Oh, that was Blue Cheer with the rocked-up “Summertime Blues”? OK. I was familiar enough with the name of the band, but had forgotten why.
Let me note, just for fun, that “The Rolling Stone Album Guide,” makes this amusingly withering comment about the band: “A true-life Spinal Tap, Blue Cheer were bad taste of an almost surreal intensity.”
Another vote for Sabbath.
Spinal Tap!
Big Bottom, Big Bottom, talk about buncakes… my girl’s got 'em!
sabbath or slayer
I’ve seen a couple people mention Slayer now, but they really came out too late in the game to be the archetype.
Speaking as a child of the Seventies, Sabbath was the archetype, for the reasons that Cyrokk already mentioned.
Back in the Eighties, when metal began to change into speed metal, hair metal, Van Halen, etc., critics would regularly compare each new style with Black Sabbath, which was what we thought of as heavy metal.
Led Zepplin was considered a hard rock group, and definetly not metal. Slayer was way too late in the game to be an archetype to the genre. Rush was too late as well, but only someone’s mom would consider them to be metal.
It’s gotta be Sabbath.
I have a recent Guitar World magazine around here somewhere and they asked a bunch of Heavy Metal band guitarists who their influences are and Sabbath was meantioned by everyone. Sabbath did monster riffs. Heck, they defined monster riffs.
Zeppelin was too varied and light at times to really be called metal. I consider them hard rock.
One thing that does kind of bug me though is that most people miss the fact that Sabbath did do some lighter stuff that was really good (Fluff and Changes come to mind)
Slee
I’m surprised at the fact that this discussion is even occurring. How could the answer be anything but Sabbath?
WRT Led Zeppelin: They may not have been a pure heavy metal band, but it would be foolish to downplay their metal-ness. I wouldn’t call them pure hard rock, either–they did work mostly within the metal vernacular, especially on the earlier albums.
I’m not a fan of either - but they have their moments, unlike Uriah Heap Judas Priest et al. who just suck. I don’t really know (or care) about bands from the 80’s or later, the whole genre gets too fragmented to regard anyone after that as definitive.
Now there are loads of bands that are metal of one sort or another, back when Sabbath and Motorhead were in their prime they pretty much stood alone*.
Zeppelin were too exotic/eclectic. Did Sabbath ever do any accoustic numbers? (a real question I don’t know)…
Motorhead unplugged! he he.
*apart from aforementioned suckmeisters like Uriah Heep.
If I may return to my first response. As I said, the genre is too vague. This can best be settled, well, by agreeing with someone. Allow me to explain. I will list what I see as the sub-sets of rock. As you can see by all the previous posts, the answer you seek is never going to be answered.
My definition of all Rock: It is not to be played/performed in a setting where people expect to dine with background music. This is music to be the only reason you’re there. This means re-recordings of mellow versions are excluded. Also folk-singers like S&G, Dylan, etc. They weren’t really rock though awesome artists. (See where I’m setting my limits?)
Rock and Roll: This includes old Billy Joel, Bob seeger, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Allman Bros, Kansas, early Stones, et.al.
Hard rock: Here I’ll go Deep Purple, Led Zepplin, later Beatles (think White Album), again Deep Purple, et.al.
Acid rock: grateful Dead, Jimi, Janis, Joe Cocker, et al
4 Punk: Sex Pistols, recently Green Day, White Stripes, among others
Thrash metal: Anthrax, Dead Kennedys, Suicidal Tendencies, Stormtroopers of Death, Method of Destuction ( I still love the tracks “Please don’t feed the Fucking Bears” and “Captain Crunch”)
Heavy Metal: Black Sabbath (shit, I aggree with Diogynis on something), Motorhead, early Dio, ealrly Metallica, Megadeth, Metal Church, Deicide, Danzig, et. al.
Speed metal: GWAR, Death, Slayer, et. al.
Like I said, depends on the genre.
CAVEAT: I included the et al 's to not leave anyone out, just giving examples of the differences of types of metal.
Doubt it’ll help, but what the hell?
All these posts and no one mentions the one and only TRUE Metal band -
[FONT=Arial]MANOWAR[/FONT]
A selection of song and album titles -
Kings of Metal
Secrets of Steel
The Triumph of Steel
Metal Warriors
Steel Warriors
Hell of Steel: The Best of Manowar
Metal Daze
Gloves of Metal
Black Wind, Fire and Steel
The Gods Made Heavy Metal
Brothers of Metal, Pt. 1
Granted they’re basically an amped up Spinal Tap without irony, but to me they’re the working definition of a Heavy Metal Band.
MANOWAR
Gah! Formatting devils!!!
A review in that same book called Uriah Heep the true-life Spinal Tap as well. Gotta hand it to the elitist hippies at Rolling Stone- once they think of a semi-obvious joke, they run with it, baby!
Nitpicks ahoy!
I believe the White Stripes get classified under the Garage Revivaval banner
Anthrax, yes.
Dead Kennedys - Punk (American punk if you want to get anal)
Suicidals, S.O.D. and M.O.D. get put under Hardcore Crossover.
Sabbath, Motorheas, Dio, Metal Church, Danzig, yes.
Early Metallica, Thrash. Later Metallica, shit.
Deicide, Black or Death Metal.
Megadeth, Speed Metal (Their posters and T-Shirts always identified themselves as such.)
GWAR, hard to categorize, allmusic has them under Comedy Rock & Thrash
Death, oddly enough Death Metal (The genre was named after them after all.)
Early Slayer, Black Metal. Rubin Slayer, Thrash.
I refer you to the All Music Guide for more definitions.
Leechboy, that was why I gave the disclaimer. It was a very generalized list, you can understand that? I’m counting on you being a reasonable Doper to see it wasn’t a blanket statement. I thought I had enough disclaimers for the purpose of the post.
I understand you were generalising, but I couldn’t let calling DK a thrash band go, and it snowballed thus.
I don’t even think that metal can be classified as a style of rock, and I know I’m not alone in that opinion. Either later today or tonight, I’ll post my perception of the various styles of heavy metal, but I don’t have the time right now.
As I recall, the term “Heavy Metal” was coined when a reporter wrote that the guitar playing of Jimi Hendrix sounded “Like heavy metal falling from the sky.”
So, there you have it. Hendrix was the prototype. And, therefore, the archetype.
The term “heavy metal” was coined by rock critic Lester Bangs, who apparently filched it from William S. Burroughs’s Naked Lunch.
Genres never spring forth fully mature, so it’s hardly suprising that heavy metal influences like Zepplin, Hendrix and Cream don’t sound much like the final product.
The missing link between the aforesaid innovators and heavy metal is that sadly neglected genre acid rock. Acid rock essentially involved 1) taking a whole lot of drugs (obviously), 2) trying very hard to sound like Clapton, Page, and Hendrix, 3) failing, and conseqeuently 4) turning the volume up really, really loud to make up in noise what you lacked in chops. Blue Cheer was an acid rock band, as was arguably Steppenwolf. And of course the quintessential acid rock band was Iron “In A Gadda Da Vida” Butterfly.
Acid rock wasn’t heavy metal (both Iron Butterfly and Steppenwolf were heavy on keyboards, for example) and it only lasted a few years. But it was the bridge between blues-based hard rock and heavy metal.
Hawkwind (circa 69-74) including a pre-Motorhead Lemmy deffenetely warrants a mention. The Stooges and the MC5 also were highly influential. Going backwards chronologically for influences, one should also note Blue Cheer, Cream, Hendrix, and the Troggs. Certainly ‘You Really Got Me’ is one of the earliest power-chord thumpers, next notably, Cream’s ‘Sunshine Of Your Love’.
While not as well known, there’s a large group of early-70’s Sabbath-esqu heavy bands that, along with Sabbath, pioneered the way for metal. Notables: Out Of Darkness, Human Instinct, Pentagram, Master’s Apprentices, etc.
As far as their being a single, popular archetype, Sabbath is as close as any.