A brief history of Metal
Metal was born in Birmingham in 1968. Black Sabbath was born as a response to a generation that was growing up in an economically depressed industrial town during an era of lost innocence. The band created a type of music that recalled the clamor of the steel mills of their hometown. The music was dark, the opposite to the “flower power” pop music. Their lyrics talked about socially taboo subjects. Black Sabbath was the first heavy metal band. At the same time, Deep Purple was starting and being created by ‘some professional musicians, each highly skilled’ which made a highly musical form of heavy metal.
1970 The Birth of Metal
Judas Priest were the ones to synthesize heavy metal into a proper ethos. ‘They combined the darkness and intensity of Black Sabbath with the musicality and complexity of Deep Purple’. ‘However, the lasting legacy of Judas Priest was the introduction of the image of heavy metal: leather and studs’.
The 80s brought the second wave of heavy metal. Iron Maiden, Motörhead, Saxon, and Diamond Head brought new brand of heavy metal. They eliminated the influence of the blues and incorporated some British punk. ‘The result was a faster and aggressively bombastic sound’. ‘By the mid 80's, heavy metal experienced acceptance and popularity in mainland Europe, North America and South America’.
1982 The New Wave of British Metal
Bands like Poison, Mötley Crüe and RATT led what is known as “Hair Metal.” They were all about the spectacle. They were commercial styled. Metallica’s style opposed to the hair movement. They took inspiration from the original metal bands and the increased intensity of the NWOBHM and created Thrash Metal. Their music was more rhythmic than melodic, ‘its primary concern was complex riffs played at breakneck speed’. By the end of the 1980s, heavy metal developed in two opposite directions.
1986 Hair Metal and Thrash Metal
