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Heavy Metal, Its History, Influences and Subgenres

Started by Nephew Twiddleton, July 30, 2012, 01:25:52 AM

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Nephew Twiddleton

Quote from: Bruce Twiddleton on July 30, 2012, 01:24:51 AM
Quote from: Gen. Disregard on July 30, 2012, 12:30:02 AM
Metal has expanded quite a bit over the past four decades.  Certainly there is a good portion of it that has been informed by punk, but there is also a good chunk of it that I would posit has little to know lineage involving punk.  I'm thinking of the symphonic, power metal strains of metal that are more rooted in classical masters like Wagner.  Same with some of the more symphonic strains of black metal. 

As far as the Satan angle.  Black metal certainly but there has been Satanism in other forms of Metal, including the Elvis-Metal of Danzig, who obviously was very influenced by punk given his tenure in prior punk bands.  There are some pretty Satanic death metal bands too, Deicide being the first that comes to mind.

I forgot about Danzig. But, the point that Waffles and myself are getting at is that while there are satanic Death Metallers, and other types of Metallers, it's not inherently Satanic. A lot just kinda dabble with the image for a song here and there, but otherwise don't bother. I mean, hell, Iron Maiden wrote a song about the number 666 and Nicko is a born-again Christian.

Quote from: TEXAS FAIRIES FOR ALL YOU SPAGS on July 30, 2012, 01:20:17 AM
Quote from: Triple Zero on July 29, 2012, 09:40:13 PM
Well, I wanted to know which kind of metal was the satanic one and Wikipedia said it was Death Metal, and it's really not the point but now I do wonder which one *is* it that has all the satanic lyrics and such, then?

King Diamond was supposed to be a practicing Satanist but I always just LOL'ed at his shit. "No Presents For Christmas"?  :lol:

Slayer's got a lot of hell-and-the-devil stuff.

I forgot about King Diamond. A friend of mine was into him and tried to get me to listen to some of his stuff. The falsetto shrieking made me want to punch him through the headphones.

Also, I'm going to start up a new thread, so as not to spag up the punk with metal. I'mma quote this as the OP.
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Nephew Twiddleton

#1
Also, Trip, you can tell the difference between a black metaller and a death metaller by the following:

The death metaller wears jeans, t-shirt, and long hair. Music is more focused on speed and technical prowess. Vocal style is growling.

The black metaller looks like a bastard child of KISS and some sort of cheesy group of warlords out of a sword-and-sandal tv show. They also take pictures of themselves with implausible weaponry in the woods, or performing ceremonies in basements in Oslo. ETA: Music is more focused on atmospherics. Music is focused on atmospherics, though black metal is some of the fastest metal I've heard. Music theory is thrown out the window to a degree intentionally, to make it more evil sounding (for example, a chord progression including E minor, G minor, A minor and C minor. Also black metallers never play major chords except when they can make them sound grim). Vocal style is as raspy as death metal, but more projected and higher pitch. Basically gravelly shrieking.
Strange and Terrible Organ Laminator of Yesterday's Heavy Scene
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Nephew Twiddleton

Strange and Terrible Organ Laminator of Yesterday's Heavy Scene
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Nephew Twiddleton

I did actually enjoy reading Lords of Chaos, which did not neglect Heavy Metal's blues origins (indeed, it declared Robert Johnson to be the grandfather of Metal- it pointed out the irony that Black Metal, which can have Nazi sympathy depending on the band, only exists because of a black dude). Heavy Metal and Rock and Roll are actually siblings, not an evolution. Black Sabbath started out as a Blues band that wanted to scare people. Seriously, listen to the first Black Sabbath album and tell me that it's nothing more than heavy, spooky Blues. It doesn't sound like the Rock and Roll of the time. Like, say this song here.

Now, the history of Metal subgenres is interesting too, and can be traced back to the band Venom who inadvertently created 4 subgenres in one sentence during an interview. But it's all Metal. Not Heavy Metal. Just Metal. Heavy Metal is now a subgenre of Metal.
Strange and Terrible Organ Laminator of Yesterday's Heavy Scene
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Nephew Twiddleton

#4
So let us start with this Robert Johnson character, shall we?

He's and interesting fellow.

He's basically the founder of the Forever 27 club. He was a bluesman. He was a shitty guitarist until he disappeared for a while and came back a master.

Now, at the time, there was this expression in music among black Americans- selling your soul to the Devil. It meant that you played secular music instead of doing Gospel. Except, Son House, who knew Robert Johnson when he was a shitty guitarist, actually believed that RoJo made a literal pact with the Devil. And indeed, RoJo's lyrics are fairly Satanic in content. When I read Lords of Chaos, it was the first I had heard of Robert Johnson. Well, I was a goddamn Metalhead and I wanted to know my lineage (Note also, this guy apparently inspired English motherfuckers everywhere during the period of the 1950s-1960s. This is how Rock  and Metal are siblings.) so I was going to buy his shit. Well lo and behold. I was already familiar with him and didn't even fucking know it (listening to the intros of both are sufficient, but I recommend listening to all of both).

The Sun Is Going Down, by the Tea Party
http://Me and the Devil Blues, by Robert Johnson

Now Tea Party are obviously not Metal, but it goes to show how directly influential this dude who died in the 1930s was on music in the 1990s. Not just the Tea Party, but also Zep, the Stones, Clapton, a bunch of others. Now, I'm not tracing all of the origins of Metal to RoJo, but his influence is undeniable. And the more you listen to old Metal, the more you realize that it really is just Heavy Blues that lost control of the wheel and went in a very odd direction.


*Modified because I hit pic instead of link button for the second link
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#5
I wouldn't say Johnson was Satanic,any more than Bon Scott was for all those hell and the devil lyrics, which were actually only referring to fighting, fucking, life on the road and getting drunk.  :lol: A lot of Johnson's lyrics just talked about good old American hoodoo, same as a lot of other blues artists of that era. Black cat bones, mojo hands...here's one about a nation sack (you might not want to show Villager.  :lol: )
http://www.luckymojo.com/nationsack.html

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Quote from: Bruce Twiddleton on July 30, 2012, 01:33:23 AM
Also, Trip, you can tell the difference between a black metaller and a death metaller by the following:

The death metaller wears jeans, t-shirt, and long hair. Music is more focused on speed and technical prowess. Vocal style is growling.

The black metaller looks like a bastard child of KISS and some sort of cheesy group of warlords out of a sword-and-sandal tv show. They also take pictures of themselves with implausible weaponry in the woods, or performing ceremonies in basements in Oslo. ETA: Music is more focused on atmospherics. Music is focused on atmospherics, though black metal is some of the fastest metal I've heard. Music theory is thrown out the window to a degree intentionally, to make it more evil sounding (for example, a chord progression including E minor, G minor, A minor and C minor. Also black metallers never play major chords except when they can make them sound grim). Vocal style is as raspy as death metal, but more projected and higher pitch. Basically gravelly shrieking.

The black metal bands often evolve into other forms of music.  A band like Arcturus that started off as a fairly straight-ahead, atmospheric black metal band and kind of evolved into a trip-hop/electronica kind of act.  There have been a couple other bands, that have gone that route. 

The Death Metal bands don't seem to evolve as much though a handful will kind of end up going in the metalcore/groove-metal direction.

Death Metal definitely is more jeans and beer while black metal is more leather and wine. 

My favorite as of late has been the folk metal genre which blends all kinds of shit together.  Black metal, death metal, traditional folk instruments and tunes. 
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AFK

Quote from: Bruce Twiddleton on July 30, 2012, 01:52:02 AM
I did actually enjoy reading Lords of Chaos, which did not neglect Heavy Metal's blues origins (indeed, it declared Robert Johnson to be the grandfather of Metal- it pointed out the irony that Black Metal, which can have Nazi sympathy depending on the band, only exists because of a black dude). Heavy Metal and Rock and Roll are actually siblings, not an evolution. Black Sabbath started out as a Blues band that wanted to scare people. Seriously, listen to the first Black Sabbath album and tell me that it's nothing more than heavy, spooky Blues. It doesn't sound like the Rock and Roll of the time. Like, say this song here.

Now, the history of Metal subgenres is interesting too, and can be traced back to the band Venom who inadvertently created 4 subgenres in one sentence during an interview. But it's all Metal. Not Heavy Metal. Just Metal. Heavy Metal is now a subgenre of Metal.

Yeah, I think typically Heavy Metal has become synonymous with "traditional metal", basically anything that developed in or stemmed from the NWOBH movement. 

Metal encompasses a broad swath of sounds and styles now.  It's really amazing how much it has branched out since the Sabbath days.  So much now that it seems almost absurd to think an extreme black metal band like Marduk is in the same genre as a doom/groove band like Cathedral. 
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Triple Zero

Ok so there's no singular subgenre that is specifically known for its Satanic lyrics? Cause I was really trying to get it right but I guess I must have misread something on WP. Your distinction makes sense though. I knew it would be either Black Metal or Death Metal because Doom Metal is all like "Awww I'm so depressed and all is hopeless and my life has no purpose and on top of that my string broke" and if Satan'd hear that He'd be all STFU YOU WHINING LITTLE PISS OR ILL GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO BE ETERNALLY DEPRESSED ABOUT and then He'd infect the World with Justin Bieber just to spite them some more--true story.

Hey and what about Dimmu Borgir then? WP says they're "symphonic death metal" but my favourite song is Puritania (yes because of the vocoders--but also the industrial beats help) and that one's clearly industrial metal, Fear Factory could've done it. This video someone made is awesome, it's got the lyrics AND bigass nuclear splosions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QSP51TNTdQ -- it's quite obvious they're singing about Daleks.



Quote from: Bruce Twiddleton on July 30, 2012, 01:40:10 AM
Pop quiz: Which one is which?





:lulz:

Next time rehost on imgur so I can't see the answer in your img urls as I reply.

The guy with the short black hair is obviously a Satanist, but his three girlfriends might not realize this until it's too late?

The other image won't seem to load. But I'm guessing it's Black Metal because of the URL filename!! :D
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I think it is fair to say that Black Metal is the subgenre that has most of the Satanic lyrical content, like anything of course it isn't 100% across the board.


Although, while not satanic, the Doom metal genre can have some significantly anti-religious lyrical content.  My Dying Bride is a good example, when he wasn't singing about vampires making out, Aaron was writing some fairly scathing anti-Christian content.  So it isn't always a lot of "woe is me" stuff with the Doomsters.
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The sad truth about most heavy metal, like most of everything else, is that it's crap. If any of it is put in some "rock n roll hall of fame" (oh, the irony in THAT institution), then the lyrics should written on toilet paper and installed in the bathrooms of said hall of fame.

The last band that "happened" doesn't even matter in context of all the other bands JUST LIKE IT, and also people think they are real aware if they can just list some names that they think everyone else knows (or better yet, has just barely heard of).  Like you say the name of a band that is really popular but which "everyone knows" totally sucks and that's some sort of amazing cultural critique. 

I hung around with some perverts and some rock climbers and they were all "jargon jargon jargon", and it was exactly the same thing.  Totally irrelevant outside of their closely drawn confines.  Insight into popular culture is like keeping meticulous records of the activities of your hamster.

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P3nT4gR4m

Quote from: The Dead Reverend Roger on July 30, 2012, 05:10:19 PM
The sad truth about most heavy metal, like most of everything else, is that it's crap. If any of it is put in some "rock n roll hall of fame" (oh, the irony in THAT institution), then the lyrics should written on toilet paper and installed in the bathrooms of said hall of fame.

The last band that "happened" doesn't even matter in context of all the other bands JUST LIKE IT, and also people think they are real aware if they can just list some names that they think everyone else knows (or better yet, has just barely heard of).  Like you say the name of a band that is really popular but which "everyone knows" totally sucks and that's some sort of amazing cultural critique. 

I hung around with some perverts and some rock climbers and they were all "jargon jargon jargon", and it was exactly the same thing.  Totally irrelevant outside of their closely drawn confines.  Insight into popular culture is like keeping meticulous records of the activities of your hamster.

Troof! It's just another form of trainspotting :lulz: Same as sports geeks, same as movie buffs, same as followers of politics but, hey, I'm pretty sure most people have one or two geeky things they fill their brains full of facts about. No harm in that - storing and regurgitating trivia is part of what brains do.

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Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on July 30, 2012, 05:20:48 PM
Quote from: The Dead Reverend Roger on July 30, 2012, 05:10:19 PM
The sad truth about most heavy metal, like most of everything else, is that it's crap. If any of it is put in some "rock n roll hall of fame" (oh, the irony in THAT institution), then the lyrics should written on toilet paper and installed in the bathrooms of said hall of fame.

The last band that "happened" doesn't even matter in context of all the other bands JUST LIKE IT, and also people think they are real aware if they can just list some names that they think everyone else knows (or better yet, has just barely heard of).  Like you say the name of a band that is really popular but which "everyone knows" totally sucks and that's some sort of amazing cultural critique. 

I hung around with some perverts and some rock climbers and they were all "jargon jargon jargon", and it was exactly the same thing.  Totally irrelevant outside of their closely drawn confines.  Insight into popular culture is like keeping meticulous records of the activities of your hamster.

Troof! It's just another form of trainspotting :lulz: Same as sports geeks, same as movie buffs, same as followers of politics but, hey, I'm pretty sure most people have one or two geeky things they fill their brains full of facts about. No harm in that - storing and regurgitating trivia is part of what brains do.

This is why I typically avoid music threads.  The ones where obscure (or now obscure) bands are discussed are bad enough (for me), but the ones where music is actually broken down in technical terms are unreadable for non-specialists.

I'm not saying people shouldn't make threads like that, I was just mentioning my own personal opinion of said threads.  So if anyone is taking this as a screech about these threads existing, shut up.  It's just my personal thing.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.