What band can be defined as the archetypal heavy metal band?

Cafe Society
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A coworker and I were wondering which band – more than any other – could be characterized as the essence of “heavy metal.”

One problem we encountered was the term “heavy metal.” How is it defined? After some brainstorming we came up with the following “requirements” for a “true” heavy metal band:

  • Though the music should be derived from traditional rock, there should only be a hint of blues.

  • The guitar should be distorted, with lots of power chords. Occasional feedback is also a plus.

  • Heavy drums and bass, powerful vocals.

  • The overall style should be heavy, loud, and somewhat brooding.

  • The music should have a moderate tempo. (No “speed metal.”)

We are primarily evaluating the music here; lyrics, theatrics, dress, hair, antics, etc. are considered incidental for the most part.

So which band gets top honors as the prototypical heavy metal band? Has a “true” heavy metal band ever existed? Obscure bands are welcome. We also believe it should be a band, as opposed to a soloist, though the latter is not necessarily disqualified. Here a few high-profile candidates:

Black Sabbath: A pretty good fit, possibly the best, though they were probably too bluesy to be classified as heavy metal.

Led Zeppelin: Too bluesy, too high energy, and not “brooding” enough to be heavy metal. Guitar is a bit too artsy.

Deep Purple: Possibly a good fit, but can a “real” heavy metal band have a keyboard player?

Judas Priest: Too high strung.

Iron Maiden: The “horsy beat” signature is too happy sounding.

AC/DC: I would define AC/DC as a hard rock, not heavy metal.

Rush: Too high energy, prodigious, and geeky to be heavy metal?

Metallica: Too fast.

Spinal Tap: Surprisingly close, but shouldn’t we limit our search to real bands?

Yardbirds, Cream, etc.: Too bluesy. And some songs were too artsy.

Ozzy, Wngwie, Dio, Queensryche, etc.: Too high energy and/or virtuoso, though we might be able to make an exception for Dio.

Iron Butterfly, Blue Cheer, etc.: I know next to nothing about these “early” heavy metal bands. Can any of them be defined as the prototypical heavy metal band?

Metal Church, Saxon, etc.: Hmmm. Could we be on the right track, here?

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Heavy Metal is too vague. This may be more an IMHO thread. The HM genre covers soooo many bands.

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Off the top of my head, I can think of 13 major styles of music that would all fall under the umbrella of “heavy metal”, and I could probably get that up to 20 with a little thinking. From which style should we draw the archetypal metal band?

When you say “prototypical”, that suggests that you’re asking who came first, which is easy to answer: Black Sabbath. Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin were at about the same time, but Sabbath is the big name.

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I don’t think there’s any question that it’s Black Sabbath. They were the first to really define the form. They gave it the darkness, the imagery, the scary singer (thay had OZZY, for crying out loud. Is there a more definitive frontman in the history of metal?), even the name of the band screams heavy metal.

Musically, they are paractically the template for the genre. Tony Iommi came up with all great riffs and everybody else just recycled them. I disagree that they were too bluesy. “Black Sabbath” wasn’t bluesy, it was atmospheric and creepy. “Iron man” wasn’t bluesy it was HEAVY. “Paranoid” was balls out metal. “NIB” was another cool, heavy riff (and includes the lyric “my name is Lucifer. Please take my hand.” THAT’S heavy metal).

I also think that Priest, Maiden and Dio fall pretty squarely within the genre but Sabbath IS metal.

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The only criteria of yours I’d disagree with is the “moderate tempo/no high-energy” label. Most of the classic heavy metal bands I grew up listening to were at least 50% up-tempo songs. (And some very up-tempo.)
I think you could argue the title of “quintessential HM band” belonging to any of the groups you listed, really.

Well maybe not Rush. I don’t think even Rush knows what Rush is.

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Arhcetypal? I don’t have a clue, not something I listen to.

Prototypical? Perhaps one among those that inspired the name (these I did listen to):

Here is the genesis: there were, in the laste 60s and early 70s, several bands that used metallic/heavy equipment imagery in their names: Led Zeppelin, Iron Butterfly, Grand Funk Railroad, and MC5 (Motor City Five). I described them citing the phrase “heavy metal thunder” from the Steppenwolf song “Born to Be Wild.” Apparently the category name of “heavy metal” music devolved from that.
(From http://phrases.shu.ac.uk/bulletin_board/23/messages/983.html )

This may shed some light on it: http://www.silver-dragon-records.com/hmm.htm

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Sabbath was never anywhere near as popular as Led Zep (heck, Kiss was more popular than Black Sabbath at the time), and they pretty much invented the genre with “Communications Breakdown.” Yes, they did more than just heavy metal, but everything in the genre starts right there.

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In terms of popularity, Led Zeppelin does win. But in terms of influence on the sound of later metal bands, Sabbath is pretty clearly in the lead.

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Why there, instead of (say) Helter Skelter, or Revolution? Both had lots of distortion, loud guitars, and heavy drum tracks for the time.

10

When I saw the thread title I thought AC/DC right away.

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When I read the question, the first band that leapt to mind was Black Sabbath. Of course, the first band to actually use the term “heavy metal” in a song was…Steppenwolf.

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Can’t believe you didn’t include The Who. Of the several definitions that people have of heavy metal, my favorite is that the music sounds like metal objects being bashed together-- and the Moon-era live performances, 'specially the “My Generation” smash-ups, certainly put them in the running.

13

I’ll throw my hat in for Black Sabbath. I became a fan of theirs in 1976. When their then “newest” album, Technical Ecstacy" was released, I asked the record shop owner what it was like. His reply was “their usual heavy metal”.

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Too bluesy?! How’s that?

What does high strung mean? Or do you only know Breaking the Law? I’m guessing you missed Sin after Sin or Painkiller, no wait that’s too fast for you.

The “horsy beat” is the bass your looking for.

Well Spinal Tap has recorded two albums and gone on tour a few times, I think they may be a real band even if it was a joke.

You’re going to throw someone out because they are high energy? What do you want, energy is power.

I think you’re looking for some NWOBHM. How you can throw out Black Sabbath is beyond me. But since you don’t seem to want to include them then the only band left is Motorhead. What more could you want? Loud, brash, loud, not speed, but not slow either, lots of distortion, loud, and they even have the logo. Oh and did I say loud? About the only other band I can think of is Manowar, no wait they are the joke band.

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The first band that pops into my head with the phrase “heavy metal” is Slayer.

I look at Sabbath and LedZep and bands from the 70s just as “rock”. :shrug:

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Sabbath was definitely on the right track, but I’m not familiar enough with their work to comment further. From what I have heard, I would put both Motorhead and Judas Priest ahead of them as more “metal”.

I guess I would put Judas Priest at the top, just because their “style” of metal evolved quite a bit over time.

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Led Zeppelin wasn’t really metal. Their catalog had far too many styles (blues, rock, funk, jazz, folk, etc) to just slap the metal label on them. Most metal fans, not to mention the band member themselves, don’t really consider Zeppelin heavy metal.

However, they did have influence on heavy metal in the sense that they took rock to a harder level, much like Hendrix took guitar to the next level. Throw in the technical aspect of Deep Purple, and you are almost there.

In 1970, three albums came out that for the most part crystalized the form of heavy metal: Black Sabbath’s Paranoid, Deep Purple’s In Rock, and Uriah Heep’s self-titled debut. Black Sabbath rightfully deserves the credit for the archetypal metal band because they helped defined the genre AND created a lasting and potent subgenre within it a year later with Master of Reality. The slow, plodding, depressing sound is the hallmark of Doom Metal and periodically causes ripples throughout the rock community (Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Solace, Second Coming, all bands that went back to the slow Sabbath sound with success). To create multiple genres within a year is only something that the most brilliant of bands, such as the Beatles, can pull off, not to mention that they are still strong today.

I would have to say Black Sabbath for the earliest and purest strains of metal, because afterwards Motorhead’s sleezy punk hit the equation along with the NWOBHM and black metal which, when combined with the technical prowess of Priest, got translated into Thrash in the states and when that got too fast, out came Doom all over again.

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Black Sabbath was my thought when I read the thread title, and after reading Edward The Head’s post, I am reminded that Motorhead is also a worthy choice.

Rush? Rush is too literate. And they’re Canadian. That’s not to say that Canadians can’t play heavy metal – or play really good heavy metal, for that matter – but it just seems very strange that the greatest emissary of this particular style would come from a country whose national character is so un-heavy. Is that a slur? I didn’t intend it that way.

I would strike Led Zeppelin on the basis of their ravenous quest to expand their musical palette. A prototypical heavy metal band would not have included the Celtic stuff, the reggae, the really bluesy stuff.

And I would strike all of the bands mentioned that I’ve never heard a single song (Saxon, Metal Church, Blue Cheer) from because, well, a certain amount of fame seems only appropriate. Fame isn’t something inherent to heavy metal necessarily, but it just seems like something that the best of the genre should have accomplished.

I guess my standard for figuring out this question is this: Does the word “sludge” describe the band?

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Blue Cheer was kinda proto-Mudhoney.

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I have a couple of old Blue Cheer albums. They were basically blues with a heavy fuzztone. They did a cover of “Summertime Blues” that was a minor hit and another song called “Parchment Farm” that was kind of your basic, bluesy hard rock riff. I wouldn’t call them metal, exactly, but they were moving in that direction. They had a lot of hair.