Believe it or not, I was coming in here to write almost exactly the same thing. Great song.
Just for fun: The Who’s heavy metal-esque Coke jingle from 1967.
I’ll agree to Black Sabbath’s first album, in 1970, as the first heavy metal album, but the first heavy metal song is probably… “Heaven and Hell” by the Who. It was part of their live set starting in 1968 and became their opening live song through 1971 including Woodstock. Not only does it have the sound, but also the thematic content to qualify as heavy metal. A song like the Kinks “You Really Got Me” has much of the sound, but lacks the heavy metal lyrics.
Several of the songs from Entwistle’s first album, Smash Your Head Against The Wall, such as “You’re Mine” also qualify at least as proto-metal, so “Heaven and Hell” wasn’t just a one-off.
Songs such as “Monster Mash” and “Boris the Spider” did have much of the thematic content, but were a bit lacking in the sound of heavy metal.
Well, I brought it up in a thread a little while ago, but not as proto heavy metal. My claim (and I think others in the thread where I mentioned it agreed) was that it sounds very much (both musically and lyrically) like punk, despite dating from a good decade before the punk movement took off.
Most of the rest of Love’s output was quite different, and often very melodic. Their Forever Changes is still one of my favorite albums of all time, but only one track on it, Bummer in the Summer, has much hint of the punkish feel of 7 and 7 is. They could handle a variety of styles, but I can’t think of any of their songs that were much like heavy metal.
Are you serious? Monster Mash is a comedy song. So is Boris the Spider really, although its comedy is much darker.
Well this is all very interesting, but the first band that was called a “heavy metal” band was Sir Lord Baltimore.
For this: Kingdom Come
From a lyrical standpoint, yes, a song like Devil With A Blue Dress On is more gothic proto-metal than a lyric sheet such as You Really Got Me, but I never claimed either of those songs to be the first heavy metal. I mentioned Entwistle’s Heaven and Hell as the first song to feature both thematic content and sound to qualify as heavy metal. A song such as the Who’s instrumental In the Hall of the Mountain King has much of the head-banging sound, but lacks heavy metal lyrics.
The Incredible String Band’s albums, such as Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter released in 1968, also include much of the thematic content but lack the sound. Surely they were an influence.
Pink Floyd Interstellar Overdrive
“FOREVER CHANGES,” thank you, I have been trying to remember the name of that album, I had it when I was in high school I loved that album.
I believe this is the answer. I’ve always considered the Kink’s offering proto-punk.
I would agree with this. As a Kinks fan, I would say “You Really Got Me” is more proto-punk than proto-metal, in my opinion.
This is somewhat relevant to the thread. Best played very loud on a decent system.
My standard answer to this question is Blue Cheer’s Vincebus Eruptum album which includes the covers of ‘Summertime Blues’ and ‘Parchman Farm’ recorded in '67 and released in January '68. Distorted electric guitar wasn’t anything new at that point, but Blue Cheer took it to a new level in terms of volume and hard edge in live shows.
Black Sabbath really stepped further into a darker realm shortly afterward.
kinks are good and may have used fuzz, blue cheer was certainly intense, count five may have been reactive, but metal and fuzz come together for me in the theme from the black lagoon aka the wild angels
I can’t believe no one’s mentioned Steppenwolf and “Born To Be Wild”. Hell, they were the first to use the phrase “heavy metal”, weren’t they? And maybe even “The Pusher” was hm?
Post #3?
I’m really surprised that no one’s mentioned the Kinks yet.
And what about that band Ozzy was in before Blizzard of Ozz?
Maybe those others haven’t been mentioned because the OP is asking about the first heavy-metal song, which seems to have been answered, and not early metal bands in general.