Metals Historia

For those of us who don't speak Swedish, the title of this post means 'The Story Of Metal'. This time I'd like to tell you about the history of Metal: where it came from and how it's evolved.

Metal has two musical ancestors. It isn't a far stretch to see what they are. One is Classical music, because Metal follows similar musical patterns to it - it's more technical than say Rock. The other ancestor is Blues, which uses simpler chords, and riffs rather than phrases, as does Metal. Therefore, Metal is a heavier sounding music with highly complex chord progressions and a more intricate arrangement, while using simpler chords and repetitive phrasing.

Metal started out in the mid 1960s with bands like Led Zeppelin, Blue Cheer, and Black Sabbath. It was there that the power chord (perfect 5th chord) and the diminished chord became popular. These early Metal bands, through their popularity, paved the way for other bands to follow. Shock Rock was on the rise, and Rush, a small band from Toronto, was cranking out a new sound that would later become known as Progressive Metal.

So far, Metal had seen mostly leather bound He-men and flashy fashion extremes (with very few exceptions I may add), but in the '70s a bunch of beginning musicians started to be lace-lined and frilly, rather than leather-lunged. Their music was based heavily off of Shock rock and a new style known as Hard Rock. This now ever popular Glam Metal gave rise to yet another style: Pop Metal, and one of the best examples would be the band Def Leppard.

Power Metal bands like Judas Priest and Rainbow were becoming very popular, and as such the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal movement took hold pretty quickly, as it was based off of Power Metal. Soon everyone was listening to Iron Maiden and Motorhead.

Another popular style in the '70s was Punk Metal. The Ramones were pioneers in Punk, and they used lots of really basic riffing to make the songs simpler. Unfortunately, the first wave of Punk was short lived ( although it never really died out, because it resurfaces here and there!), but it carried into Hardcore. The sounds of Hardcore bands like Misfits and D.O.A. combined with the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal to create a whole new sound... Thrash. Metallica, Slayer, and Megadeth are the three leaders in the Thrash Metal scene today, and pretty much defined it when it first began.

Yet another subgenre that appeared in the '80s was Grunge. I'd have to say that in my opinion the quintessential Grunge band is Nirvana, with Alice In Chains running a close second. Grunge was becoming very popular until in 1993 it disappeared, or at least that's how it seemed. In reality all that happened was the record companies changed its name to Hard Alternative.

Through Black Metal (yet again, based off Hardcore) and Thrash two new styles were created, one being Death Metal, which following Black Metal, has many satanic references in the lyrics and extreme guttural vocals. The other style came two years later and Grindcore, as it's known, is a lot like an extreme version of Thrash. Another kind of music came around that time, while not descended from Black Metal it is still a bit heavier than some other forms of music; and as such, Metalcore is a product of Thrash.

Eventually, the four subgenres of Industrial Metal, Hard Alternative, Metalcore, and Death Metal combined in the form of Nu Metal. My personal favourite Nu Metal band being System Of A Down. Other examples are Korn, Slipknot, Godsmack, and Kittie.

In 2000, a new subgenre formed called the New Wave Of American Metal. This style is based largely off of Death Metal and, so far, has attracted a huge crowd.

So anyway, that was - as the title says - Metals Historia. I hope you found it remotely informative. Thanks for reading it!