So when your average Joe thinks about metal music, I'm sure the first few things that come to mind are violence, Satan, incomprehensible vocals, and dudes stabbing each-other at concerts. Or they don't think anything at all because they've never heard of this "death metal" they just know it doesn't sound friendly. The problem lies in the mainstream media (as always, misinformation is their way of life). The things I listed do apply to metal, but are far more anecdotal than some over-arching philosophy. Philosophy of Violence....kick ass song name... I digress. When I try and talk to my friends about metal, they always seemed to be concerned with the vocals the most. Yes. A lot of metal is "grr-grr-grr" sounding until you actually open your ears and start listening. In that lies the fact that metal tends to be very loud and busy, and I think the average listener has a hard time sorting out the "noise". I personally enjoy noise. Want to really go outside the box? Check out Sunn O))) (the band took the name from the amplifier brand they use: Sunn). In many of their songs they only have guitar feedback as "music". I find they're a great band to listen to while doing homework. There's stuff going on, but you're not actively listening to it. Also to give myself some ethos, I play guitar in a death metal band and I have been studying metal now for four years. I'm still years away from knowing every band that lead up to this point, but projects are always going to fall to the way-side while the big names get all the credit. I also listen to stuff other than metal such as world music, alt rock, classic rock, tribal, classical, flamenco, . Recently I've been studying the evolution of hip-hop and gangster rap. Funny enough I just now got to where I can tolerate rap at all. For years it all sounded the same but it's all in the subtleties, as with any genre.
So where did this metal junk come from? Well as we learned in class genres evolve from other genres. Metal arose out of heavy metal (odd that "heavy metal" bands are the classics, then just "metal" arose angrier and faster, but I guess they didn't expect it to get any heavier than "heavy metal"). Heavy metal arose from rock and roll along with punk, and that arose from the blues.
I think these fellows would get along just nicely since they came from the same "musical mother" :)
It all begins with jazz and the invention of the electric guitar. Jazz was specifically more a New Orleans tradition compared to the blues which was regionally more spread out and founded it's own subgenres (i.e. Mississippi delta blues or Texas Blues). Jazz took the rules of classical music and threw them out the window, creating very unique, personalized, and improvised music.
Jazz has evolved exponentially since its formation and has dozens of subgenres. Early British Rock bands such as Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin took these blues tunes along with the emergence of rock and roll in the 1940's from greats such as Chuck Berry, and mixed em together to create blues rock, or classic rock as we consider it now.
One huge influence to the creation of metal is Black Sabbath. Black Sabbath (originally a blues band called Earth) introduced a very dark atmosphere and occult lyrics to the music leading to Ozzy's wonderful profiling, as well as a sound in music unlike any before it. A while genre of metal is based on Black Sabbath called "doom metal"; characterized by very slow tempos, droning guitar, sung lyrics, and blues type riffs.
Along side the formation of rock and blues rock, hidden in dingy smoke-filled bars was punk rock which was not only just a music genre, but an explosive sub-culture in the UK and US east coast (and Australia). Bands that let this revolution included Iggy Pop, The Who, The Kinks, and ended the golden era of punk with bands like the Ramones, Sex Pistols, and the Clash. Punk is most recognizable from its Do-It-Yourself lifestyle such as homemade clothing and anti-establishment lyrics. As with any genre, many subgenres sprouted up out of punk including hardcore, Oi!, pop punk, crust punk, anarcho-punk, and even emo music (before emo turned into what it is today, thanks a lot record companies...).
That's a nice beginning to our tale of music. I plan on spending a lot more time on individual bands when I get up to ones that I know stuff about. When we return in part two we'll be looking at the 1970's rise of New Wave of British Heavy Metal and the formation of speed metal and trash metal. Thanks for reading!
