About

My Overview of METAL


Introduction
The genre of metal has been under fire from politicians, religious groups and other people who find metal satanic and somewhat disturbing. In some cases they are right, but just like most forms of music metal is a statement, a statement that most fear to speak about to the public openly. Such as views on politics, wars, drugs, alcohol, and sex. This is my story from start to finish and I hope you learn something from this biography.

The beginning

Metals origins come from blues music, this can easily be argued saying that the origins are from early to mid 60’s psycodelic rock, but blues was the base that started heavy metal, then bands started adding electric guitar and drums to the blues, then bass guitars were added to complete the traditional line up of instruments. Nobody really knows were the term “Heavy Metal” came from many people say it came from a review after a Jimi Hendrix concert, the reporter claimed it was like “heavy metal falling from the sky”, another possible origin is in the song “Born to be Wild” one of the lyrics in the song uses heavy metal. But no matter its origin the term heavy metal has stayed with us for almost 40 years. Though there is debate on were the term of this type of music came from there is even more debate on who started the metal genre (as in which band) some say Jimi Hendrix started the genre with his crazy guitar playing , others say it was the multiple blues bands I have mentioned above, and still some say it was the two bands Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. Though the official answer is unknown the most popular belief is that Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin started the genre. Both had there skills and abilities, Led Zeppelin had a more accessible sound with “stadium” rock anthems and short sweet songs about rock and roll and parental communication. While on the completely other end of the spectrum Black Sabbath had a more “underground” sound that was heavier with darker riffs and longer songs about politics and satin.

60’s
Jimi Hendrix, The who, and Led Zeppelin all great bands that had something to add the transforming world of rock, Jimi with his guitar play, The who with their on stage presence and Zeppelin with their odd fascination behind them. The Who formed in 1965 after many different attempts at creating a band, including cream, The Who created many chart toppers over the course of their carrier the first being “I cant explain”. The Who were a moderately successful band at this point and in 1965 released My Generation an album mostly about sex and teenage behavior. Not wanting to fall into a singles band( because the album had produced a lot of singles) Peter Townshend starting working on compilation albums one of which “A quick one” was a more successful album for that time period, and the song “A quick one while he’s away” was latter called a rock opera.
The Who created a big following at the 1969 Woodstock, while popular in Europe The Who had yet to get a following in the US, during Woodstock The Who started off with the hit “My generation” and after their testosterone filled set ended with destroying all of their instruments and the drummer even blew up his kit. While said havoc was going on the security tried to stop the band not knowing it was part of their act, after Woodstock the video shot during the concert gave The Who the popularity they needed in the US. Jimi Hendrix was not welcome by most people in the rock and roll world when he first appeared in 1966, most didn’t like his guitar playing, but the girlfriend of Keith Richards suggested Hendrix to a few managers before one actually wanted to see how he sounded in the studio, impressed the manager signed Hendrix and thus formed the Jimi Hendrix experience. Constant touring in England gave The Hendrix Experience the credibility they needed and consequently were the headline band at the 1969 Woodstock. Due to many delays and technical problems Hendrix preformed the day after his set time, and by the time he finally came on more than half the crowed was gone but still Jimi played a two hour set that was riddled with technical problems and it was kicked off the infamous rendition of the ‘star spangled banner’. Soon after Woodstock ’69 Hendrix died in his apartment though it is unknown exactly how he died many theory’s have cropped up; one is that Hendrix was dead at the scene, another is that Hendrix died on the way to the hospital. But none the less on that day in 1970 the world of rock and roll lost one of its greatest guitarists. The ‘New Yard birds is thought to be the birthplace of Led Zeppelin, though heavy in blues influence, the band toured for a while under the name of New Yard birds, but soon changed their to Led Zeppelin after the term led balloon ( a term used at the time to describe a show gone wrong) Led Zeppelin soon signed with Atlantic records with out the company even seeing them in person, at that time Zeppelin secured a 200,000 dollar record deal. Led Zeppelin’s first album was released on January 12 1969, the album only took 36 hours to make, that included recording, and mixing. During one of Led Zeppelins concerts they were listed as ‘The Nobs’ because one of the name sakes to the creator of the Zeppelin threatened to cut the band from performing unless they changed their stage name. Zeppelin not only had great music surrounding their carriers but also multiple rumors that the band followed the religion of Satanism and other mystical acts. Led Zeppelin, The Who, and Jimi Hendrix my not of been described as metal but they definitely set a strong blue print for bands to follow at the beginning of the 1970’s.

1970

The people of the 70’s were different then the ones in the 60’s the message of peace and hope had somewhat died, thus led to a different style of music. Enter Black Sabbath, in the mid 60’s a small band known as ‘Earth’ cropped up in Birmingham England, the band was only local and sang mostly blues oriented music after a few mix ups with another band called ‘Earth’ the band needed a name change, they chose Black Sabbath after one the band members had a terrible dream, the new band recorded their first album which was self titled and largely discredited by critics and yet people still came to see this new band. The band went on to sell many albums threw out the 70’s becoming popular in both the U.K and the U.S, in 1979 the band released their last album with lead singer Ozzy Osbourne titled ‘Never Say Die’ shortly after the album the band split and Ozzy was the only member to leave the band. Metal became much heavier in the 70’s one of the bands that helped with this progression was ‘Judas Priest’ Priest’s album ‘British Steel’ sold millions of copies and was one of the most influential albums of metal music in the 70’s.
The bands highly anticipated second album ‘Point of entry’ was lack-luster at best, the album had a more pop feel that would become popular in the 80’s, and though some songs held up the Priest name, most felt like filler. The band redeemed themselves by the end of the era and became one of the more influential bands of the 70’s the albums that helped them do this redeeming if you will were the albums ‘Screaming for vengeance’ which brought back the hard raw edge of the band, the other was ‘Stained Glass’ both albums brought Priest to a point of metal god status in the late 70’s . Continuing in the invasion of British bands was ‘Iron Maiden’ who were considered the most influential band of any era, just their demo tape was one of the few tapes to get rock/metal clubs going. Their first two albums were big hits and widely excepted, but by the end of their second album ‘Killers’ the band needed a change, their music was becoming faster and their lead singer Paul Di ‘Anno couldn’t keep up, so the band replaced him with Bruce Dickinson. With the new line up the band recorded ‘Number of the beast’ which has been called the most important album ever released ever. After ‘Number of the beast’ the band released many great albums from 1981-1992 after which the band split. The 70’s weren’t all happy go lucky for metal, Punk was becoming all the rage in England, which most of these metal bands were surfacing from, when punk reached its prime, metal was considered dead and that it would never return. The bands that saved metal from this fate of death, was Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. The 70’s also had a few artists that most thought of either as creepy or just plain weird. One of these bands was Kiss, in the early 70’s not many metal bands had a huge commercial success along with the media attention, Kiss started all that, with their crazy live shows, during which they used fake blood a lot of pyro technics, and odd face paint, the bassist also flew through the air during one of the bands shows on live tours, the band also did not show their faces in public, they were a creepy band for their time. Another Artist that scared audiences and also helped start a new genre was Alice Cooper, Coopers’ live shows is people wanted to see, the antics Cooper did on stage compared to nothing any other band had done at the time. Cooper included stage props including an execution scene during one of his songs, and torture of a baby doll, a magic and other odd things most bands did do on stage. As the 70’s came to a close a new form of music was rising and it wasn’t as hard or heavy as Priest or Maiden, it was a little more poppy, it was called Glam and it came from L.A.


80’s
What do you do when bands influenced by black Sabbath, Zeppelin, and priest, lighten their sound and present it with leather and big hair? You get the 80’s Metal scene, Van Halen, Guns N’ Roses, Skid Row, The Scorpions, all bands emerging from this new era and they all had a much lighter sound then most metal bands up until this time. Van Halen has been known to start this new form of metal, with their late 70’s debut they had a few things most metal bands at the time didn’t have. For one thing they had a lot more energy, two they were much lighter then previous bands, when Van Halen came out with their first album titled simply ‘Van Halen’ it climbed the charts and became extremely popular, the toured (in support of their new album) with Black Sabbath on Sabbaths Farwell tour. This tour is most known for the fact that Sabbath was almost booed off stage due to Halen’s huge stage presence. As the years went on the band stayed mostly within the realms of pop/glam Rock but with the album ‘1984’ the band hit its peak, reaching number 1 on the charts the album was the bands most popular, but after the release of the album David Lee Roth left the band being its lead singer since the beginning of the bands creation. As the 80’s went on Metal was becoming more popular as a whole, woman were becoming a big part of the audiences and the music was becoming more acceptable to large audiences. But the politicians didn’t think so, The PMRC was created in 1984 their goal was to put stickers on albums that they thought had questionable content, after a long a rigorous legal battle the PMRC got what they wanted, stickers on albums, but the ironic and sad part of the whole sticker incident is the fact that with the sticker on a bands album it was almost guaranteed to sell copies to interested teens. Another Battle was going on by the time the mid 80’s rolled around this time it was within the metal community. The Glam Metal feel had run its course by the time 1985 rolled around, this is not saying that it was losing popularity, what it means is that the people who loved metal felt it was time for a change, something heaver. Enter Metallica , Metallica started playing in small clubs around the L.A strip where most of the Glam Metal bands played during their prime. But getting very little following near the more popular Glam Metal bands, Metallica moved to San Francisco where they gained much more popularity, and a bigger following. Their first album ‘Kill Em’ All’ was a breath of fresh air for metal heads at the time, it was more heavy then anything out at the time. What Metallica started continued through out the 80’s, with bands like Megadeth, Anthrax, and Slayer, cropping up to defend Metal as it used to be, heavy and gritty not poppy and happy. As this internal war was going on between the new Speed Metal and the Glam Metal, one band rose to take the place of both, proving that you could have power with the chart topping ability. This band was known as Guns N’ Roses
latter known as sleez Metal Guns N’ Roses came out with a powerful album known as Appetite for Destruction. The 80’s were a hell of a time for metal with two battles going on, one with the PMRC, and with within it self, metal almost burned it self out. Thus enter the 90’s.




1990’s

With Glam Metal officially dead, and Speed Metal slowing down, and the PMRC thinking they had won their battle, something had to emerge that would show the way for metal fans, and what metal fans got was known as Alternative, slower and more depressing then most musical outings, alternative proved that one genre could rise above the rest. A select few got this formula right and took off as successful bands, one was Alice in Chains, the other was the more successful band Nirvana. Emerging in 1989 Nirvana came out with their first album ‘Bleach’ Nirvana proved through out the early 90’s that Alternative was a powerful force with two more releases ‘Nevermind’ and ‘In Utero’ Nirvana was proving to be its most formidable participant, soon after the release of ‘In Utero’ The lead singer of Nirvana (Kurt Cobain) disappeared only to turn up months later dead in his house. Another influential Alternative band was Alice In Chains, formed officially in 1990 after many band changes and break ups involving the lead singing Layne Stanly. Alice in Chains were known in their early years for talking a fifteen minute set list and turning It into a forty five minute song list, during their live shows. After releasing ‘Facelift’ The band went a very successful tour, after which they released the EP ‘Sap’. The EP gained much more attention then anybody ever expected and the EP featured many guest artists. After ‘Sap’ the bands most successful album ever was released in 1992 titled ‘Dirt’ the album was much darker and had a personal feel to it, the band supported the album with an extensive tour, including a part of the tour with Ozzy Osbourne on his ‘No more Tears’ tour. After the tour the band would not be seen until four years later and after releasing another EP and another full length album. The Last live show Alice in Chains played at with lead singer Layne Stanly was at the MTV unplugged special in New York, New York. Though the band never officially broke up, Layne Stanly went into seclusion having battled with drugs through out the 90’s he was found dead in his condo in 2002, shocked by his death the founder/guitarist decided to put the band on hiatus. In 2005 Alice in chains returned to perform at a few small venues with many different lead singers performing their old songs. When 1995 came around Metal had officially been out of the spot light for at least 5 years, with Metallica and Megadeth “selling out” thrash metal had almost died, but a new beacon of hope was about to emerge and not in the form of a style of music like in the 80’s, this time it was in the form of a concert. In 1995 Ozzy Osbourne started Ozzfest, a concert where new bands could show their music along powerful metal icons. Some of the first bands to emerge started their own style of metal, known as ‘Nu-Metal’ this style of music spawned the savoir Metal needed. Relying mostly on bass and started by bands such as Limp Bizkit, Korn, and Linkin Park this style of music had more of ‘Rap’ style lyrics and had a heavy reliance on the bass/rhythm sections. The Ozzfest concerts also brought a new shock rocker into the spot light, surprising both people and politicians the way metal hadn’t done in years. Marilyn Manson showed up on the scene with his obscene playing style, his ‘shock rock’ stage antics not seen since the Alice Cooper and Kiss days, Marilyn Manson and his band proved that you could shock people and still crank out hits, his first one being ‘The Beautiful People’ of his second album ‘Antichrist Super Star’. Manson toured extensively though out ‘96 . Although he gained much success off his second album, Manson’s third album ‘Mechanical Animals’ was a total let down to Manson’s fans, and the tour that followed was interrupted by the Columbine shootings, that Manson was blamed for early on, and was later disproved of having any influence over the two boys who killed the students. Another Shocking band that came forth in the 90’s was Slipknot, though not as out there as Manson, the band still got some attention drawn to them by politicians, because of their odd way of dress on stage. The band wore matching coveralls with bar codes on their shoulders, and each member wore a different mask. The band had a total of 9 members. The played a style of metal that was and still is considered extremely heavy. Slipknot and Manson brought back the odd duo style that Kiss and Cooper started years earlier in the 70’s. As The 90’s drew to a close with the ’99 Woodstock, and the whole Y2K craze going on, music in general was left up in the air as where it was headed next, Nu-Metal had lost the freshness from when it first started and to top it off Linkin Park had not released any new material for a while. Metal was at yet another rough spot as its fourth decade in existence came to a close.



2000-2007

The date January 1st 2000 came and went without any computer failures as most people felt would happen. The one thing that did happen was a new band Disturbed released their first album ‘The sickness’, The album fallowed the Nu-Metal feel of the 90’s but had a little rougher sound then most Nu-Metal bands. Though not many new bands emerged in the early millennium old bands that thought they could do any good as metal artists came out from many different length hiatus’s. In 2000 Iron Maiden released an new album with the original line up, the first in eight years, and the band has released two more albums since. Metallica had been recording and releasing new albums through out the 90’s, though after the bands fourth album Metallica had never really reclaimed their title as metal artists. Megadeth had the same fate as Metallica, and Megadeth almost lost their founder/lead singer/lead guitarist Dave Mustain, the band has recovered and released a new album in 2007, to much success. Judas Priest released a new album in 2005, to most fans delight. Black Sabbath had gotten back together in the mid 90’s at the same time Ozzy started Ozzfest, Black Sabbath has since been playing in each consecutive Ozzfest tour since 1995. Marylin Manson had went on a brief hiatus in 2004 only to return and release a new album in 2007, most of his fans did not approve of the new album. Korn released a new album after losing their lead guitarist sometime in the late 90’s. One main reason Metal was silenced in the early millennium was mostly due to the success of Rap and Pop music, though Hip-Hop, Pop, and Metal had all survived through the 80’s the millennium showed it could almost silence Metal.







I have no idea where metal/rock music is headed, I only have high hopes for this is my favorite form of music. I hope you learned something from this look into my overview of Metal/Rock N’ Roll.
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