I can assure you that not a single rock fan from my generation (teenagers during the '70s) ever considered Jethro Tull a heavy metal band. I'm aware of an absolutely misleading, pretended "guide to metal" written by a Scottish guy which included Jethro Tull ... and Manic Street Preachers ... among many other ridiculous names in that context, but that's all.
To anyone under the age of 50, the OP is probably correct. Granted, nobody under 35 cares one way or another.
Bands in the ‘70s like Black Sabbath, Scorpions, Rainbow, Judas Priest, UFO - heck, even AC/DC… were the real, golden age of heavy metal. In the ‘80s, when the genre split into hair metal and extreme thrash metal, it eventually killed heavy metal as a mainstream form of rock music. There are still a handful of bands that are very successful at a global level, Metallica, Iron Maiden etc - but hair metal has been rightfully regelated to the county fair circuit where it dies a slow death.
Yep, good point. Elvis would've been a better example than Berry, since early Stones had still a lot in common with him (Berry). But when I wrote it I had in mind a more modern Rolling Stones version (lets say, after they became Mick Jagger & the Stones ), albums like Voodoo Lounge which had nothing or little to do with early rock'n'roll. Nothing (or almost nothing) against them, by the way, just in case.
No.... they weren't. For the loveof God people.... the award was: "Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance Vocal or Instrumental" Does noone understand the meaning of the slash there? Not even the idiots at the Grammys tried to say Tull were metal. Let it go.
Oh look, another thread for everyone who doesn't listen to metal to show up and tell everyone what is and isn't metal. A few things: 1. Sabbath, Priest and Maiden will always be metal bands 2. Heavy =! Metal 3. A lot of bands casually referred to as metal over the years by the mainstream press and non-metal listeners were never metal to begin with
The terminology seems to be always evolving. ‘Heavy Metal’ these days is kind of viewed as a sub-genre of Metal that performs traditional sounding Metal. (Priest, NWOBHM-type bands etc)
Hey, I didn't see the tongue in cheek either (I didn't know about the 1989 Grammy). Sadly, the nonsense that can be found in the book I mentioned is 100% real and at face value ... I thought that you could probably be one of its victims.
Another way to look at it is Black Sabbath, Judas Priest and Iron Maiden are heavy metal. I think they all are. Led Zeppelin also. There is no way that Led Zeppelin I is not metal. It was as heavy as anything. EDIT: I realize that Led Zeppelin have moved out of the metal category in most record stores but at the time, they were metal. I think their acoustic music made people reassess them as regular rock.
Hard Rock is not a term I was particularly familiar with growing up in the 70's. We mostly called it Heavy Rock. Heavy Metal was also a known but lesser used term. As Heavy Metal has become more defined over the years I would say that Black Sabbath definitely fit the bill. I've listened to them quite a bit recently and they're kinda like the well-spring of where it all comes from. Yes it's more extreme these days, but it ain't that far removed. I don't rule out Zep either, but am happy to still call them Heavy Rock.
In the Illustrated New Musical Express Encyclopedia of Rock from 1976, in the Black Sabbath chapter, NME journalist Nick Logan wrote: " (...) although Black Sabbath remained unpopular with critics on both sides of the Atlantic, the band had established themselves as one of the earliest and most successful heavy metal exports from the UK. In the same book, in the Ritchie Blackmore chapter, Nick Logan wrote about Mr Blackmore that he was "the founder and guitarist of the heavy metal band Deep Purple". Writing further about Blackmore's then career outside of Deep Purple, Nick Logan wrote "(...) drummer Cozy Powell joins Rainbow mk II and that band immediately becomes very successful, blazing a trail in Europe and the US for standard heavy metal." The Uriah Heep chapter in the same book, Nick Logan begins with the sentence "One of those bands that shamelessly imitated the heavy metal style of Led Zeppelin, Uriah Heep were formed in 1970 and immediately met with unanimous rejection by rock critics - one American critic even wrote, "if this band gonna make it, I'll kill myself.". Well, I must point out here that, with all due respect to the author of the Illustrated NME Encyclopedia of Rock, I personally disagree with Mr Logan's assessment of the originality of Uriah Heep; on the contrary, I think that Uriah Heep was basically an even more original band than Led Zeppelin, but I quoted Mr Logan because of the use of the term "heavy metal", which the respected British rock-critic Nick Logan also used in his Led Zeppelin chapter, when he wrote in the first sentence that Led Zeppelin is the "definitive heavy metal / rock-combo". In the first sentence of the Blue Öyster Cult chapter in the same encyclopedia, Nick Logan says that BÖC are "generally regarded as America's premier heavy metal band". In the Ted Nugent chapter, Mr. Logan writes "at the time of the release of the single "Journey", the Amboy Dukes had already gone through several member changes (...), and their only constant was that, as the main attraction, they represented untamed, heavy metal acrobatics from the band-leader." Heartily recommended capital rock-book of mid-1970s:
Not a problem, I do like Jethro Tull, and heavy metal music, just don’t see how they could ever get a Grammy for the best heavy metal group. Ha!
Lets not forget Uriah Heep... my intro in 1970 to heavy metal with "...Very 'Eavy ...Very 'Umble" at the tender age of 10 Which strangely started me on my life long Blues obsession via their track "Lucy Blues" (which wasnt released on the US version). Amongst all the musical mayhem on that album was this song that totally blow my head apart and the rest is history Peter
Duke Ellington is jazz and Black Sabbath is heavy metal. I don't care what fans of Flying Lotus and Lamb Of God think.
Noted, but one journalist using it in 1976 isn’t conclusive. And certainly Zeppelin and Purple aren’t regarded as metal, although influential on it. Blue Oyster Cult?Metal? Really?
And you were doing so well until you had to get idiotic with the last sentence. I don't think the Motley/Def Leppard/Poison tour played in country fairs or perhaps you can prove me wrong.
I think the definition of the genre has changed for sure, but genres can do that - look at “R&B”, or even better the ultimate meaningless catch-all, “rock ‘n’ roll”. My take on what constitutes heavy metal these days is a certain level of aggression, tempo, and also music where you can no longer hear the original blues roots of the genre. If we take Judas Priest - “Painkiller” is absolutely heavy metal. “Living After Midnight”? Not so much. But yeah, no-one owns genre definitions and they’re nebulous at the best of times - probably to the majority of civilians, “heavy metal” means “music I don’t like with loud guitars”. It’s more aficionados that worry about the nuance.
I get where you're coming from Why only the other day I was listening to the Bay City Rollers and I realised that's it's not really the greatest music ever made, like I once thought* I still love it, but it no longer fits that category *When I was 5 years old For clarity, I genuinely still like the mighty Rollers..... When I was briefly married to the first wife in the 90's I spent roughly £200 on the first Japanese issues of their catalogue on CD The fact that I was shortly divorced soon after probably had nothing to do with it,..... or did it? Some might argue over what is the more foolish thing to do when you have barely hit 20, gettimg married or buying the entire Bay City Rollers discography on expensive import If you're interested, I still have those CD's and have never felt the need to upgrade them The current mrs, however, is a definite upgrade
You are right. Black Sabbath were a genre-defining band, Heavy Metal before the term was coined and widely used. Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin had a bunch of songs that in hindsight might qualify as heavy metal too, but not a whole album, even less their whole discographies. They were Heavy Rock bands. Regarding Hard Rock and Heavy Rock, as far as I understand those terms are just a matter of preference: Heavy Rock in UK and continental Europe and Hard Rock in the States and Canada. Like "Rock Pesado" in South America and "Rock Duro" in Spain.
