1970's American Heavy Metal...

caniplaywithmadness? wrote:

its a fine line which courses no end of arguements. i don't like thinking about it. just listen and bang your head

Oh yes. Some of it has to be chalked up to opinions. Some of it people will never agree on. It's interesting to discuss it though and get different people's take on it.

I to grew up in the time of the 60's and 70's and the progression of music was swift. I grew up with a circle of friends who loved underground music back then. With bands like Budgie, Deep Purple, BOC, Black Sabbath, White Witch, Angel, Thin Lizzy, Detective, and many more.

I loved the more unheard of bands rather than the popular bands. And IMO heavy metal originated from those bands.
The progression from heavy metal of the 70's to the 80's and so on became more apparent. The genres basically grew from those bands.

I think in todays society and todays youth they really don't consider music of the 70's heavy metal because they never lived it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well I did and a few others on this board did as well if it wasn't for those bands todays music would not have progressed to where it is is today. Some poeple are so narrow minded because of this debate!

Heavy metal progressed from the 70's PERIOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wargod48

ultrametal wrote:

Ahh who cares!....................................

Those of us who are discussing it.

I was reading through the Top 100 Heavy Metal albums on Metal-Rules.com. #4 said this and made me laugh, since we were JUST discussing this.

Quote :

#4 AC/DC Back in Black
Some of you youngsters will no doubt say "WTF is a classic rock band doing in a heavy metal list?" It is true that AC/DC has become darlings of the classic rock radio circuit, also their recent performance with the Rolling Stones in Canada to several hundred thousand people only goes to show that their appeal extends well outside of the metal realm. All this aside, that does not mean that their contribution to heavy metal in the 70's and 80's should be ignored! BACK IN BLACK is not only one of the best heavy metal albums of all time, it is also one of the best selling "normal" albums of all time as well!!

I agree fully with Ult

Its been said before but those bands of the 70s might not be considered metal by TODAYS standards but put them to 70s standards if ya can

Aerosmith, Ted Nugent, Led Zepplin, Black Sabbath, Van Halen, KISS were IMO Metal bands,

If you dont believe me then just listen to Cat Scratch Fever by Ted Nugent, or Walk This Way by Aerosmith, or God of Thunder by KISS, or Running with the Devil by Van Halen you peeps are gonna tell me that in the day that this was typical intensity of the music of that time? I dont think so... Id even go as far as saying that Queen was a metal band of the 70s

I pretty much agree with Ult. With the small exception of Aerosmith, I never saw them as metal.

Wow, what a can of worms I opened.

ultrametal wrote:

Forget it I dont even want to jump in here....All I can say is it one of those disscussions that will leave everyone frustrated and going nowhere. Bye Im gonna play my VH Cd and crank it up!

No way. This is part of the coolness of this forum. No one gets frustrated; they just concede that I'm always right, and then everything is cool.

Rush always gets me into this argument.

For you youngsters out there, when Fly By Night and 2112 were released, Rush was considered heavy metal. The "hard rock" tag was used for bands like the Stones and the Prog tag was used for bands like Yes.

Rush, Aerosmith, AC/DC, etc, etc were considered metal back in the 70s.

Munch Munch yum!..."BURP!" oops! sorry was reading and eating on the sly .....

Sometimes I hate rattpoison, him with all his flaunting logic! Pffft!

I'm closer to the truth then most would care to admit!

I think it has to be judged song by song. For instance Aerosmith's "Kings and Queens" and BOC's "Godzilla" are heavy metal. But many of thier other songs wouldn't fit the catagory. Most of Sabbath's songs were Metal, but it's hard to say "Planet Caravan" is metal just because Sabbath did it.
I think part of the misunderstanding comes from the fact that most bands in the 70's were pretty diverse; whereas there are many bands now (certainly not all of them by any means, but...) that specialize in metal almost completely; and that is the critera that many younger people use now. They only consider bands to be metal bands if they play 75-95% heavy songs, so they have a hard time seeing 70's bands that only played 25% or 50% heavy songs as being metal.
And while you know that I agree in substance with Ult 100% on this issue, I think even he has to admit that there was a heavy metal/hard rock distinction even in the 70's. I don't think very many people thought of say, Rory Gallagher or ZZ Top as being metal even then, despite the fact that they played a lot of loud, guitar driven songs.
So I'd say what's changed the most is that now to be considered a metal band, you have to really specialize in metal rather than the 70's bands who qualified for the metal label more by virtue of being diverse and sometimes doing little more than dabbling in metal like Queen.
I also think the technical definition has changed. I think in the 70's you could have overtly blues based songs that, depending on how they were presented (volume, attitude, technique) that were virtually unanamously labeled as metal. However now I think almost any overtly blues based song gets labeled hard rock regardless of other considerations.
But I think it's too bad when younger people dismiss the giants whose shoulders their contemporary heroes are standing on...I mean now I'll hear kids saying that Jerry West or Magic Johnson weren't poo; but they gotta realize that 20 years from now their kids will be saying Kobie Bryant wasn't poo. I'll always be grateful to Shaq for the way he insisted on publicly respecting George Mikan and those guys. I think a lot of musicians are the same way about the originators of metal. But unfortunatley a lot of the younger fans don't seem to get it.

Good post SAHB, but just because someone doesn't consider a band to be metal doesn't mean they are saying their music is inferior.

rattpoison wrote:

I'm closer to the truth then most would care to admit!

I was kidding with what I said about hating you, of course. Haha.

Metal is the umbrella. Korn is under it.

I said that on page 1. I agree with you.

Addy wrote:

Id even go as far as saying that Queen was a metal band of the 70s

My thoughts exactly. Ogre Battle, March of the Black Queen, Stone Cold Crazy (many say it's the start of the thrash genre), Sweet Lady, the list goes on.
If you talk about heavy metal back in the day, you need to mention Queen.

In my opinion, heavy metal is about leather and spikes, two guitars (not exclusevely but usually), heavy riffs, more-guy-than-girl oriented songs, smelly and dirty, no run-of-the-mill-girly ballads and no "babada shobie doo wa" or "yakagakayakagaka (that infamous Steven Tyler thing he does on Dude Looks Like A Lady, etc...)". also sans the bandanas, girls panites on the mike stand, a**less pants, bleach blonde peroxide hair, and alot less smiling.
Yes, I know its about the music and not how one dresses but you get the idea here. Heavy metal is about attitude, not how many chicks you can bang backstage.
To me heavy metal is Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Saxon, Krokus, (basically most of the NWOBHM) very early Def Lep, etc... Basically the bulk of heavy metal was in the late 70's to about '83 or so, before the American wave of poser rock started.

I just always felt that Aerosmith,Ted Nugent,Van Halen,Kiss,and Blue Oyster Cult were the heavy metal of the 1970's in the same way as Iron Maiden, Motorhead, Judas Priest, UFO, Budgie, Diamond Head and a host of other bands were heavy metal in the 1970's. I think it's splitting hairs to stop and define a very thin line between hard rock and heavy metal and all of the subgenres of "metal". Sure, not every album from the above mentioned bands are as heavy as some of each band's earlier catalogue; and it's a bit unfair ( and unfortunately some people do this to take a major radio hit like "Love in an Elevator" and say that Aerosmith is not metal b/c of one song or one album. If you serve in a war you are a war veteran; that doesn't go away once the war is over. If you were labeled heavy metal at some point in your career you are still heavy metal. Peace.

Eyesore wrote:

Metal is the umbrella. Korn is under it.

As are Van Halen.

It's a big unbrella.

SAHB Healer wrote:

I think it has to be judged song by song. For instance Aerosmith's "Kings and Queens" and BOC's "Godzilla" are heavy metal. But many of thier other songs wouldn't fit the catagory. Most of Sabbath's songs were Metal, but it's hard to say "Planet Caravan" is metal just because Sabbath did it.
I think part of the misunderstanding comes from the fact that most bands in the 70's were pretty diverse; whereas there are many bands now (certainly not all of them by any means, but...) that specialize in metal almost completely; and that is the critera that many younger people use now. They only consider bands to be metal bands if they play 75-95% heavy songs, so they have a hard time seeing 70's bands that only played 25% or 50% heavy songs as being metal.
And while you know that I agree in substance with Ult 100% on this issue, I think even he has to admit that there was a heavy metal/hard rock distinction even in the 70's. I don't think very many people thought of say, Rory Gallagher or ZZ Top as being metal even then, despite the fact that they played a lot of loud, guitar driven songs.
So I'd say what's changed the most is that now to be considered a metal band, you have to really specialize in metal rather than the 70's bands who qualified for the metal label more by virtue of being diverse and sometimes doing little more than dabbling in metal like Queen.
I also think the technical definition has changed. I think in the 70's you could have overtly blues based songs that, depending on how they were presented (volume, attitude, technique) that were virtually unanamously labeled as metal. However now I think almost any overtly blues based song gets labeled hard rock regardless of other considerations.
But I think it's too bad when younger people dismiss the giants whose shoulders their contemporary heroes are standing on.

Yep totally, in the 70's no one went out to be a heavy metal band. They just did their thing and it influenced the next generation. That's why 70's 'heavy metal' was the best period for heavy metal music.

The 80's was a sea of mediocrity, they only took the heavy metal aspect of bands like Thin Lizzy, Aerosmith etc. and narrowed it down much like todays heavy metal bands who not only aim to be exclusively heavy metal bands but aim to fit in small narrow genres of heavy metal.

It took til the early 90's for the spirit of the 70's to come back, and that's why the 70's and early 90's are they greatest eras in heavy metal.

As far I'm concered bands like Aerosmith, Van Halen, etc. are both "Heavy Metal" & "Hard Rock" I fit them in the catogory of "Early Metal" or "Pre-Metal" because there both hard rock or heavy metal no matter how you look at it

Rock & Roll is probaly the biggest umbrella of all and under that umbrella is Metal and than theres a helluva lot under that umbrella so If your not good at remebering genre names than just call it all rock 'n' roll cause thats what it all comes back to in the end

(IMO)

As stated a few times already, I think that the term Heavy Metal has just been redefined and some of those said bands just don't fit the new bill. Some may say that you can't go back and redefine history, but that is not what's happening. Metal has changed and the term holds a different meaning and guidelines than before and now the bands that no longer fall into the category of Metal have been reorganised. Not too many years ago, woman and non whites were considered not to be human beings, but as I hope everyone is all aware is that they are now. Saying that you can't redefine history and change how we sort these bands follows the logic of saying that women and non-whites before a certain time period shouldn't be called people because they were labelled as non humans at the time.