Heavy metal is OK,
but it needs more cowbell.
Great post, and I agree wholeheartedly. I think it’s worth mentioning that during the early 1970s, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple were certainly considered heavy metal bands. Remember that most of what we think of as the first metal bands were part of the new wave of British heavy metal, which couldn’t have existed unless there was a first wave.
I also want to mention Pentagram, who generally never come up in these discussions. They were one of the first bands after Sabbath to play anything that would be unquestionably considered metal today. I don’t know why people aren’t generally familiar with them, but it’s a sad state of affairs.
There’s a bunch of classical music that feels like metal. Take a listen to Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” and you’ll hear stuff that wouldn’t feel out of place on a [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34ZL4RFlxiE"death metal album.
Ok, it probably doesn’t qualify, but it’s close.
Full disclosure: my teen years were the early 80’s, but I grew up sharing a room with an older brother who was deeply into Black Sabbath. The sound I always associated with heavy metal was therefore obviously Black Sabbath, but also Deep Purple and some songs of Led Zeppelin. Jimmy Page himself would probably tell you that Zep were not a metal band, but the sound they promulgated with songs like “How Many More Times”, “Whole Lotta Love”, and “Heartbreaker” back in 1969 was seminal (part of what made Zep great was that they didn’t limit themselves to one specific sound template).
I would largely agree with RealityChuck’s points as well. But although I love the music of The Kinks, I don’t think of “You Really Got Me” as as prototypical metal song. I think the typical metal sound owes more to the incorporation of the dark and brooding atmosphere of the most desolate of the blues all those British lads were listening to, with obvious amplification (of both sound and feeling).
I’ve read some comments by members of Deep Purple to the effect that, while they knew they were playing louder and faster than everyone else at the time, they never considered what they were doing to be on par with what Led Zeppelin was putting out. Anybody have the quote?
I guess I must be the only one to say Johnny B. Goode, shows what I know.
Here’s my $.02:
When Punk started, it was a scene, and any band that was part of it was considered punk. Televison, Talking Heads, Blondie, Suicide, etc. and The Ramones.
Over time, Punk music became more codified, most centrally on the blueprint of The Ramones and their ilk - I s’pose I’d argue because that’s the approach aped by the UK Punks, who added political nihilism to the recipe. Now, noob music geeks have hair-ripping debates about who’s punk, skipping right past the reality of the day. They’ll probably win over time and Blondie and Talking Heads will be slotted as New Wave.
Same with Metal, except replace common scene with more aggressive recipe of music? At the time a number of different recipes were attempting to capture a more aggressive approach. Zep, Purple, Sabs and others mentioned here - and I would mention Cream, too - got more aggressive and the public took it in. In hindsight Black Sabbath’s approach became the blueprint for the music now known as Metal, mostly because of how much they influenced the next generation (its harder to emulate Zep, too ;))
Interesting that both genres crystallized around the most aggressive, stripped versions of the different approaches emerging. I wonder what that means? Make music your kid audience can replicate themselves?
How’d I do?
Maybe this version.
1812 Overture, with cannon (written in 1880).
I have to disagree, because garage rock is characterized at least as much by the effort to achieve a psychedelic sound and feel.
In the last chorus of Chuck Berry’s “Roll Over Beethoven” I think the repetitive chord on the words over and BEEThoven come pretty close to being power chords. Nobody else was doing anything close to that in the late 1950s.
I think The Groundhogs deserve some recognition as pioneers of the heavy metal sound. They were putting out some very heavy stuff at around the same time as Black Sabbath started to. Have a listen to the latter, instrumental part of Thank Christ for the Bomb (and turn it up LOUD). (Actually some of their other tracks from that era might be more typically proto-metal, but this is probably their best.)
Somebody already mentioned Deep Purple who were certainly already doing very heavy stuff before Sabbath.
The difference, though, is that “Heavy Metal”, unlike “punk” was a label invented fairly late in the game, and then applied retrospectively to bands considered to the pioneers of the genre, such as, most notably, Sabbath. At the time it was all just part of “progressive” (which did not mean quite the same as what later came to be meant by “prog rock”), then people began using adjective “heavy” (but I do not think it was yet considered a distinct genre). Then somehow the word “metal” got appended, and it solidified into a genre (arguably, because of that, losing much of creativity and openness to diverse influences that the earlier “heavy” bands had had).
This is the reality and isvery well put. I think the “fun” here is going back with our 20/20 hindsight and figure out the real moment when all things came together to make that 1st true metal sound.
Black Sabbath’s eponymous song. All of the individual elements were there before, but that was the moment when it really all came together.
Hard to argue - again, in 20/20 hindsight.
Yeah, this is really looking like the truth. We could talk for hours about the influences, but at what point did everything align? Black Sabbath is probably the right answer.
Yep, I’ll hop on board with that. So it’s settled. Black Sabbath. “Black Sabbath.” So what’s our next order of business?
I think we need to make a distinction between hard rock and heavy metal. Hard rock goes back as far as Jerry Lee Lewis or Little Richard. Heavy Metal, which is really a sub-genre of hard rock, started with Black Sabbath.
OP here: Strangely, I hated Black Sabbath as a kid. They were way too disturbing. Now I really appreciate their influence and let’s be honest here, Ozzy has the absolute quintessential Rock and Roll voice. He is a legend.