This overview of heavy metal is meant to be a flexible way of discussing prominent evolutions of the music while acknowledging that all genres are inherently valuable and worth recognizing with terms that respect their individual identities. All of the confusion around the name "heavy metal" stems from the fact that it is the original form of metal music.
From a historical perspective, it makes considerably more sense to think of heavy metal as a specific subgenre of metal music than a synonym for the entire metal genre. As a subgenre, heavy metal can be thought of in precisely the same way as thrash metal, black metal, power metal, or any other evolution of the style.
This confusion is understandable. As heavy metal evolved into new forms such as power metal and thrash metal, it became common for fans, musicians, journalists, and record labels to simply continue calling all of it "heavy metal. Riot - "Heavy Metal Machine" Heavy metal is played almost exclusively with drums, electric guitars, and electric bass guitar, though synthesizers and acoustic guitars are historically prevalent accompaniments as well.
Heavy metal is often associated with soaring, clean vocals, most famously from Rob Halford and Bruce Dickinson, though numerous examples of singers with coarse deliveries — such as Udo Dirkschneider — exist as well. The style also features greater guitar distortion and leans on steely production for its gritty character. Many hard rock bands of the '70s, such as Riot, Saxon, and Judas Priest, made the shift into the more aggressive heavy metal sound in the early '80s, and their discographies represent the rapid and steady evolution of the new style.
Somewhat ironically, heavy metal is melodic, and on a structural level, is a form of pop music. Like pop music, the songs feature memorable chorus hooks and prominent, recurring instrumental melodies. Armored Saint - "Can U Deliver" This blending of styles is natural and evident across all forms of music, and it helps to explain how the name "heavy metal" continued to be passed along to new styles of music, including ones that eventually held no relationship to the heavy metal sound.
Among metal subgenres, arguably the greatest gray area around heavy metal exists with its neighbors in speed metal and early power metal. Because many speed metal and early power metal releases from the s and more recently from the NWOTHM revival display relatively small evolutions of the heavy metal sound, they are commonly classified within the boundaries of traditional heavy metal. Accept's "Fast as a Shark" is an excellent example of a speed metal track that is also fully classifiable as heavy metal.
Accept - "Fast as a Shark" , Additionally, heavy metal overlaps with doom and thrash, as well as the high-speed sounds of European power metal that emerged in the late '80s. There is also a small but historically significant connection between heavy metal and black metal.
Because of the amount of creative overlap across related styles, many albums can be classified within multiple metal subgenres or described with hybrid terms. Sanctuary - "Die for My Sins" It's also impossible to ignore the close, inextricable relationship between heavy metal and its older musical sibling, hard rock. Despite the notable blurred edges around heavy metal, there is an enormous volume of music in the world that falls squarely within the subgenre and can be classified simply as "heavy metal.
Unlike much contemporary music, metal often avoids material from contemporary, day-to-day life. In this sense, Classics is just one means of escape, with books, movies, and even video games providing other routes, and there seems to be little difference to many of these bands between writing a song based on, say, Tolkien and writing a song about the Trojan War.
Another way to frame this interest is in terms of the epic, primarily in the modern sense of the term as grandiose and larger than life, but not entirely removed from the ancient sense. Metal, in many ways, is defined by being over the top, in terms of dress, volume, and themes.
Such music requires grandiose subject matter, and content and form reinforce each other. This sense of grandeur is evident not just in the music itself often sweeping and bombastic , but even from the length of some of these songs.
The subject matter, length, and grand sounds of these songs connote power, which scholars and critics have long seen as one of the defining characteristics and preoccupations of the genre. They have connected this emphasis on power with the fact that this kind of music was originally played primarily by men to a predominantly male, working-class audience, which might further explain the attraction to larger-than-life masculine figures such as Achilles and Alexander.
In this regard, Tolkien and Homer are equally epic, equally mythic, and equally removed from the perceived banality of modern life. For some bands, Latin seems to offer a certain otherworldliness, in part because it is old and connected to the arcane we might compare the use of pseudo-Latin in the magic spells in Harry Potter. But there is often a deeper interest in Latin. Many of the bands that use Latin have a religious interest in it because of its connection with the Catholic Church.
The flipside to this Catholic interest in Latin is its connection with Satanism. To whatever extent individual bands are actually committed to it, Satanism is a hallmark of more extreme forms of metal, such as death metal and black metal, and these bands tend to use Latin more than those in other subgenres. Even if these bands are interested in the religious issues rather than Latin per se , the use of Latin, like the use of Classical myths and historical figures, gives the music a depth and weight it would not otherwise have.
In recent years, more and more metal bands have begun to use material from the ancient world, and they have done so in increasingly sophisticated and elaborate ways. However, the lasting legacy of Judas Priest was the introduction of the indelible image of heavy metal: leather and studs. No one could anticipate at the time that the look would become synonymous with heavy metal.
Nevertheless, heavy metal now had a look that matched the power and intensity of its sound Metal Gods. Although heavily inspired by the founding heavy metal bands, the music of these new acts effectively eliminated influence of the blues, instead incorporating elements of late s British punk. The result was a faster and aggressively bombastic sound. Songs explored the realms of fantasy and mythology Rime of the Ancient Mariner , yet also maintained the social ire of their predecessors.
Building on this creative exploration, the NWOBHM bands, especially Iron Maiden, embarked on creating elaborate, theatrical stage shows that thematically complimented their music Powerslave. These newly explored elements resonated with fans beyond England. By the mid's, heavy metal experienced acceptance and popularity in mainland Europe, North America and South America. Heavy metal experienced different interpretations as it began to disseminate globally.
In Los Angeles, many bands developed a streamlined approach with a neutral, simplified sound and a focus on theatrics and showmanship. Moving north along I-5, other bands embarked on a path diametrically opposed to the hair movement. Thrash was the most extreme incarnation of heavy metal to date. The thrash bands challenged the norm and openly expressed their vitriol and discontent through socially conscious and politically critical lyrics.
By the end of the s, heavy metal was becoming schizophrenic, developing in two converging directions with each pushing conventions to extremes.
Heavy metal had reached a crossroads by the early s. The novelty of hair metal vanished as quickly as it burst onto the scene. Thrash remained too extreme for mainstream audiences. Some thrash bands, most notably Metallica Enter Sandman and Megadeth Symphony of Destruction , successfully experimented with a streamlined and commercially palatable direction. This move was a reaction to the rapidly growing popularity of Grunge more on that in a minute.
Lauryn Schaffner Published: February 18, Back To Top.
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