I’m going to phrase this badly, but try to stick with me.
During the Cold War, everyone grew up under the threat of a nuclear war. It was possible on any given day that the world could end in a nuclear winter. The Cuban missle crisis really brought that home. Black Sabbath formed in 1967, composed of working-class guys from Birmingham. They played slow and heavy songs, with a strong sense of gloom and doom in them. They became the prototype for future metal bands.
So, do you think the Cold War, with its atmosphere of impending devestation created the right enviroment for heavy metal to form, and to thrive?
I think the OP is on to something. I also think Heavy Metal lost a lot of steam around 1991 or so, with the rise of “Grunge” on the national scene. Most metal groups in America either went mainstream, turned grunge/“alternative”, or stayed very underground.
In general, Rock and Roll did reflect the unease that the Cold War created. Also many people in Eastern Europe and the former USSR cite their governments’ suppression of Rock - from the Beatles to Metallica - as a major source of disenchantment with the communist system. And while most American kids who listened to heavy metal weren’t reading the Wall St Journal or watching David Brinkley, Heavy Metal has always been more topical than most non-fans realized. The Reagan years in particular were also the peak years for thrash metal. Metallica, Anthrax, Megadeth, Slayer, Suicidal Tendacies - all peaked at that time. When listening to their 1980’s records today, they often sound dated, but they reflect their period very well.
At the time, the Cold War was taking place. To suggest that somehow every heavy metal fan survived the entire seventies and eighties without looking at a newspaper is absurd. Certainly the Cold War was one of the dominant features in creating the attitudes of the time, and it’s influence was pretty much all-pervasive. Heavy metal was a product of the seventies, and the Cold War was one of the things that made the seventies what they were.
One of the few songs that actually addressed the Cold War directly was “Eve of Destruction” by Barry McGuire in 1965. It was a “folk-rock” protest song. This was a few years before heavy metal was invented. The song produced an outrage among the “Establishment” who thought it was “unpatriotic” and they banned it from some radio stations. Those were the days when people still remembered President Kennedy, and youth still believed in seriously working for a better planet. Those were the days when youth actually wore ties and haircuts at protest rallies.
By the time Black Sabbath came along, people were too wasted on beer + pot + 'ludes to get involved in social or political issues and the music just encouraged them to get more wasted. The gloom & doom of this music was not about real-world issues like nuclear war but more of an overall existential/fantasy fascination with darkness. How many hours went by in the 1970s with teenagers sprawled on cushions in suburban basements toking bongs under the black lights while Black Sabbath/Deep Purple/Uriah Heep/Jethro Tull ground out endless riffs of metallic sludge . . . don’t remind me!
I understood that LSD did also (seen articles relating loud slow music to acid; not a partaker myself).
I think it’s possible that some heavy metal was influenced by the cold war. But was heavy metal strictly a reaction to the cold war? Hard to imagine. A lot of it was originally blues-based. The blues heyday in England was, I thought, a product of US soldiers in England in WWII. Heavy metal also wouldn’t have existed without technical advances in amplification. If I go on, I’ll only ramble more.
No way!
The HEAVY METAL GODS said let there be music… and so it was done.
Actually, I’m sure the cold war did influence heavy metal, as it did many aspects of our culture. But, you could just as easily say the cold war influenced horror movies, literature of the time, or fashion trends.
Also, as Chrome Spot alluded to, heavy metal was the result of new trends in music and technology. There were (arguably) “heavy metal” bands around before Black Sabbath, for example Deep Purple, Hendrix, etc.
Influence? Sure. Every little thing influences every other little thing (a la Chaos Theory). Heavy Metal is a product of society. The Cold War influenced society.
IMHO, music inevitably reflects a mood (or moods) of its times but Heavy Metal was and is pretty much a niche market. Some might argue its root lie more in the angst and awkwardness of teen males rather than in any geo-political-ideological struggles around the world.
But I wouldn’t tell Ozzie that.
Chrome Spot – I’d probably have to disagree with that being the major influence on blues arriving in England. If you consider from where (Newcastle, Liverpool, Belfast, London), and when (mid fifties – early sixties) the leading bands originated the common characteristic is that they all had huge docks. It was sailors on merchant ships (making a few extra bucks) that brought in the vinyl to local record shops.
Also, during the war years recordings by black artists were still pretty uncommon.
After reading the OP, I think this is something to ponder. One of Sabbath’s most seminal tunes, off their second album, was War Pigs and its depiction of a scorched earth brought about the “generals who gather in their masses.” IIRC, I think it came out in 1970.
I have to say that as a junior higher in the mid-1980s, outrageous or anti-social behavior was often explained away with the comment, “Who cares? We’re all going to die anyway.”
If you see the end of the world in your near future, as many of my generation did, it creates a world without consequences. So why not go wild and crazy and play heavy metal music and have a good time before the nuclear holocaust?
I can’t talk about an implicit connection to the music, but I think that kind of atmosphere definitely pushed behavior to high levels of self-destructiveness–which is largely what heavy metal culture is all about, right? Cause honestly, most of the music is not standing the test of time. Hope that made some kind of sense.
Absolutely, no question about it. Most of the world’s stockpile of plutonium (density 19.8 g/cc) was created specifically for the cold war–or for the event that the cold war turned hot.
Of course technically the plutonium wasn’t created but transmuted but who’s going to quibble?