The Book of Heavy Metal...Metal or Not?

SpectreFate wrote:

Temple of Blood wrote:

Maybe Nickelback was "influenced" by "metal" such as Def Leppard and need to be included as well.

...and it's everyone else that offers childish responses?

Nothing childish about it. I didn't personally attack anyone. I'm extrapolating from the logic used in this thread to derive a conclusion that we all know is bogus, thereby calling some of the aformentioned logic into question.

Temple of Blood wrote:

SpectreFate wrote:

Temple of Blood wrote:

Maybe Nickelback was "influenced" by "metal" such as Def Leppard and need to be included as well.

...and it's everyone else that offers childish responses?

Nothing childish about it. I didn't personally attack anyone. I'm extrapolating from the logic used in this thread to derive a conclusion that we all know is bogus, thereby calling some of the aformentioned logic into question.

To ask you to come to a logical conclusion is like asking Jeffery Dahmer for cooking tips.

Temple of Blood wrote:

Nothing childish about it. I didn't personally attack anyone. I'm extrapolating from the logic used in this thread to derive a conclusion that we all know is bogus, thereby calling some of the aformentioned logic into question.

Sure you didn't attack anyone, but you certainly were being a smartass about it in a non-joking way, much like you did in this response. It's bordering on flaming. Tone it down, please.

Temple of Blood wrote:

SpectreFate wrote:

Temple of Blood wrote:

Maybe Nickelback was "influenced" by "metal" such as Def Leppard and need to be included as well.

...and it's everyone else that offers childish responses?

Nothing childish about it. I didn't personally attack anyone. I'm extrapolating from the logic used in this thread to derive a conclusion that we all know is bogus, thereby calling some of the aformentioned logic into question.

Your logic is reversed here ToB.

Nickelback is a modern pop rock band. They are not now and have never been a heavy metal band, regardless of who they were influenced by. Garth Brooks was a huge KISS fan as a kid and his shows are heavily influenced by Kiss stage show, but that doesn't make him a heavy metal or hard rock act. He's obviously a country/pop artist. He is not inspiring future generations to play heavy metal, nor are Nickelback.

On the other hand, the bands from the 70's, Kiss, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Ted Nugent, Deep Purple, etc. were the precursors to the heavy metal of the 80's. Regardless if they are labeled heavy metal now, they were called that in the 70's and were the bands that influenced the heavier bands on the 80's, who in turn were the bands the inspired the even heavier bands on the 90's and so forth.

manny wrote:

To ask you to come to a logical conclusion is like asking Jeffery Dahmer for cooking tips.

Spectre ... this is a childish personal attack, just so you can contrast.

Notice how I haven't done this to anyone here or told anyone to shut up or that their opinion shouldn't be expressed here. Not all who disagree here can say they have treated me the same.

I'd like to bring up a few points to ponder regarding 70s metal.

By the mid 70s, heavy metal was an established genre, with a defined scene. Both the media and fans referred to it as such. It was not a nebulous term. When I was a wee metal lad, learning at the feet of my elders (who had been in the scene for years), they never referred to Aerosmith, AC/DC, or Zeppelin as "hard rock". It was always heavy metal. Hard rock was The Who and David Bowie.

Which is of course why there was a NWOBHM. You don't need to define a new wave if there wasn't already an "old wave" to begin with.

I assert that musical genres don't retroactively change to exclude the originators of the genre. This doesn't happen with any other genre of music, why would it happen with metal?

Elvis and Chuck Berry didn't stop being Rock and Roll because the Rolling Stones, U2 and the Kings of Leon came along.

Louie Armstrong didn't stop being jazz when John Coltrane and John Zorn released A Love Supreme and Spy vs. Spy, respectively.

Bach, Beethoven, Wagner, and Arnold Schoenberg are all considered to be "classical music".

All of the aforementioned artists vary wildly from each other in both sound and composition, yet nobody seems to have an issue with them coexisting in their respective genres.

If the continued development of a genre results in artists who are so far removed from the original definition of the genre that it's logical for them to be separated into distinct genres, then it is the newer artist that is separated into the new genre. Just as rock & roll was separated out from the blues genre. When Elvis and Chuck came along, people didn't say Robert Johnson wasn't "blues" anymore, they defined a new genre for the new music.

If you say the original bands of the genre are "no longer metal", you are attempting to apply a restriction to heavy metal that has never been applied to any other genre of music: that of the present sound of a sub-genre(s) retroactively redefining the original definition of the genre itself.

Great post Black Coffee and a logical, well thought out argument to support your statement.

kmorg wrote:

90's: Death metal grew big. Key bands: Possessed.

80's more so than any other time, I'd replace them in the 90's with Malevolent Creation

Locky wrote:

kmorg wrote:

90's: Death metal grew big. Key bands: Possessed.

80's more so than any other time, I'd replace them in the 90's with Malevolent Creation

Sure, most of the bands I mentioned started during the 80's. But the genre didn't get huge enough, or make any real impact, until the 90's.

I also forgot to add the hardcore bands from the mid-80's: Sucicidal Tendencies, D.R.I., S.O.D. & Corrosion Of Conformity.

I'm an inclusionist, so I would probably include all of them. Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, Def Leppard....

I mean, some bands wouldn't get that long chapters, but you cannot just ignore them.

Interesting points to consider Black Coffee.

Black Coffee wrote:

By the mid 70s, heavy metal was an established genre, with a defined scene. Both the media and fans referred to it as such. It was not a nebulous term. When I was a wee metal lad, learning at the feet of my elders (who had been in the scene for years), they never referred to Aerosmith, AC/DC, or Zeppelin as "hard rock".

What specific musical elements/parameters define "hard rock" vs. "heavy metal" then? I think this will help clarify why I don't think the children inspired by Aerosmith and the children inspired by Black Sabbath should be placed in the same genre.

Even if 99% of the people say water isn't wet and it's stated in all the popular magazines, that doesn't make it so. If genre A is defined by all major keys and only woodwind instruments and genre B is defined solely by minor keys and harpsicord solos then it doesn't really matter what people think it should be called because those things should be placed in separate genres.

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It was always heavy metal. Hard rock was The Who and David Bowie.

This is the first time I have ever heard Bowie referred to as hard rock.

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I assert that musical genres don't retroactively change to exclude the originators of the genre. This doesn't happen with any other genre of music, why would it happen with metal?

Agreed.

If bluesy hard rock a la Led Zep, Deep Purple, Aerosmith, etc. is "heavy metal" then the movement inspired by Black Sabbath needs its own name. To state it simply, the majority of BS's music was "dark" and the other artists were more about "good time" music about sex and such. There are exceptions of course but in general I think those divisions are true.

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All of the aforementioned artists vary wildly from each other in both sound and composition, yet nobody seems to have an issue with them coexisting in their respective genres.

But genres still need parameters somewhere on what constitutes their sound and composition and if the lion's share of a band's work is outside that genre then they shouldn't be included in that genre. Case in point, if Will Smith released a thrash song tomorrow, he would still not be a thrash artist. If Slayer released a jazz song tomorrow, that would not make them a jazz artist because the bulk of their work is still thrash. It doesn't matter what people say, it matters what the music IS.

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If you say the original bands of the genre are "no longer metal", you are attempting to

I'm not sure who you are quoting with that because I never said that phrase.

Temple of Blood wrote:

What specific musical elements/parameters define "hard rock" vs. "heavy metal" then? I think this will help clarify why I don't think the children inspired by Aerosmith and the children inspired by Black Sabbath should be placed in the same genre

Excellent question and have no idea what a good answer for that would be, to go back to old argument, why was Aerosmith considered heavy metal in the 70's and not say Heart or whoever you care to name?

Perhaps you should define what heavy metal is ToB. You seem to be the only one here that disregards the entire U.S. scene in he 1970's, which would make every fan, every magazine, even some of the artists who defined themselves as such, wrong. Like I said, I was there. I was living it, even back then. I called myself a heavy metal fan early on. Why am I wrong? Why were all the magazines wrong? You also have to remember that back in the 70's, most of the writers for those magazines (Creem, Circus, Rolling Stone, Hit Parader, Sounds, etc.) were as much fans of the bands as the fans themselves. It was a different musical landscape and certainly a different business landscape. It wasn't just the guys in the suits who didn't know a thing about the music running the show.

Black Sabbath were just as bluesy as Aerosmith. Aerosmith had songs just as heavy as Black Sabbath. Sabbath had ballads, Aerosmith had ballads. Sabbath were inspired by the likes of The Stones, the Yardbirds, the old blues guys, etc, Aerosmith were inspired by the same artists. What makes 70's Sabbath and 70's Aerosmith so radically different that they should not be included in the same genre? How are songs like "Rats in the Cellar", "Toys n the Attic" and "Nobody's Fault" any less metal than "War Pigs", "Hole in the Sky" and "The Wizard"?

Reviewing Ted Nugent's Double Live Gonzo:
"The madman's band is the greatest gonzoid heavy metal outfit to be found anywhere-
but anywhere-on the whole of our beleaguered planet" -Sounds, 1978

ultmetal wrote:

Black Sabbath were just as bluesy as Aerosmith. Aerosmith had songs just as heavy as Black Sabbath. Sabbath had ballads, Aerosmith had ballads. Sabbath were inspired by the likes of The Stones, the Yardbirds, the old blues guys, etc, Aerosmith were inspired by the same artists. What makes 70's Sabbath and 70's Aerosmith so radically different that they should not be included in the same genre? How are songs like "Rats in the Cellar", "Toys n the Attic" and "Nobody's Fault" and less metal than "War Pigs", "Hole in the Sky" and "The Wizard"?

Because ToB said so that is why!!!!

kmorg wrote:

Sure, most of the bands I mentioned started during the 80'. But the genre didn't get huge enough, or make any real impact, until the 90's.

But Possessed did nothing in the 90's, their influence may have been felt in the 90's with bands but they certainly as a band offered nothing musically, hence why I highlighed them in your post

This thread began with "If you were writing a book on the history of heavy metal." I'm not sure why there is such negativity toward ToB, who, in my opinion, is being baited. Is there a wrong answer here? Not if you go by the intent of the original question.

The problem with this question is that there is no answer. You can't write a book on the history of metal without including tens of thousands of bands, from the rock bands that were once labeled as heavy metal to the nu-metal stuff of the 90s. Regardless of whether or not the term heavy metal was transplanted to a different style of music than which those of the 70s played, those 70s bands are part of that history, as are all the bands that later branched off from those styles.

And they had to have done so, because styles don't just appear out of the blue. Nu-metal might be hated among metal heads, but it's origins have to begin somewhere, and as you go back in history the width of that road surely shrinks. It all started somewhere and it branched from there.

But you can't write a book about the history of metal in a general sense, unless you intend the book to be a million pages long. What you'd have to do is break it down into categories—decades, styles, the most influential bands, etc. That's the only way it would work.

I personally think, at this point, that even though bands like Aerosmith were labeled heavy metal bands in the 70s, they were clearly hard rock bands by today's definition of the term. The term heavy metal, while appropriate at the time, has been too long associated with an entirely different style of music.

I thought ToB and myself were having a good discussion about this. I wasn't trying to bait him into anything, other than discussing why he discounts the entire 1970's US scene and why he thinks all the fans and media from that time were wrong.

We already established that the roots of heavy metal, regardless of the labels are an important inclusion in any book. Most of us here agree that those 70's bands were the roots of metal, and even before that the early 70's and 60's proto metal bands are worthy of a mention. ToB is the only one who doesn't seem to agree that these bands are a vital part of the heavy metal timeline.

Regardless, the thread has generated some great posts and I appreciate everyone taking the time to respond. Feel free to keep it coming.

ultmetal wrote:

I thought ToB and myself were having a good discussion about this. I wasn't trying to bait him into anything, other than discussing why he discounts the entire 1970's US scene and why he thinks all the fans and media from that time were wrong.

Sorry if it seemed I was making a blanket statement. Clearly not everyone is trying to bait him.

ultmetal wrote:

Perhaps you should define what heavy metal is ToB.

dark, guitar riff-based hard rock music.

The artists that you list that you consider to be metal are primarily not "dark".

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Why am I wrong? Why were all the magazines wrong?

You'll find the answer to that question when you specify the musical elements that separate "hard rock" from "heavy metal".

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Black Sabbath were just as bluesy as Aerosmith. Aerosmith had songs just as heavy as Black Sabbath.

I haven't heard that. Granted, I have not heard every Aerosmith album.

My argument is NOT that many of those artists didn't have some metal songs. It is that they cannot be classified as metal artists because the vast bulk of their work is not heavy metal. If 20% of Aerosmith's music could accurately be described as "heavy metal" then I don't consider them a metal band. If 85% of Black Sabbath's music could be, then I do consider them to be a metal band.

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Reviewing Ted Nugent's Double Live Gonzo:
"The madman's band is the greatest gonzoid heavy metal outfit to be found anywhere-
but anywhere-on the whole of our beleaguered planet" -Sounds, 1978

Again, you are using the "the magazines said so" argument which I think at a minimum necessitates that the BLACK SABBATH-inspired bands receive their own genre.

Didn't KERRANG's first review of METALLICA also say it was trash? I don't think we should cite them as any sort of experts, but rather as the privileged gatekeepers before who engaged in a lot of group-think and unexamined rhetoric during the pre-internet era.

ultmetal wrote:

he discounts the entire 1970's US scene

I get the distinct impression you think me not calling them "metal" is somehow a put-down. I don't believe in any way that hard rock music is inherently inferior (although I prefer to listen to metal most times) so I am not discounting Aerosmith simply because I believe they should be more accurately termed as "hard rock".

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We already established that the roots of heavy metal, regardless of the labels are an important inclusion in any book. Most of us here agree that those 70's bands were the roots of metal, and even before that the early 70's and 60's proto metal bands are worthy of a mention. ToB is the only one who doesn't seem to agree that these bands are a vital part of the heavy metal timeline.

I don't believe that I said that. As a matter of fact I think I did specifically say there should be a proto-metal section.

It's only worthy though if you can show specifically how those non-metal artists inspired the metal ones. Geezer and Ozzy said the Beatles were a huge "influence" on them in the early days, but you'd be hard pressed to hear that in most of their early recordings. Sure, it was an "influence" to get them into music and make them want to play but it wasn't really a "musical influence" because very little of their playing (the actual sound waves emitted from their recordings) could be mistaken for the Beatles.

hm. What I would say, off the top of my head:

A progression of rock music to a heavier level (led by the guitars and drums), which breaks free of the 'swing' found in the blues/rock idiom, despite showing influence from both, showcases a higher level of instrumental discipline, and executes various emotive expression in a more serious and intense manner then most other structured, vocal music.

Temple of Blood wrote:

Sure, it was an "influence" to get them into music and make them want to play but it wasn't really a "musical influence" because very little of their playing (the actual sound waves emitted from their recordings) could be mistaken for the Beatles.

So you're saying that a band must sound the same as their influences? Surely influence is anything that affects your style of writing, playing technique etc. not just incoporating a band's sound into your own music.

Hmmm my post got deleted somehow!

Wargod50