Where It All Began- The Beginning of True Metal

To cover the entire genre of heavy metal is not an easy task. Even the most enraged metalhead would not contemplate the entire heavy metal legacy/journey after resourceful thinking. To cover the entire subject I have tried to cover the following: The beginning of 20th century rock, stoner/psychadelia rock, political status and socialistic values at the time of exposure of classic metal, the underground bands that rose to stardom and changed rock n' roll, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin: two of the great influences on heavy metal, where the term heavy metal came from, where and when classic metal sprung into subgenres, how these subgenres were decided upon by critics, various punk bands that also influenced heavy metal, representative works of heavy metal. As you can see it's a pain in the ass just reading up about these topics. Fortunately, I have done my research and I think that I have covered all topics stated above. Any comments will be welcomed.

The 20th century on a whole was a great move forward in all aspects of life. One of which is music. Jazz and blues rock superstars such as B.B King were rising to success. This was the jazz movement. Special jazz clubs facilitated these musicians and their ensembles.Today we forsake them, even though 60 years ago they were all that rock had to offer (unless you wish to count the horrid one hit wonders that sprang to success and faded away).

During the 1960's, Rock and Roll experienced its big breakthrough with great artists such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. All over the world the youth celebrated its freedom and the 60's and 70's are remembered for bad haircuts, bad clothes but most of all: Classic Rock.

(The two bands that I mentioned before were, at the time of their inception, regarded as rock and roll.) We now move on to the later 60's where the classic hard rock genre begins to mould itself.

In the late 1960's, Britain saw a band that became one of the pioneers in psychadelic, classic and progressive rock. This band was Pink Floyd. One of the first examples of fine hard rock. With classic rock hits such as "Dark Side of the Moon" and "The Works", Pink Floyd was one of the great British stoner bands.Their creation led for others to follow in their footsteps. This is where we see change in the scene of rock. Drugs and rock and roll come together in this stage, where hippies and other stoners start to actually compile sensible music and put it together. The Grateful Dead, The Doors and The Byrds were pure sychadelic rock which incidentally came around the same time as Pink Floyd.

This is the interesting bit. The 70's. Peace man! In my opinion I find the 1970's the most revolting decade for fashion, politics, social movements and various other propaganda. Then why was the music so good? This decade is where classic metal first came into being. I think that the entire genre of classic metal rested on the shoulders of a few very good bands that influenced and inspired other musicians such as Deep Purple, Yngwie Malsteem, Jimi Hendrix and the Jeff Beck group. One of the bands would prove to be the great legends of classic hard rock as well as the greatest influence on later bands. Led Zeppelin.

Jimmy Page and Robert Plant are the masterminds behind this great act. The band was originally called The New Yardbirds because lead guitarist Jimmy Page would happen to be the last lead guitarist for the original Yardbirds. The bassist John Paul Jones was a professional in studio recordings while Robert Plant and drummer John Bonham came from lesser known provincial bands. Although acoustic and folk-based music was part of the band's repertoire from its inception, it was the bottom-heavy, loud, raw, and powerful electric style that gained them their following and notoriety early on; their first two albums included many of the songs that made Led Zeppelin contributors to all those heavy metal bands that followed them. Some of their great hits were "Whole Lotta Love" , "Dazed and Confused", "Black Dog" and "Achilles Last Stand". The greatest song was of course the holy grail of all guitar songs "Stairway to Heaven". The band sold over 80 million copies
of all their records and disbanded in 1980. Anyway, back to the 70's. Zeppelin commanded a great deal of respect among critics and even those who did not prefer hard rock. They were, at that time, the top of the lot. Jimmy Page was the god of guitar at the time and everything about the band seemed to come together at this critical era, from Robert Plant's energetic, emotional vocals to Jimmy Page's lightning fast solos, they were one of the greats.

"Punk rock fans are opinionated little shits who care too much about what and what doesn't suck and get by on a wicked sense of humor". (- Charles Aaron) What a correct statement. Punk had alot to do with subgenres of metal as well as some of the classic metal bands that we hear today. The Sex Pistols and The Ramones were both great contributors to subgenres of metal such as thrash metal and also helped plaguarize popular music with their taboo lyrics and singles. "God Save the Queen" became an anthem for the turmoil and propaganda in the British political system and it was subsequently banned from British radio. The band made waves in rock as well as the social and political standing of Britain. On the lyrical aspect, they were very much like Metallica and their lyrics were a great inspiration to heavy metal bands.

Well, this is where I tell you about the first classic metal band. If you're a big metal fan then you'll probably know so you shouldn't bother reading the rest of this. The first classic metal band started off as a blues rock band called Earth in the late 1960's and then changed it's name to the more well-known Black Sabbath that went on to released their first album in 1969. Ozzy Osbourne, Terri Butler, Tommy Iommi and Bill Ward were the first quartet of classic metal. The name Black Sabbath came from a song in a Boris Karloff movie that Butler had written. They were loathed by critics, their lyrics were soaked in occult imagery, their music portrayed a dark image full of guitar solos and riffs and Osbourne's whiney vocals.

Well there you have it, from the wails of Robert Plant to the whines of Ozzy Osbourne, heavy metal was now a part of modern music. The term 'heavy metal' was taken from novelist William Burroughs, one who wrote about homosexuality and bisexuality and erotic stories. (Well done, old man.)

Anyway, now we have established the fact that heavy metal was first unleashed in 1969. Many different bands tried to copy Sabbath's music. The end 1970's were (as compared to later years) a bit of a slump for heavy metal. Gay disco bands took presidence over heavy metal bands but the death of disco was a saviour to all metal fans (and the world for that matter). Black Sabbath became world renowned and were touring everywhere. Different bands then rose to stardom. Some of these bands would become a part of a subgenre that would be hated by some people in later years: Glam rock.

Black Sabbath's elaborately dark and discriptive lyrics were just the beginning of a long list of differences between the heavy metal greats and other bands in the 1970's. Glam rock. The long hair, the face painting, the love making anthems, the pelvic thrust movements, the weird dance moves and costumes. Horrid to most, but the start of glam rock led to glam metal as well as some classic metal. The first glam rock band is probably Alice Cooper which were formed in 1968. Now this is a topic for discussion and if I have proof then I will welcome any change to this statement. Anyway, Alice Cooper were voted the "worst band in L.A." and earned a contract with Straight records. They got their name from their group leader, who was ironically a son of a preacher. They churned out two unsuccessful albums before relocating to Detriot. With producer Bob Ezrin (who later worked with Kiss, a band much influenced by Alice Cooper's music and presentation, (as were the New York Dolls), they crafted a clear, powerful, guitar-heavy sound on such youth anthems as “I'm Eighteen” and “School's Out.” Makeup-wearing vocalist Cooper, whose identity soon eclipsed the band's, formed a new group in 1974, adding Welcome to My Nightmare (1975) to a list of significant albums that included Killer (1971) and Billion Dollar Babies (1973), all explorations of decadence, perversion, and psychosis.

Glam rock in the 70's and 80's was a separate branch of evolving, growing and blooming, if you may, rock. From Alice Cooper and the more successful Kiss to bands such as Def Leppard and Motley Crue. Both bands were influenced by glam rock. An interesting step from makeup and pelvic thrust movements.

In the meanwhile, bands such as Van Halen, Judas Priest and Iron Maiden began to develop a fanbase with their brilliantly creative works of metal. While these bands were more appreciated than others, it is not to say that they were the only good bands of the early 1980's. Other bands such as Manowar, Alice In Chains, Saxon and Guns N' Roses were also a great influence to modern rock culture.

Thrash metal, death metal, black metal, doom metal, power metal and glam metal found their proper footing and ground to stand on in the 1980's. The 80's was a progressive decade for heavy metal. All these subgenres were appearing and doing quite well. Labels such as Metal Blade and Morrisounds became labels for thrash and death metal acts respectively. I shall go into more detail with these subgenres in my following additions to this column. I guess that about covers it.

Until next time I say farewell.