4 Decades of Metal

[Andy44]

That Deep Purple video is waaaay-cool! Love that classic line-up. I'm not sure I'd call that metal, though, definitely hard rock, but maybe not quite metal...

You're right about the lines being blurry, though, it's always tough to categorize musical acts in static categories. Some, like Purple and Zeppelin, straddle multiple genres. Led Zeppelin's Presence album, which I like intensely despite many fans panning it, sounds very metal and progressive to me at the same time. Rush's Cygnus X-1 is a very metal song.

About Tool, you cannot argue that Tool is not heavy. I can't think of one Tool song that doesn't rock hard. And I call them prog because they fit the profile, long instrumental passages, odd time signatures, disregard for radio-friendly format, and an emphasis on musicianship. In my opinion, of course.

YMMV

 

[ex-orbinaut]

Great thread!

Anyone remember these?

 

[Unstung]

I actually don't consider a few of those bands (such as Van Halen, Bon Jovi, Kiss, Aerosmith?, Led Zeppelin) metal. They're more like rock or hard rock. Out of that list Van Halen is my favorite band and according to my CD's its genre is Rock.

 

[AirSimming]

40 years already? At least some of those long-heared get decent hair style when they become older :lol:

 

[Andy44]

I think that in order to be metal, you have to be more than just hard rock, you need to have some sort of edgy darkness thing that takes you beyond the mainstream. Black Sabbath was different because they could take the tempo down slow and used heavy riffing to make it dark and ominous. They could also take it up and play fast, but they kept it dark and gloomy.

That's what set them apart from other hard rock acts like Led Zeppelin. Zeppelin would play love songs and they also played a lot of straight up blues. They got into fantasy subjects, but they never went to that dark place that Geezer Butler's Sabbath tunes went.

Metal got even heavier as it went along. The Dio line-up of Black Sabbath was a precursor to the crashing heavy sound of the 80s, and metal purists rebelled against the hair-bands with thrash metal, taking it even heavier. Judas Priest introduced the whole leather and spiked collar look.

Metal has had that 80s image ever since; people think of Metallica as the "average" metal band, but at it's root it's still blues-based rock and roll.

Heaven and Hell's (the Dio-Appice line-up of Sabbath) last album before Ronnie James Dio died was a return to the 1979-80 Black Sabbath sound. It's a great album, and a nice reminder that metal isn't just about speed and thrash, it's about hard-rocking, heavy riffing melodies with dark themes. And, oh yeah, singers who can sing instead of that god-awful croaking noise that so many recent metal acts put out.

Yes, I am a completely biased fan...

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jou8JA-lxt8"]YouTube- Heaven and Hell- Bible Black(complete song)[/ame]

 

[tblaxland]

Awesome thread, thanks Andy.

/me goes to blow the dust off the CD cabinet (yes, CDs - it was the late 80s by the time I had got a job and was able to buy myself music)

 

[Andy44]

@ Urwumpe: Beavis and Butthead were also Priest fans! I love Butthead's reference to the stupid metal-makes-me-commit-suicide trial:

 

[tblaxland]

Yea, up the Irons! 2 Minutes to Midnight was good, but my favourite:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7ToNJHgp-w"]YouTube- Iron Maiden - Run to the Hills (Rock in Rio)[/ame]
It's got a chorus you can really belt out EDIT: getting some funny looks here

 

[adamb193]

Yea Maiden! Happily enough my job gets me free tickets, to them and Dream Theater this summer.

 

[jedidia]

speaking of dream theater, where are they on the list? I agree that they might not be known as pioneers or for great originality, but when it comes to pure awsome skillz they rule everyone (at least instrument wise. hrm.)

 

[Urwumpe]

speaking of dream theater, where are they on the list? I agree that they might not be known as pioneers or for great originality, but when it comes to pure awsome skillz they rule everyone (at least instrument wise. hrm.)

I thought Dream Theater are great as instrumentalists, but seeing Victor Smolski play "Straight to hell" live made all dream theater stuff look amateurish.

 

[ex-orbinaut]

Yeah, Maiden. Met this guy...

http://www.ironmaiden.com/index.php?categoryid=14&p2_articleid=329

...one quiet afternoon in the Troston Bull pub in the non spit and sawdust end, when I lived in East Anglia. I believe he has a country abode around there, nothing ostentatious, somewhere on what my mother and I used to call the Livermere loop. He came in with a girl, asked if he could take the ashtray that was next to me, and sat talking about a recent concert in Italy and the cultural differences he had seen during his tours. My then girlfriend, a big Maiden fan, was furious at me the next day when I told her in a BTW fashion that I had met him and had not acquired an autograph! :lol: About 23 years ago, now...

 

[Urwumpe]

Yeah, you can't say anything bad about Maiden... they have style...

 

[KosmoKen]

Maiden happens to dig NASA and things related too.

http://www.space.com/news/iron-maiden-tour-nasa-space-center-100621.html

 

[Moach]

when you'd think Orbiter fans would be all but geek --
METALLICA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :hail::hail::headbang::headbang::headbang::headbang::10sign:

i've spent the last 10 years listening to and playing (singer/guitarrist me) their songs, and i still can't get enough!

i'd have put them up to n° 1, but hey... who am i to tell off the band that invented the genre, anyways...



i'd like to salute them as the musical equivalent of


so as mr Hetfield would put it, "HEWLYEAARGH!!"


'nuff said, 'Tallica R00LZ!

 

[Urwumpe]

What is the difference between Jimi Hendrix and Metallica?

Jimi Hendrix has a good excuse why he doesn't make any good songs anymore.

Sorry, but Metallica stopped making rock music with "And Justice for All", The black album was still acceptable, but what came afterwards was an outright insult.

 

[Moach]

What is the difference between Jimi Hendrix and Metallica?

Jimi Hendrix has a good excuse why he doesn't make any good songs anymore.

Sorry, but Metallica stopped making rock music with "And Justice for All", The black album was still acceptable, but what came afterwards was an outright insult.

LOLZ:lol: - i know, many would agree with you...

but i really do enjoy the latter albums, they're very good, as long as you don't listen to them expecting thrash metal... there's more of a hard-rock vibe there... but wonderfully executed, anyways...

however, there is "that one album we don't speak of"....

fortunately, they gave producer bob the good 'ole boot, and then came death magnetic, which is great, even by the "old Metallica" standards

 

[Urwumpe]

What I considered the biggest blunder of Metallica: They just try to play loud and bass-heavy, like a stupid Nu Metal Band. It doesn't really rock anymore, it sounds like they try to make music for kids who think that Limp Biscuit is a rock band. All has become just a noise wall, like a vuvuzela.

And really: It requires a lot of fail to make the original Bob Seger song sound heavier and darker than the Metallica Version. Like that they will never be permitted to play at Wacken - and instead please deaf rich kids at Rock Am Ring. (And even the Scorpions managed to play at Wacken, regaining all credibility lost between "Crazy World" and "Humanity: Hour One").

 

[Sky Captain]

Some of my favorite Metal songs

 

[ex-orbinaut]

...last album before Ronnie James Dio died...

Heaven and Hell was the first record that I got myself, with the angels smoking and playing cards on the cover. Children of the Sea, still one of my favorites. Preferred Dio to Ozzie in Black Sabbath, myself...

RIP.

Sammy Hagar did a great song called Heavy Metal that, by today's post-thrash standards, would barely qualify as a metal tune. And it was on the soundtrack of the cartoon movie Heavy Metal, which had almost no metal on it!

Aye, but they were a few good songs on that the film, notably...

..EDIT. Yes! Found it. My favorite sequence from the film...

..and..

..and not on the film, but another classic by Blue Oyster Cult...