Metal
Metal overview: to a lot of fans, Heavy Metal is a changeable term. Early Metal bands no longer qualify with our current understanding of Heavy Metal. But broadly speaking, Metal is louder, and "harder" (i.e., more distortion in the guitars, vocals, louder drums, more complications in rhythms, faster playing, repetitive riffs) and, lyrically, about hard topics like violence, suicide, rebellion, and anger. Basically rock with the soft edges removed.
One of the first bands that started this or at least influenced many of the real metal bands to follow was Led Zeppelin. There is constant debate regarding if Led Zeppelin is actually metal or not. This is something to consider in the questions. Elements such as high-pitched vocal bordering on shouting, with lots of edge, heavy low-range guitar, lots of 16th note subdivisions, are definitely characteristics of metal, and can be found in 3 of the following 4 songs:
Their biggest hit is the least "metal" one of all:
- Stairway to Heaven - a masterpiece of a song. It has a continual crescendo (getting louder) and accelerando (getting faster), which is a bit unusual. Most songs stay at about the same tempo, and while dynamic contrast is more prevalent, they generally don't build continually.
Undeniable Metal
Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne
After Ozzy split from Black Sabbath, he had great commercial success with hits like:
In particular, Rock 'n' Roll Rebel is probably the most "metal" of these. Lyrically, we can see a great example of the metal ethos. Whereas Bob Dylan wrote "please get out of the new [road] / If you can't lend a hand" in his song "The Times, They Are a Changin' ", Ozzy wrote "Do what you will to try and make me conform / But I'll make you wish you had never been born". Yikes!
American Metal
I'm skipping some bands like Steppenwolf and MC5, and straight to Alice Cooper.
Each successive metal act tried to "out metal" the previous. Alice Cooper is the name of the band as well as the stage name of the singer, and they created a stage show that had bits of violence, the occult, sadomasochism, and (unfortunately) animal abuse. They would throw live chickens to the crowd who would rip them to shreds. This was a band who wasn't really getting anywhere until the notoriety of the stage antics put them on the map.
Some hits:
- School's Out
- No More Mr. Nice Guy
- Go to Hell - (from Alice Cooper, once he went solo from the band Alice Cooper. Not confusing at all)
Van Halen
Another example of a band where today, the songs don't seem metal at all (and fit more in 90s alternative style possibly), but at the time, they were absolutely considered metal. They hit big with singer David Lee Roth from 1983 - 1986, and had continued success with Sammy Hagar in 1986-1996. This is a hot topic divide for some Van Halen fans - some consider the David Lee Roth Era as the "only" era, while others like Sammy better. One of the main things with the band is that Eddie Van Halen became the real star, with the release of "Eruption", a guitar only instrumental that featured double-tapping technique. This was not a new technique. In fact, I think there was video of Chuck Berry doing a little bit in his shows. But it was certainly the first to highlight, magnify, and popularize this technique. If you're not sure what this means, here's an explanation video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWAi39zz1G0
- Eruption - the double tapping starts around 0:55 in
- Jump - their first big hit, with 80s synth sounds
- Hot for Teacher - this is more metal, with the double-kick drumming and guitar distortions and fast licks
- Running with the Devil
Of course, one of Van Halen's biggest hits (especially in the Sammy Hagar years) is probably this song:
The video ended up winning the MTV "Video of the Year" award in 1992 (when it was released). Here's a behind the scenes article about the creation and the video:
Guns N' Roses
- Reckless Life - a very early song for Guns N'Roses.
- Welcome to the Jungle
- Sweet Child of Mine
and a rare acoustic, softer side:
Metallica
Metallica is the archetypal heavy metal band of the mid 1980-s and 1990s. They achieved success with 1988s ...And Justice for All. They definitely took metal to harder extremes from previous bands, but also ended up softening up a tiny little as they got older with Load and ReLoad, then got a bit more metal again with St. Anger. The album Load showed a bit more craftsmanship with the songs, and little more melodic consideration. The opening song from ReLoad was used at the beginning of NASCAR broadcasts for years, so it can't be that metal. But still, they kept those metal elements through their albums, even in a live show with the San Francisco Symphony! Let's hear some songs:
- ...And Justice for All
- One
- Nothing Else Matters
- The Unforgiven
- Enter Sandman
- Hero of the Day - from Load. The intro is quite restrained, but it builds to a double-kick drum head-banging chorus.
- Whisky in the Jar - old irish folk song, done Metallica style.
This post could go on, but we'd have a million listening examples. Bands left out of this post: Motley Crue, Twisted Sister, W.A.S.P., Quiet Riot, Queensryche, Ratt, Stained, Slipknot, Megadeath, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Whitesnake, Def Leppard, and more. This post also needs to deal with the metal fragmentation into thrash metal, speed metal, death metal, and nü metal.