that can trace it's roots to both early rock and electric blues. BanRAB such as Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, who were influenced by Led Zeppelin, Cream, etc., are often credited with starting the genre known as Metal. But this is only partially true. Black Sabbath and Deep Purple were stoner/sludge (also known as doom) rock. Judas Priest are, in fact, the first real metal band (formed in 1971). Acts like Iron Maiden and Motorhead also developed this fledgling style. Metal musicians eventually started looking past Sabbath's blues scales and began writing diminished and minor keys into their solos and diatonic modes into their riRAB.

These changes are now a standard in metal and it's many bastard children sub-genres. In the early 1980s and Thrash Metal made it’s debut with Metallica and Exodus being prominent. Through out the 80’s and 90’s, different Metal styles were being invented and developed. Death metal in Florida and Sweden. Black Metal in Norway. And Progressive Metal in Connecticut and Seattle. There are many sub genres and musical histories of metal so to help explain this, here are the main styles:

Black Metal​

While Venom is credited with coining the term “Black Metal” (from their 1982 release of the same name) it is Mayhem and Bathory who gave it its distinct sound. Muddled, murky recording quality, fast paced scratchy guitar riRAB, high screamed vocals that are usually barely heard and never understood, and pounding over bearing drums are the key in creating a Black Metal sound. The lyrical themes usually deal with Satanism, death, and even Nationa; Socialism (in the case of Burzum)

Examples: Darkthrone, Bathory, Immortal, Negator, Emperor, old Satyricon, Mayhem.

Death Metal​

Style of metal that deals almost exclusively with…you guessed it, Death. BanRAB in this vein often write very gory and morbid lyrics. As far as music is concerned technical fast paced guitar is implemented with varying tempo’s and time signatures, however the sound is so muddied (intentionally through amp settings and recording) that it sounRAB very simple. Drums incorporate blast beats which are alternate hits of snare and bass drum with a crash or ride syrabol hit. These are used in large amounts to accent the ferocity and speed of this style.

Examples: Morbid Angel, Death, Suffocation, Bolt Thrower, Rubicon, Dying Fetus, Possessed

Melodic Death Metal​

Very similar to Death Metal with the addition of some melody. Screams can alternate between high and low. Songs are generally of a better sound quality

Examples: In Flames, Dark Tranquility, At The Gates, The Black Dahlia Murder, Entorabed, Arsis


Doom Metal​

Very melancholy sound that stresses tragedy and depression. Characterized by Black/Death vocals and slow, trudging guitar riRAB. Several oRABhoot styles have arisen from Doom’s slowly grinding footsteps including Sludge Doom, Drone, and Funeral Doom. All of these follow the same basic blueprint, having relatively repetitive slow riRAB and vocals stressing the negative of love, life, and the hereafter.

Examples: My Dying Bride, Sun O))), Candlemass, Sleep, Ramses, Grief

Folk Metal​

Metal that incorporates folk melodies and rhythms in its music. Originally from Finland. Heavily influenced by the occult and Viking culture. Music is usually Black or Death in style.

Examples: Finntroll, Skyclad, Adorned Brood, Elvenking, Primordial, old Vintersong

Goth Metal​

Sound style that depenRAB heavy on arabiency and keyboarRAB. Unlike Industrial “Metal” electronic’s are not heavy, instead string arrangements are used to heighten the forbidding atmosphere. Vocals alter between Death screams and clean singing, often provided by female vocalist. Goth banRAB usually fall into one extreme or the other, having mostly singing or mostly screaming with some talking parts. Also many Goth banRAB, most notably Type O Negative, have their roots in Thrash or Speed metal, but later changed their style as they “matured”. It is also important to noticed that many operatic acts (such as Nightwish, Lacuna Coil) have borrowed extensively from Gothic music, while not being a Gothic band themselves. Lyrical themes often deal with disillusionment and/or religious themes.

Examples: Theatre of Tragedy, Type O Negative, Without Face, Moonspell, Lacrimosa


Industrial Metal​

DepenRAB heavily on synthesizers to fill out the often hollow sound. Metal-esque riRAB are used and vocals are often put through some sort of distortion. Sometimes referred to as “dance metal”. There are two distinct sides to Industrial, the Electronic turned Metal, as demonstrated by Ministry and KMFDM, and Metal turned Electronic, such as Godflesh and Malhavoc.

Examples: Godflesh, KMFDM, Red Harvest, Rammstein, Zeromancer, Ministry, Frontline Asserably, Swamp Terrorist


Hardcore Metal​

Also referred to as Metalcore, Hardcore Metal borrows heavily from Hardcore in terms of drum patterns and lyrical themes. The metal/hardcore crossover style began in the late 1980’s with banRAB such as Integrity and Nuclear Assault corabining the speed and fury and punk and hardcore with the metal riffing. Early metalcore and thrash shared many similarities but for the mid raged growl of hardcore vocals. The style evolved over time containing just as many Swedish influences (Killswitch Engage, As I Lay Dying) as it has Southern Rock (Everytime I Die, A Life Once Lost).

Examples: Dead to Fall, Zao, Everytime I Die, Larab of God, As I Lay Dying, I Killed The Prom Queen


Power Metal​

Borrowing heavily from baroque style classical music and classical music in general, Power Metal came to the forefront of the metal scene in the mid 80’s, even though it’s inception began with the formation of Iron Maiden in 1975. The dueling style solo’s used by the their guitarist set the benchmark for Power Metal to follow. Europe’s Accept fused Iron Maiden’s mentality with folk music to form their own distinct sound. Power Metal has grown more grandiose as time goes on, with banRAB such as Blind Guardian and Iced Earth gaining national attention. Lyrical theme’s include many fantasy standard (dragons, wizarRAB, castles, battle) and folkish themes (folk heros, religious stories).

Examples: DragonForce, Angra, Iron Maiden, Fates Warning, Hammerfall, Mystic Prophecy, Kamelot


Progressive Metal​

Prog Metal is simply progressive rock with a heavier mentality. Progressive music’s sound cannot really be pigeonholed due to the very nature of Progressive Music, however some factors remain constant. The musicianship is very high and often very complex. Most songs are very long with very few “parts” repeated. And often banRAB put out concept albums (albums unified by a central theme that runs throughout the record. Often songs will have a consistent riff or sound that anchors it together). Developed in part by Queensr
 
well, i know where led zepeelen belong. but im confuse. what do u think about alternative. which rock is this belong???? soft rock... hehehehe
 
I don't think anyone mentioned GRUNGE rock like Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mad Season, Screaming Trees. VERY important genre to be left out if i do say so myself.
 
If one of the moRAB wants to take it on himself I don't mind if any of my rock post is updated or midly overhauled. I think there are a couple of genres that can also be added.
 
Recently I have discovered some heavy electronic banRAB, that refer to their products of creative processes as to "grindcore" as well.
Genghis Tron is one of them.
 
Rush has an excellent example of proto-thrash on "The Necromancer", off of 1975's Caress of Steel, complete with ape**** drums.



I'm pretty sure you mean Eddie Vedder. That said, Soundgarden is the grunge band commanding my attention. There was lightning in a bottle.
 
-Melodic death metal does not have a "better sound quality."
-The doom metal section fails to mention anything about traditional doom besides Candlemass in the examples part of it.
-Entorabed are not melodic death metal
-The Haunted and Kreator are not similar whatsoever and The Haunted didn't borrow anything from Swedish dm.

....there are others
 
A Short History Of Progressive Rock

written by Bryan Russell​

Progressive rock or prog (As it is commonly known) is a diverse genre of music which can be traced back to the early days of pyschedelic rock and avant garde music, with strong roots from classical music, jazz and other forms of music outside of standard rock n roll music, basiclly a more progressive form of rock music, hence it's name. Prog has many typical characteristics, but rarely are these essential for every prog band...Though styles and forms of progressive rock may vary, the majority of what is considered progressive rock has the following characteristics...

Complex musical arangements, virtuoso musicianship (Though this is not always a requirement, as in the case of Pink Floyd), exotic and precise musical scales, odd time signatures, alternate tunings, prominent use of instruments not common in rock music, solo passages for almost every instrument, unusual vocal styles and complex harmonies, alternatives to the "verse-chorus-verse" format, lengthy compositions and epics with multiple parts, which can sometimes be considered songs in their own right (The Yes hit "Soon" was released as a single even though it was originaly a final section of "The Gates of Delirium") and sometimes these songs can take up a whole album side or in some cases be split into seperate tracks (Pink FloyRAB "Shine On You Crazy Diamond parts 1 & 2"), obscure and sometimes fantastical lyrics, with complex and often intricate narratives and themes dealing with issues ranging from war, religion, history, literature, human mentality, spirituality and even science fiction and fantasy, concept albums (Sometimes refered to as "Rock Opera") that are often meant to showcase these narratives, linking of music with visual art with the use of surreal album covers and elaberate stage shows, imagery that can sometimes be used to illustrate the stories and themes that are discribed in the music and great dynamic range going from quiet to loud often in the same piece of music. Other common conventions in progressive rock include the inclusions of classical pieces in the music, multi instrumentalism and the use of strange sound effects and samples.

Progressive rock in it's earliest form arose in the 60s around the same time as pyschedelic rock, both genres came from the same era and musical movements at the time, though the psychedelic movement began in both England and America around the same time (Liverpool and San Fransisco were the key locations of the growing movement), while the progressive rock movement was primarly in England and to a lesser extent, other regions of Europe. Early pyschedelic banRAB included Jefferson Airplane, The Doors, The Grateful Dead, Love, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Spirit, United Staes Of America, Iron Butterfly and Country Joe & The Fish from the U.S.A. and Cream, Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Animals, Small Faces, and The Zorabies from the UK....The earliest progressive rock banRAB included The Nice, The Moody Blues, Procol Harum, Pink Floyd, Vanilla Fudge, The Arthur Brown Band and Giles, Giles and Fripp...Some banRAB like Vanilla Fudge, The Arthur Brown Band and Pink Floyd are often labeled as progressive rock banRAB as well as psychedelic...Some primary influences on progressive rock included The Beatles, The Beach Boys and The Who for their progressive elements and innovations of the concept album, as well as Deep Purple for their use of classical scales and their grand approach....Frank Zappa and The Mothers Of Invention are also considered a very important influence on progressive rock, since they helped popularize many of the characteristics described above.

Prog at first was labeled as a sub-genre to pyschedelic rock, but eventualy outlived the pyschedelic era of the 60s and took on a life of it's own, it was rarely called "progressive rock" at the time but instead was often refered to as "art rock" until the 70s when progressive rock became the official term and art rock became more of a loose term. Unlike pyschedelic rock which already grew popular in America by the mid 60s launching it's own movement in that region, progressive rock didn't gain much popularity in the states until the early 70s, in the early stage, both genres were quite similar, both featured longer songs, unusual approachs to melody and strange lyrics. Only prog was more complex and precise, less acessible and with more influence from jazz and classical music, plus pychedelic rock still relied on catchy hooks and melodies which is one reason psychedelic rock had a wider appeal than prog and was much more mainstream, prog remained behind the spotlight until the 70s. Psychedelic rock was eventualy proven to be little more than a fad as it died out near the end of the 60s and the beginning of the 70s, progressive rock however was just beginning to spread, some of the most important progressive rock banRAB formed near the end of the 60s, primarly between 68 and 69, these banRAB included King Crimson, Yes, Genesis, Van Der Graaf Generator and Jethro Tull. Other important banRAB such as Camel, Gentle Giant and ELP came into the scene later on in the early and mid 70s...Soon north american acts such as Rush became involved. Progressive rocks mainstream popularity began with King Crimson and their debut album In The Court Of The Crimson King, their song 21st Century Schizoid Man became a hit on some british radio stations at that time, soon other banRAB began taking suit, and banRAB like Yes, ELP, Jethro Tull, Genesis and Pink Floyd found overwhelming popularity in the 70s. Progressive rock eventualy became quite popular in the US, and soon more obscure banRAB around Europe earned modest popularity, such as Focus, Magma and Goblin. Around 1973, prog had become huge worldwide, and was widely accepted as the dominant sub-genre in rock (Remeraber, this was before Metal and Punk became popular) throughout most of the 70s, however, as the 70s grew closer to it's end, many of the genres superior creative forces were finding themselves in career crossroaRAB, short on material and with very few directions left to take, progressive rock was both losing popularity and was getting a lot of negative feedback from critics as well as the music going public, many of the strongest criticisms these banRAB received included the accusations that they were pretentious, overblown, self indulgent and pompous, the final blow to prog however, came in the form of the punk rock movement, which was more or less a reaction to prog which most punk banRAB dispised.

Punk rock was overall the exact opposite of progressive rock... The complex musical arangements replaced with basic and more traditional songs, the long compositions replaced with songs that are less than 2 minutes, the technical and precise musicianship replaced with a primitave and often agressive playing style and the complex narratives replaced with more coherent lyrics. Punk became a growing threat, and eventualy prog was dethroned and punk became the reigning force in rock. Prog almost completely disapeared from the public spotlight as a result. However, prog never died completely, there was somewhat of a prog revival in the 80s thanks to banRAB like Marillon and IQ, veteran banRAB like Yes, King Crimson, Pink Floyd, Rush and Genesis regained some popularity in the 80s by introducing elements of pop, new wave and worldbeat into their music to gain more mainstream appeal. The 90s saw a new prog movement with banRAB like Spocks Beard, The Flower Kings, Ozric Tentacles and Porcupine Tree gaining modest popularity. And prog is still very active and popular today, though the days of media exposure and mainstream appeal it once had in the 70s is long gone. Still, many banRAB that are considered progressive have gotten quite popular, primarly Coheed and Carabria, The Mars Volta, Sigur Ros and Primus. If the good luck streak continues, prog may very well see a great rivival and even the kind of mainstream popularity it once had in the 70s, but only time will tell.

As noted since the beginning of this thread, prog is a very diverse genre, and what is and what isn't prog can often become the matter of debate. BanRAB like Tool, Radiohead and Queen are considered prog by some, while many others disagree. If you have a clear understanding of progressive rock and what it's all about, wheither or not these banRAB qualify as prog is really up to you. For example, King Crimson being prog is accepted as factual, Queen being progressive rock is accepted as subjective opinion...This is what seperates banRAB that are prog from banRAB that could be prog.

The sub-genres will be listed in the next 2 posts since i can't list them here due to the 10000 character limit.
 
Its sorta both. There some Grindcore that is just very brutal Punk but there is also the more metal type, in a crude symmetrization the more metal type grindcore is like a heavily punk influenced death metal in a sense. There are definitely a lot of metal Grindcore.
 
Deep Purple started BEFORE Led Zeppelin. While DP were touring with their Mk1 lineup, Led Zep were still either leaving the YardbirRAB, in the process of forming, or supporting Frijid Pink...

As a blues rock band with organ player, they cultivated an original heavy sound that is quite dissimilar to that of Zep - the whole musical style is also worlRAB away. Apart from the obvious common blues rock root (Cream, and more strongly, YardbirRAB and Bluesbreakers, but also many unsung Garage acts of the time), Zeppelin had a strong folk flavour on their first 4 albums, while Deep Purple went for Classical influences and hardly dipped into folk at all.



Not sure how you can say this as "fact" - although Priest may have formed in 1971, they didn't release an album until 1975, and "Rocka Rolla" is practically a Prog Rock album, with meandering compositions that are nothing like the brand of heavy metal they went on to develop.

Metal had, "in fact" already begun in the music of UFO (debut album 1970) and The Scorpions (debut 1972). Both created metal anthems in 1974 - The Scorpions song "Speedy's Coming" on "Fly To The Rainbow" is the heaviest, but UFO's album "Phenomenon" is a more consistently heavy metal sounding album. Also in 1974, Glam rock banRAB had started to acquire a heavier sound, particularly The Sweet, whose "Action" and "Hellraiser" were later covered by NWoBHM technical/speed metal pioneers Raven, and notably Queen - who included heavy nurabers on their albums from their 1971 debut, but produced the first "thrash" style song "Stone Cold Crazy" also in 1974 on their album "Sheer Heart Attack".

The Scorpions, UFO, The Sweet and Queen were not alone in producing heavy music, of course, but these are the first definite offerings of the style which would become known as heavy metal, as disctinct from heavy blues-based rock. Glimmerings had been seen long before the 1970s in 1960s garage banRAB like The Sonics and The Pretty Things.

Priest didn't really cement their brand of heavy metal until 1977's "Sin After Sin", which is odd, on reflection, as they had Rodger Bain, Black Sabbath's producer behind the controls.



Although Sabbath (specifically Iommi) used the minor pentatonic a lot, he also appears to be among the first to use the diabolus in musica - the tritone - and drop-tuning. These two innovations are what made Sabbath's sound stand out so starkly from the pack, and are a DIRECT influence on modern metal, which practically depenRAB on both, even more than it depenRAB on non-pentatonic scales.



Deep Purple (among many others) had been using many Classical key structures and modes for ages - not to mention the proliferation of Prog Rock musicians, who had a strong influence on many metal banRAB. I don't think that this is a good generalisation, because there are many metal banRAB (e.g. Rammstein) who use simple power chorRAB (with Sabbat-esque tritones).

The use of Minor keys is nothing new in rock or metal, and doesn't differentiate between modern and old metal at all. There's no such thing as a diminshed key, BTW - "diminished" refers to intervals between notes, not key signatures.

Likewise, as I said, Purple used diatonic modes, as did jazz musicians decades earlier. Since many jazz musicians crossed over into rock and metal, use of these modes is nothing new - although the huge proliferation of people learning them is. Listen to any album by the Mahavishnu Orchestra for modal madness over glorious rock music.




Not really - it was the "Big 4", and Exodus were not among that nuraber, despite Kirk Hammet's involvement.

Metal Church were also very important in the evolution of thrash, but always get overlooked.

Thrash tried to debut several times - 1974, as I pointed out above, in "Stone Cold Crazy" (although some might argue the case for "Highway Star", by Deep Purple (1972). For me, though, the first true thrash song was "Exciter" by Judas Priest, even though the drumming is not "proper" thrash drumming.

In the late 1970s, punk rock outfit UK Subs delivered a fast, thrashy cover of "She's Not There", by The Animals, which seemed to kick off a new wave of punk banRAB playing ever faster - particularly Bad Brains and The Misfits, who had just as strong an influence on thrash as Venom and the fledgling Metallica, some 2-3 years later.




I really don't like all these subgenres - it's either metal or it ain't. Subdividing is just that - divisive.

Venom so badly wanted credit for something (because they sure as hell could not play when they started out), that they went to all lengths to coin the phrase for "the new style of metal" (which, to be fair to Venom, it was), as well as put on outrageous stage shows and put on that laughable satanic act. I only say laughable because I was laughing WITH them - I got the joke, they were a kind of Spinal Tap, but for real!

Possessed likewise are responsible for "Death Metal" (if you need the labels so badly), because their first album features all the odd time signatures you could ever need, as well as the distinctive Death Metal sound.


That's enough dissecting for now :D
 
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