Heavy Metal, Its History, Influences and Subgenres

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Not this again...


We had a nice board fight over what grunge "was" a few monthd back.  Not sure I'd like to revisit that.

I must have missed it. It was more a comment on labels anyway. This thread is too Metal for an argument about what grunge is.

[AFK]

I wasn't really arguing anyway, just relaying what I seem to recall, but it is lighthearted and not serious commentary.  I'm not terribly invested. 

[East Coast Hustle]

If I remember correctly, Mark Arm accidentally coined the term in an interview and the press ran with it. Nobody that was actually in the music scene in Seattle at the time thought of the scene as being one cohesive genre. And by the time the term "grunge" was being used to describe that scene, the scene was mostly dead and replaced by 2nd-wave heavy alternative bands (STP, Candlebox, etc.) that weren't even from the PNW.

[East Coast Hustle]

As for the term "Heavy Metal", I'm curious about the origin and when it became part of the common lexicon. I'd hazard a guess that Black Sabbath was called something completely different when they first came out.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Not this again...


We had a nice board fight over what grunge "was" a few monthd back.  Not sure I'd like to revisit that.

Not trying to define it. I think it's a retarded term.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Not this again...


We had a nice board fight over what grunge "was" a few monthd back.  Not sure I'd like to revisit that.

I must have missed it. It was more a comment on labels anyway. This thread is too Metal for an argument about what grunge is.

METAL SQUASHES GRUNGE.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Not this again...


We had a nice board fight over what grunge "was" a few monthd back.  Not sure I'd like to revisit that.

I must have missed it. It was more a comment on labels anyway. This thread is too Metal for an argument about what grunge is.

METAL SQUASHES GRUNGE.

METAL SQUASHES, PERIOD.

I don't think "grunge" actually exists, anyway: "HEY, IT'S THE 90'S NOW, WE NEED NEW STUPID WORDS!"

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Not this again...


We had a nice board fight over what grunge "was" a few monthd back.  Not sure I'd like to revisit that.

I must have missed it. It was more a comment on labels anyway. This thread is too Metal for an argument about what grunge is.

METAL SQUASHES GRUNGE.

METAL SQUASHES, PERIOD.

I don't think "grunge" actually exists, anyway: "HEY, IT'S THE 90'S NOW, WE NEED NEW STUPID WORDS!"

Sounds about right

[AFK]

It was always very clearly a marketing gimmick and one most bands publicly derided.  Mudhoney even wrote a song about it, 'Overblown'.  The funny thing is, if any band fit a 'grungy' sound, it was definitely Mudhoney.

[East Coast Hustle]

Like I said, I'm pretty sure Mark Arm was the one who actually coined the term.

[LMNO]

I was thinking about this the other day, while listening to Twin Shadow, who is clearly ripping off old Police tracks, and DIIV, who is essentially giving Joy Division a reacharound -- If you take a random sampling of bands from the late 80s - early 90s catalog of Sub Pop, Am Rep, Duch East, and maybe even SST, and then insert into that sampling a number of rock tracks from the major labels, it would be very, very easy to discern between the two, even if blindfolded.  You might not be able to say, "it's because of this guitar sound," or "it's this specific way the vocals are produced," but there would be a difference.  You might not want to put a label on it, but you can't deny a general "otherness" to the collection of music that was rising to the surface.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

It's the turbo-echo on the snare drum that all the Big Name Bands used.

[East Coast Hustle]

I was thinking about this the other day, while listening to Twin Shadow, who is clearly ripping off old Police tracks, and DIIV, who is essentially giving Joy Division a reacharound -- If you take a random sampling of bands from the late 80s - early 90s catalog of Sub Pop, Am Rep, Duch East, and maybe even SST, and then insert into that sampling a number of rock tracks from the major labels, it would be very, very easy to discern between the two, even if blindfolded.  You might not be able to say, "it's because of this guitar sound," or "it's this specific way the vocals are produced," but there would be a difference.  You might not want to put a label on it, but you can't deny a general "otherness" to the collection of music that was rising to the surface.

I think I can largely explain that sound in two words: Jack Endino.

[Mangrove]

From what I can recall, the term 'Heavy Metal' (aside from it's obvious use in chemistry...) showed up in Steppenwolf's 'Born To Be Wild' which was, in turn borrowed from the writing of W S Burroughs.

The term 'heavy metal' was used as in a derogatory review of one of Black Sabbath's early albums.

I could, of course, be wrong and this is apocryphal bullshit.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

From what I can recall, the term 'Heavy Metal' (aside from it's obvious use in chemistry...) showed up in Steppenwolf's 'Born To Be Wild' which was, in turn borrowed from the writing of W S Burroughs.

The term 'heavy metal' was used as in a derogatory review of one of Black Sabbath's early albums.

I could, of course, be wrong and this is apocryphal bullshit.

That's actually interesting- I didn't know it was used as a derogatory term.