Tag Archives: Music Mania

1 - Your Musical Taste Matters

Your musical taste matters

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This blog is set up for you the reader to select what topics or genres of music that you would like to learn about and discover. I was keenly aware when I was teaching music to kids about how some students were turned off from learning about music because of the sometimes strict and rigid guidelines of the curriculum, especially in classical music and the constant repetition of scales and rudiments.

I changed my teaching habits to adhere to the interests of the pupil. If the student was turned off about classical music and say the Hannon exercises and variations, I would ask “what type of music do you like?”

Many times the reply would be a current song on the radio like Billy Joel or Metallica, Jay Z or Taylor Swift or Miley Cyrus. I would take the opportunity to teach them the aspects of their favorite music, no matter what it might be, even Hip Hop to the frantic rhythms of Death Metal. As the lessons progressed, I would make subtle suggestions of other artists, songs and eventually genres unknown to the student, which led to fantastic results.

With music I have found that many people have very specific tastes and likes. They would tend to stick with specific genres and would consider other genres pure noise. Some people would only listen to the music of their youth and what they grew up on and would resist newer music. Some people would be multi-genre, such as myself, and would be hungry to discover newer and/or older music than the contemporary.

As a child of nine years, I remember disliking Swing Jazz or say the music of Frank Sinatra, in favor of the rock group Kiss or some rock group marketed to young kids. I have since changed these prejudices. I would remember at first disliking a form of music like Country & Western music immensely only to later fully embrace and enjoy the previously hated music.

Now, not everyone can change their tastes and there is nothing wrong with that in my opinion. To this day, there is still some music and specific songs that I cannot enjoy as well as some music that has fallen out of my favor over the years. You like what you like and that is that. It would be unfair for me to consider you uncultured, rigid or lesser of a person just because of your musical tastes.

This blog is set up for you to start with what you like, because of space and scope of study, I am focusing on the Rock Era which is roughly the late 40s to the mid 0’s and the myriad of genres and sub-genres in between these 50 plus years. I have divided up the genres to appeal to the readers’ and listeners’ distinctions between these genres such as differences between Disco and Heavy Metal, Country Rock and 80’s Pop and/or the subtle (or not so subtle) differences between say 50s Rock & Roll and Rock Music of the 60s.

I have subdivided the genres into categories that you can easily find in this blog. I have also included a page of detailed charts of all the genres I intend to cover and where you can find other eras and scopes of study like the Jazz Era of the early 20th century (1890s to the 1950s) or what I am calling the Hip Hop Era (mid 1990s to the present).

I hope to give you the details of the music and genres you love, the stories of your favorite artists, detailed discussions on the genres you may or may not already know and to perhaps turn you on to genres you may not be familiar with at all. Again the choices are up to you, I am merely writing it all up to gear it to your tastes. I will also like to teach you the very basics of music theory and rhythm, specifically catering to the lay person or non-musician using my experience as a music teacher to very young kids and to beginner adults.

I have also teamed up with music providers like iTunes to give you links to go straight to the songs being discussed which you can sample and buy. I can also give you advice on how to get rarities and give you insight on collectibles in other formats like old 45’s and LP’s. I am here for you took pick my brain, so I encourage you to contact me to ask anything you’d like about music.

So dive right in and check out this wonderful and vast array of music that has shaped and changed the structure and social constraints of America in the 20th century. I hope to hear from you!

Pulse

 

2 - The Nature of Music

The Nature of Music

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In the beginning, there was the word, a wave, a frequency, a sound, an utterance, some kind of movement or motion out of a total vacuum or the word is God. Or is it just the way it seems to us humans with limited senses? From a scientific point of view, what is the word but a sound, a vibration, a frequency.

Sound to me is more mysterious when talking about it in relation to music. There is something about music as a language, a conveyance of information or feeling of some sort. This language has structure that can be expressed mathematically in sonic physical terms yet music seems to hold more. More in terms of its philosophical and dare I say spiritual complexity over and above the cold mechanics of mathematics.

A sound can be represented as a sign wave and modulated and combined with other waves thereby creating new waves and sounds of distinct timber.

Chords, melodies, harmonies, beats per minute, the written “word” otherwise known as music theory has continued to enhance  and inspire humanity. A vastly spectacular record of written music has amassed in the past 600 years, and now recorded in the last 100.

That being said … there’s no sound in a vacuum, is there? Just like with light, humans can only pick up a limited range of frequencies which is part the whole grand electromagnetic spectrum. Did you hear the tree fall in the woods?

Some sounds are so high we cannot hear them, conversely some sounds are so low we can’t hear them, yet we sometimes can feel them. Our touch picks up the rumblings that we can only feel but neither see nor hear except with scientific equipment.

 

With some music, you can physically feel it like the sound of an amped 808 drum kick. However, music can convey another usage of the term “feel”. Music can convey the psychological aspect of feeling or feelings. It can mimic complex emotions, it can goad on, it can inspire, it can mesmerize, it can depress, it can conjure. As the saying goes music soothes the savage beast…but it can also rattle the domesticated.

I have always been very sensitive to music ever since childhood and had a wide range of influences. In the beginning I mostly embraced the popular music of the time. I grew up in the album era, so I was listening to long playing albums very early on and found that there were certain songs I would skip. Sometimes I skipped songs out of boredom or sappiness, but other times because the music scared me, it was foreign, in a minor mode or dissonant and discordant to my undeveloped and uncultured ear.

There were boundaries that I at first didn’t cross for many years. As I went on I began to embrace a lot of the music I initially deemed boring, sappy or scary to a fault. I have been accused of now being eccentric in my tastes of music, which is a kind way of saying downright strange or weird.

 

Throughout a lifetime of music I have always been mystified by music and its many features and anomalies. One aspect is the many different perceptions by different “ears” of the same piece of music. The differences in perceptions of meter, pitch, tonality, timber, chord color, expression and overall conveyance by all of us in certain degrees.

I have noticed patterns of people’s predispositions or predilections to certain types of music and types of voices. People stick hard to their boundaries and stay out of certain territories.

These personal musical preferences in music can tell a lot about a person in many ways. There seems to be patterns or stereotypes of people and their likes and dislikes. The stereotypes such as metal headz, disco boys, jazz cats, folkies, funk soul brothers & sisters, etc. but then there are people who like multiple forms of music as well, like me. Another great aspect of music is in its communal nature within and amongst different fan groups.

 

In Quantum physics, time is said to be an illusion yet music cannot exist without the progression of time or is it rather motion. Music cannot make sense without the movement of time, music is a trick of time and yet time is supposedly illusionary on a subatomic level.

From the rhythms of the spheres, the frequencies of their electromagnetic tones and the rhythmic rumblings of the physical tectonic plate shifts. Spheres that are in constant motion, nothing in this universe is standing still there is constant motion. There is no such thing as rest. Music seems to play or is sensed because of this motion.

What is music really? You can’t hold it in your hand, it’s devoid of substance, it’s just vibrations effecting molecules. We all know it exists. Going beyond judging whether a type of sound art is good or bad, we all hear and are affected differently by music which, in some cases, penetrates deep into the psyche. This being said, almost every person is effected by music and these effects are all together different from person to person, whether it’s to turn it up or turn it off.

 

3 - Music Theory for the Lay Person

The Back Beat Revolution

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The Back Beat Revolution

From a drummer’s perspective, “Rhythm & Blues” or “R&B” was a musical revolution. It was the revolution of technology and a trick of the rhythm, where the “back-beat” came about as the dominant rhythm in the last half of the 20th Century. Back when R&B was fresh and new, the “swing beat” derived from a lazy shuffle beat, had been the popular dance beat for more than 50 years, with its emphasis on the “down-beat”.

Recording equipment in the Jazz age was very delicate. It didn’t take much for the drums to get the needle skipping and jumping across the lathes. However, starting in the late 40s and the hi-fidelity of the early 1950s, the technology started to improve enough to be able to handle the high decibel snare rim shots from say Gene Krupa in the Benny Goodman band or Ralph Jones of Bill Haley & the Comets.

Previously, during the swing era of the 1930s and before, there was a great disparity between music that was “live” and therefore much louder than recorded music due to the limits of the technology involved. While the “live” bands it took a whole “rhythm section” of guitars, banjo, piano, bass/tuba, rhythm instruments and drums to keep up with the sheer high volume of the horns and reeds sections this made it necessary for equal stress to all four beats of the count in 4/4, “One, Two, Three, Four“.


Common_time_signatures

Counting Rhythms

In rhythm music theory, “common time” notated as 4/4, “four/four time” or “four/quarter time” or as a large “C” for common, is depicted to the right of the G-Clef above, also depicted are 2/2, “two/halves” or “cut time” (a “C” with a line through it), as well as “two/quarter”, “three/quarter” and “six/eighths” note time signatures.

Time Signatures

The bottom number tells you the type of note to play, in this case it is a “quarter note”; and the top note tells you “how many notes or pulses are in a measure” or bar of music (a measure or bar is a unit of music, in this case of 4 beats).

Top Number:                     3 – (Number-of beats in a measure or bar)

Bottom Number:             4 – (Use quarter notes to count out “one, two, three”)

                                                                     OR

Top Number:                     6 – (Number-of beats in a measure or bar)

Bottom Number:             8 – (Use quarter notes to count out “one, two, three, four, five, six”)

 

This time signature can be counted in several ways such as “One, Two, Three, Four; One, Two, Three, Four” stressing the One count of each measure. Another way to count in the time signature of 4/4, which helps with marching and dancing, is on the down-beats, “One, Two, Three, Four; One, Two, Three, Four” which has its accents on the down-beats  or the odd-beats of one and three. You can also keep time by saying or thinking “Left, Right, Left, Right” in marching or “Right, Left, Right, Left” in dancing.

 

Counting the Back Beat

The “Back-Beat” is counted as “One, Two, Three, Four” which has its accents on the up-beats or the even beats two and four, which at faster meters such as 116 to 120 beats per minute (bpm) or allegro moderato, is a very easy pulse for dancing. This “Back-Beat” pulse has been used in all of the modern R&B derived dance music of the late twentieth century including “classic R&B”, “Doo-Wop”, “Rock & Roll”, “Soul”, “Disco”, “House & Techno”, “Modern Dance Music”, “Electronica” and many other forms of dance music.

With a drum-set you can further subdivide the “back-beat” count as shown below, counted as “One-And, Two-And, Three-And, Four-And” or “Bass-And, Snare-And, Bass-And, Snare-And” where the bass drum gets the down-beats, on the one and the three, and where the snare drum hits the accents, defining the “back-beat” on the Two and the Four beats. The hi-hat cymbals keep a steady count of (8), eighth notes, counted as ” One, And, Two, And, Three, And, Four, And” as seen below.

350px-Characteristic_rock_drum_pattern (1)

Tempos

The tempo of a song is very important, it is not merely a question of fast or slow but all the variables between fast or slow and its extremes. Songs at 120 beats per minute is standard for a good dance beat, close to the human heart rate at exercise. At this rate, dancing is very healthy for you, many people use music in concert with their jogging and other exercise routines.

Slower tempos of andante (76 to 108 bpm) or andantino (80 to 108 bpm) were used for ballads and love songs in popular music and also in slow metered country & western songs, for dancing it was just a good excuse to get close to your partner. Then there were the mid-tempo songs of moderato 108-120 bpm, where the great radio friendly, storytelling, hook that would stick in your mind for hours, songs off the radio in the 1950s came of age.

 

Pulse and Meter

Some of the slower tempos had a triple meter “One, two, three; One , two, three” rather than the duple pulse of “One, two; One, two”. Another popular rhythm in R&B, derived from the Boogie Woogie beat in Jazz which is a triple meter counted either as “One-Trip-Let, Two- Trip-Let” or as “One, Two, Three; Four, Five, Six”, which basically takes a duple meter like the one below-left and subdivides it into a triple meter like the figure below-right.

250px-Simple_duple_drum_pattern

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, remember, top note tells you how many beats, and the bottom note tells you which note to use. In the figures above-left, quarter notes are counted, in the figure on the right, eighth notes are used to count. Notice how these examples of a duple meter and a triple meter can be mixed and intertwined.

So, simply by putting an accent on the Two and the Four of a rhythm in common time, popular music was transformed. The philosophy of the heart, the Thub-Dub, Left-Right, binary in nature and syncopation, “If there is a boom, then there is a snap”.

 

 

1 - Hard Rock Recap

Heavy Metal 1

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Heavy Metal

Summertime Blues

Heavy metal is a loud and aggressive kind of music that grew out of the genre “hard rock” around 1968. Heavy Metal has a very distinctive sound that was in its embryonic state when the band called Blue Cheer did a version of “Summertime Blues” that exemplified the heavy metal sound.

Many agree that psychedelic rock band Blue Cheer’s version of “Summertime Blues” is considered to be one of the first “heavy metal” songs along with the first “metal” album “Vincibus Eruptum”. The “heavy metal” sound seems to have come out of the “power trio” experimentations, that is to say a band consisting of a bass guitarist, a drummer and guitarist doubling as a rhythm and a lead guitarist, who collectively rely on amplification, electronics and sheer volume.

In “Summertime Blues”, Blue Cheer puts its own spin of extra riffs complete with tempo changes, solos sections for all three instruments (bass, drums and guitar) and a more street level, “do it yourself” ethos recording that added to the mystique. The distortion feedback on the song was amazing for the day in 1968 but was a culmination in a “heavy” sound that had been pursued in rock & roll since the days of Link Wray.

Dick Dale in 1962-63 spearheaded the riff & power chord techniques and surfed a wave of popular “surf rock & pop” music along with the Beach Boys which had a great influence on British “hard rock” bands like The Who, the Stones and the Beatles. The speed of a song like “Miserlou” by Dick Dale & the Del-Tones were a particular favorite because of the finger picking dexterity and electronics usage that were vital in “Heavy Metal’s” development. Metal would be formed by a constant tug of war across “the big lake” (Atlantic Ocean) with the UK on one side and the US on the other, just like with many other rock genres (ie: Punk).

 

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida

Another great example of the heavy metal riff and structures in early “heavy metal” is the sprawling epic song “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” by Iron Butterfly and its album by the same name “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”. The song takes up the whole b-side of the LP at more than 17 minutes long beating out Zappa on his twelve minute “The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet” from his 1966 LP “Freak”.

A big feature in Heavy Metal is in song length and structure with songs layered by several elaborate riffs and alternate versions and songs frequently breaking the 3 minute length. Heavy Metal shares this feature of breaking the song length barrier, with genres like “Progress Rock” or “Prog Rock” and/or Jazz Fusion.

 

Heavy Metal Thunder

Steppenwolf’s “Born To Be Wild” and the memorable second verse line of “heavy metal thunder” only name checks the genre but is not truly “Metal”. “Born to be Wild” is a hard rock song that was number one in 1968 but as the music style is concerned, it is classic hard rock unlike Blue Cheer or Iron Butterfly.

British psychedelic rock group Vanilla Fudge’s Supremes cover “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” on tour along with new Yardbirds group Led Zeppelin were bands that were occasionally referred to as “heavy metal” in 1968, along with other “hard rock” bands Deep Purple, Cream, Hendrix, Jeff Beck. Hard Rock was starting to win over the air waves with rock band Free and the iconic “All Right Now”.

Then there were other bands from both sides of the pond being referred to as “heavy metal” like Humble Pie, Spooky Tooth, Budgie, UFO, Uriah Heep, Jethro Tull, Hawkwind, Alice Cooper, James Gang and Mountain. In retrospect, only some of the above named bands became true “Heavy Metal” but most would be considered to be great bands of the genre “Hard Rock”. At this point rock was fragmenting into all these different genres like country rock, funk rock, southern rock, etc.

 

Black Sabbath

The best example of “heavy metal” is by far Black Sabbath who released their first album “Black Sabbath” on February, Friday the 13th, 1970 which contained the song “Black Sabbath“. The song broke many boundaries and started the dark genre in its purest form. Basically all the components of what makes up “heavy metal” are contained in this song.

One of the main features of “heavy metal” is the sound of the electric guitars. Feedback distortion and the overloading of the circuitry of amplifiers and electronic gadgets led to another rock “revolution” in sound. In the passing of the baton with this sound’s experimentation, it went from Link Wray to Dick Dale, from Dave Davies of the Kinks to John Lennon, then to Pete Townshend, to Keith Richards, to Clapton, Beck and Page and to Jimi Hendrix and then finally landing in the hands of Tony Iommi.

 

The Guitar

The “heavy metal” sound is in the way a song is played rhythmically and its structure harmonically. Rhythm guitar in “metal’ chugs or crunches along with the beat rather than a 12 bar blues style of swing that rock & roll often incorporates in its vamp or jamming patterns. Metal tends to crunch along with staccato impatience, marking time for the bouts of jumping in the pit with extended athletic bursts of energy.

“Metal” revolves around the “flatted fifth”, also known as the “tri-tone”, also known as “the devils chord” or “diabolus in musica”. Remember, “Metal” is all things taboo. The music also thrives on minor chords, complex chords, a technique known as down-tuning or drop tuning and does not shy away from dis-chordancy or dissonance in general.

After careful tweaking, a guitar can take on the quality of a large, billowing and towering sound that puts up a walls of canons or stacked Marshall Amps capable of high level long range ballistics of decibel destruction. Power, rhythm, and the devil’s chords are what make up the metal guitaring technique. Everything comes in threes or pentagrams and three sixes. Many other factors go into a metal guitarists sound such as type of amp, electronics, guitar make, style, wood choice, pick-ups, strings, miking techniques etc.

So, my argument is that Tony Iommi’s guitar sound and style of playing is the sound of ‘heavy metal”. Of all the aspects that differentiate “metal” from “hard rock”, its the guitar with its distortion sound, staccatto crunch playing, use of flatted 5ths and general dissonance that defines the genre separate from the genre of “Rock”. The other guitarists I named above all were hard rock guitarists who helped germinate “heavy metal” and had elements of “metal” in their sound, but, as far as song structure and feel, they are all Hard Rock. Sabbath is different.

 

The Lyrics

The subject matter that Geezer Butler’s universe had to offer was one of no limitations. Nothing was taboo. One could write about whatever the imagination could think of. Geezer Butler would go on to test the boundaries by starting off with the extreme subject matter. Satan, the occult, and evil in general along with the horror show audio effects put forth a multi-dimensional sensory explosion for those who dared to enter Black Sabbaths “house of horrors”. Geezer’s imaginative lyrics complimented the “diabolus in musica”; the devils chord shunned since the days of ancient Greece in music.

It seems as though nothing was taboo in subject matter and there were many songs on the occult, drug addiction, nuclear war, religion, insanity in the beginning and, as time went on, more lyrical barriers were to be broken. The freedom to sing about any topic no matter how disturbing is a major feature of heavy metal and why it has such a mystique. Black Sabbath helped tear down a lot of walls early on in its career and tested how far it could go with the sensors, the critics and the general public.

 

The Vocals

Ozzy Osbourne and his blood curdling wail of hopelessness on the song “Black Sabbath” raised the hairs on many necks and ears, completely eclipsing Arthur Browns hit single “Fire”, as the most outrageous song. Ozzy Osbourne would go on to show the world just what Heavy Metal was all about, being the leading solo figure in the face of the genre to orchestrate the successful Ozfest tours which currently keep “metal” alive. Along with Robert Plant, Roger Daltrey and Ian Gillian contributed to the quintessential rock front man image, but it was Ozzy’s outrageousness that helped give the heavy metal front man a unique mystique.

Bass & Drums

The rhythm section of Black Sabbath is bombastic and explosive to say the least. It was like that metal rhythm section was born as a fully formed adult. The way Bill Ward uses a primordial battle attack along with Tony Iommi’s tri-chord slowly growing louder but with using dynamic tact in the build-up to the climax of the song, which breaks into full gallop utilizing the fight or flight response.

Ward, who was a great blues and jazz drummer, used a very symphonic or operatic crescendo in his rolls and fills while sometimes laying down a funky groove. Geezer’s bass playing shows his influence on metal bass guitar, not only as a rhythm instrument but a melodic instrument occasionally taking up the lead. His mastery of timing blending in with the rhythms and counter-rhythms of the guitar and the drums is impeccable.

The song, Black Sabbath, is but one song in a vast canon of music that would explore many heights and depths of the human condition. The first eight albums show a pioneering of unexplored topography in sound and concept, an alternate land where nothing is taboo and anything goes.

Just the Beginning

In the beginning the phrase “heavy metal” referred to several bands who played an aggressive form of hard rock in the late sixties (Vanilla Fudge, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, Jethro Tull, Alice Cooper, Mountain, James Gang, Grand Funk Railroad even Neil Young), but as the seventies progressed the term “heavy metal” would apply to a specific form of music that Black Sabbath spearheaded and that would eventually explode in a new scene in the late seventies and early eighties, as if in response to the punk movement. Early on there were several bands who would carry the “heavy metal” torch throughout the early seventies. However two bands would come forth as being true heavy metal bands within the parameters set by Black Sabbath, those bands were Judas Priest and Motorhead.

 

2 - Pioneer Heavy Metal

Black Sabbath

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To me, true “heavy metal” begins with Black Sabbath; it is with Tony Iommi’s distinct dark and distorted style of guitar playing and amplified sound, along with Geezer’s depth in bass and haunting lyrical content, the indomitable Ward’s violent aggressive blues approach to the drums and then there was Ozzy, as was Elvis to Rock & Roll so was Ozzy to heavy metal.

Tony Iommi was influenced by “Blues” but in many of the songs that he created for Sabbath have a “Classic Music” feel to them like Baroque or classical guitar (Segovia or Paganini). In fact many of the Brits contributed a distinct classical music influence to rock music (Beatles, Stones, Procul Harum, Moody Blues, Pink Floyd and on to Led Zeppelin, Yes and Sabbath) quite different than America’s Americana (folk, blues, gospel, country, etc.) influence to Rock music. With the exception of Frank Zappa and a couple of others, the music of “Classic Rock” was created by the mix of British Bands with the United States Americana bands.

Tony Iommi simultaneously started a sound. A distinct sound of heavily distorted, dropped tuned, guitar using repeating riffs, motifs or themes (or Ostinato, in classical music), with strong emphasis on syncopated rhythms. The musical phrases or riffs of the guitars, when strummed give a big wall of sound (especially with a wall of stacked Marshalls), and then when played muted, the sound gives a distorted kind of chug chugging or crunch sound. This crunch sound of an extended musical repeating riff is what really differentiates “Heavy Metal” from “Hard Rock’s” 12-bar blues phrasing.

Another important differentiator between hard rock and heavy metal is the absence of the 12 bar blues, or the happy chord structures derived from I, IV, V chords that is so well used in rock. Now in place are original riffs being played over the vocalists extended melodies or rhythmic chants.

Also, the chord structures were in unexplored regions of minor, diminished, augmented, altered and complex chords, dissonance now ruled the songs along with the forbidden tri tone (Augmented fourth/Diminished 5th chords, “Devil’s Chord” or Diabolis en Musica, if you will), “heavy metal” crunches along in sometimes one key only or an ascending or descending or elaborate scalar riff off a low drone note (Jimmy Page is famous for this) or an elaborate riff that jumps, twists or winds through strange arpeggios (like the arpeggios accompanying that dark riff at the end of The Beatles song “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” on the Abbey Road album or the arpeggios on Sabbath’s “Snowblind” off of the Vol. 4 album.

The drums had been getting more aggressive with a line of drummers starting from early instrumental and “surf rock” songs through to Ringo’s innovative close miked or ringing sounds. Next, Keith Moon of the Who popularized the (in his case) excessive or extensive usage of drum fills as did Cream’s Ginger Baker. Mr. Baker also roused us with his jazz influenced attack, as did the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s, Mitch Miller who was an eclectic and innovative compliment to Jimi’s genius. Then Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham perfected “Hard Rock” drumming while Black Sabbath’s Bill Ward invented “Heavy Metal” drumming. Both Bonham and Ward were jazz and blues influenced yet they were both in what would be seen as two different genres Rock & Metal respectively.

As far as “heavy metal’ drumming is concerned, jazz and blues were a big influence on the genre. In particular, how Sabbaths musicians (Bass, drums, and multiple guitars) used a slower tempo interspersed with wild, fast paced, freak outs only to come down again and use a great technique in metal song building of “recurring themes”, built out of a growing vast library of metal riffs.

The bass guitar is heavily influenced by the mix of blues but also of classical music. With much of the British Invasion the bass guitar was taking an active role in being a lead instrument as well as doubling as a rhythm instrument. Many heavy metal bands use Geezer’s pioneering style of bass playing by being proficient as a lead but with an ear to the classics and the whole picture. The UK in my opinion invented “Heavy Metal” by mixing classical music element with blues based psychedelic hard rock.

The lyrical content and imagery are quite extreme, far from the “I Want To Hold Your Hand” standard rock & roll pop tunes. “Metal’s” songs are basically from horror films, Halloween, the Occult, magic, anti-social philosophy, insanity and any taboo. Yes, the lyrical content is macabre, and downright disturbing, obscure and in many cases too harsh for modern society, especially in the early seventies despite the changes. Black Sabbath lived in obscurity for a long time in the early 70s, reveling in anti-social lifestyles and was re-discovered by a younger generation (the Baby Boomer’s children) in the 80s. With “heavy metal” lyrical topics, there is an “anything goes” attitude. The more shocking, horrifying, grotesque the better; anything goes even if society isn’t ready for it!

So, to recap “Hard rock” uses blues or R&B derived rock & roll phrasing. Listen to the 70s bands like in songs by Kiss in its original lineup and much of Queen in its early work, Boston, Aerosmith, Styx, Kansas, Thin Lizzy, Bachman Turner Overdrive, UFO, Rainbow , Bad Company, Foreigner and on they have heavy elements and some have outright true heavy metal songs, but for the most part these bands were hard rock bands, not metal (with the exceptions of Deep Purple which eventually would become strictly metal and Rush which would start out metal and go the other way to rock and even pop later) .

Whereas bands like, Budgie, Deep Purple’s (Mach II), Judas Priest, some of Lemy era Hawkwind progressing on to when Lemy founded Motorhead, Iron Maiden, early Rush, Dio era Rainbow, all adhere to ethos the original lineup of Black Sabbath established with specific parameters to the newer unexplored dimensions of music sound and composition.

Black Sabbath, is where, in my opinion, heavy metal started to be distinct and different in sound, culture and tradition from the more rock & roll oriented genre “hard rock”. There are many genre defining bands that played hard rock and dabbled in what was until then described as “that heavy sound” as Lennon had referred to it. That heavy sound, utilized through volume and distortion effects in the late 60’s, was what gave birth to two distinct genres, Hard Rock & Heavy Metal.

 


War Pigs / Luke’s Wall – Black Sabbath