Heavy metal is a form of music characterised by aggressive, driving rhythms and highly amplified distorted guitars, generally with grandiose lyrics and virtuosic instrumentation. Aggression is defined as The act of initiating hostilities or invasion. ... Rhythm (Greek ρυθμός = tempo) is the variation of the duration of sounds or other events over time. ... Generally, amplification is a basic process sometimes seen in nature, and often used in processes which involve a signal which must be made stronger. ... In everyday speech, to distort something is to force it out of its natural shape. ... The classical guitar typically has 3 nylon and 3 nickel-wound strings. ... Lyrics are the written words in a song. ...

Heavy metal is a development of blues, blues rock and rock. Its origins lie in the hard rock bands who between 1967 and 1974 took blues and rock and created a hybrid with a heavy, guitar and drums centered sound. Heavy metal had its peak popularity in the 1980s, during which many of the now existing subgenres first evolved. Although not as commercially successful as it was then, heavy metal still has a large world-wide following. Psychedelic music draws its inspiration from the experience of mind-altering drugs such as cannabis, psilocybin, mescaline, ecstasy and especially LSD. Characteristic features of the style include modal melodies, lengthy instrumental solos, esoteric lyrics and trippy special effects such as reversed, distorted, delayed and/or phased sounds. ... The British blues is a type of blues music that originated in the late 1950s. ... Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s - 1960s - 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s Years: 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 Events and trends The 1960s was a turbulent decade of change around the world. ... The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a country in western Europe, and member of the Commonwealth of Nations, the G8, the European Union, and NATO. Usually known simply as the United Kingdom, the UK, or (inaccurately) as Great Britain or Britain, the UK has four constituent... A musical instrument is a device that has been constructed or modified with the purpose of making music. ... The classical guitar typically has 3 nylon and 3 nickel-wound strings. ... Fender Precision Bass Bass Guitar is a commonly spoken phrase used to refer to the electric bass and horizontal acoustic basses, a stringed instrument similar in design to the electric guitar, but larger in size, commonly fretted and sometimes fretless and with a lower range. ... For other kinds of drums, see drum (disambiguation). ... Since the forms development in the late 1960s, Heavy metal has spawned a number of often overlapping subgenres. ... Avant garde metal, sometimes called experimetal, is a subgenre of heavy metal characterized by large amounts of experimentation and by non-standard sounds, instruments, and song structures. ... Black metal is a musical genre, related to styles of heavy metal, such as death metal. ... Christian metal is a form of heavy metal music with explicitly Christian lyrics. ... Classic metal is a genre of heavy metal music which is characterized by thumping fast basslines, fast, but less heavy riffs, extended lead guitar solos, high pitched vocals and anthemic choruses. ... Cover of Stop at Nothing by Dying Fetus Death metal is a form of heavy metal music with thrash influences which emerged in the United States (especially Florida and California), Europe (especially the United Kingdom and Sweden) and Canada in the late 1980s and early 1990s. ... Doom metal is a form of heavy metal that emerged as a recognised subgenre in the mid-1980s. ... Folk metal is a sub-genre of heavy metal that incorporates elements of folk music. ... Goth metal (also called Gothic metal) is a crossover between doom metal, heavy metal music and goth music itself; although the term metal is debated by some who say very few elements of metal are present. ... Hair metal is a type of heavy metal music that arose in the late 1970s, in the United States, and was a strong force in popular music throughout the 1980s and early-1990s. ... Neo-classical metal is a subgenre of the heavy metal music heavily influenced by classical music. ... Power metal is a style of heavy metal music pioneered and largely practiced in Germany and Scandinavia. ... Progressive metal (prog metal) is a heavier brand of progressive rock (prog rock) which is distinguished by its typical drumming pattern and odd time signatures. ... Speed metal is a genre of heavy metal that is often mistaken for thrash metal but tends to be more melodic and less punk-oriented. ... Thrash metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music. ... Alternative metal is a branch of heavy metal music, characterized by some heavy metal trappings, but usually a pronounced experimental edge, including unconventional lyrics, odd tempo, unusual musical instruments or extended techniques. ... Napalm Death - Scum Grindcore is an extreme form of heavy metal related to death metal, but historically formed by combining elements of early thrash metal (which predated the advent of death metal) and the music and attitude of hardcore punk. ... Industrial music is a loose term for a number of different styles of electronic and experimental music. ... Spawned sometime during the 90s, metalcore is, as the name suggests, hardcore punk influenced by metal. ... Nu metal (or aggro metal) is a subgenre of heavy metal music. ... Stoner Metal and Sludge Metal are often used interchangeably, but some fans make distinctions: Sludge metal has more similarities with grindcore and hardcore punk. ... Rap metal is a musical genre that takes influence from both rap music and heavy metal music. ... The New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) emerged in the late 70s, in part a reaction to the contemporary decline of traditional heavy metal bands such as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath, all three of which had been submerged by a mixture of personal problems, tiredness and... Bay Area thrash metal was around in the 1980 to 1990, In the San Francisco Bay area. ... Black metal is a musical genre, related to styles of heavy metal, such as death metal. ... Heavy metal fashion refers to the fashion, clothing habits, and general appearance of heavy metal fans. ... This is a timeline of heavy metal or hard rock, from its beginnings in the late 60s to the present time. ... Alternative metal Arcturus Corrosion Of Conformity Dog Fashion Disco Faith No More Fantômas Fear Factory Helmet Mezzerschmitt Mr. ... A heavy metal umlaut is an umlaut over a letter in the name of a heavy metal band. ... Blues is a vocal and instrumental musical form which evolved from African American spirituals, shouts, work songs and chants and has its earliest stylistic roots in West Africa. ... Blues Rock or Blues-rock is a fusion genre of music which combines elements of the blues with rock and roll. ... Rock and roll (also spelled Rock n Roll, especially in its first decade), also called rock, is a form of popular music, usually featuring vocals (often with vocal harmony), electric guitars and a strong back beat; other instruments, such as the saxophone, are common in some styles. ... Hard rock is a form of rock and roll music that finds its closest roots in early 1960s garage rock. ... 1967 was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1967 calendar). ... 1974 is a common year starting on Tuesday (click on link for calendar). ... Events and trends The 1980s marked an abrupt shift towards more conservative lifestyles after the momentous cultural revolutions which took place in the 1960s and 1970s and the definition of the AIDS virus in 1981. ...

Early examples and influences

American blues music was highly popular and influential among the early British rockers; bands like the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds had recorded covers of many classic blues songs, sometimes speeding up the tempo and using electric guitar where the original used acoustic. (Similar adaptations of blues and other race music had formed the basis of the earliest rock and roll, notably that of Elvis Presley). The United States of America — also referred to as the United States, the U.S.A., the U.S., America, the States, or (archaically) Columbia—is a federal republic of 50 states located primarily in central North America (with the exception of two states: Alaska and Hawaii). ... Blues is a vocal and instrumental musical form which evolved from African American spirituals, shouts, work songs and chants and has its earliest stylistic roots in West Africa. ... The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a country in western Europe, and member of the Commonwealth of Nations, the G8, the European Union, and NATO. Usually known simply as the United Kingdom, the UK, or (inaccurately) as Great Britain or Britain, the UK has four constituent... For other uses, see Rolling Stones (disambiguation) The Rolling Stones in 1964 The Rolling Stones are a British rock and roll band who rose to prominence during the mid-1960s. ... The Yardbirds were an early British rock band, noted for spawning the careers of several of rock musics most famous guitarists, including Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page. ... In musical terminology, tempo (Italian for time) is the speed or pace of a given piece. ... An electric guitar is a type of guitar with a solid or semi-solid body that utilizes electromagnetic pickup (music)s to convert the vibration of the steel-cored strings into electrical current. ... An acoustic guitar is a modern form of guitar descended from the Classical guitar, but generally strung with steel strings for a brighter, louder sound. ... African American music (also called black music, formerly known as race music) is an umbrella term given to a range of musical genres emerging from or influenced by the culture of African Americans, who have long constituted a large ethnic minority of the population of the United States. ... Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), also known as The King of Rock and Roll, or as just simply The King, was an American singer who had an immeasurable effect on world culture. ...

Such powered-up blues music was encouraged by the intellectual and artistic experimentation that arose when musicians started to exploit the opportunities of the electrically amplified guitar to produce a louder, more discordant sound. Where blues-rock drumming styles had been largely simple shuffle beats on small drum kits, drummers began using a more muscular, complex, and amplified approach to match and be heard with the increasingly loud guitar sounds; similarly vocalists modified their technique and increased their reliance on amplification, often becoming more stylised and dramatic in the process. Simultaneous advances in amplification and recording technology made it possible to successfully capture the power of this heavier approach on record. An intellectual is a person who uses his or her intellect to study, reflect, and speculate on a variety of different ideas. ... In poetry, dissonance is the deliberate avoidance of patterns of repeated vowel sounds (see assonance). ...

The earliest music commonly identified as heavy metal came out of the Birmingham area of the United Kingdom in the late 1960s when bands such as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath applied an overtly non-traditional approach to blues standards and created new music often based on blues scales and arrangements. These bands were highly influenced by American psychedelic rock musicians including Jimi Hendrix, who had pioneered amplified and processed blues-rock guitar and acted as a bridge between black American music and white European rockers. The city from above Centenary Square. ... The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a country in western Europe, and member of the Commonwealth of Nations, the G8, the European Union, and NATO. Usually known simply as the United Kingdom, the UK, or (inaccurately) as Great Britain or Britain, the UK has four constituent... Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s - 1960s - 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s Years: 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 Events and trends The 1960s was a turbulent decade of change around the world. ... Led Zeppelin (clockwise from left: Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Bonham, John Paul Jones) Led Zeppelin was a British band noted for their innovative, influential approach to heavy blues-rock and as one of the most popular and influential bands of all time. ... From left to right, Bill Ward, Toni Iommi, Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler This article is about the British heavy metal band. ... The United States of America — also referred to as the United States, the U.S.A., the U.S., America, the States, or (archaically) Columbia—is a federal republic of 50 states located primarily in central North America (with the exception of two states: Alaska and Hawaii). ... Psychedelic music draws its inspiration from the experience of mind-altering drugs such as cannabis, psilocybin, mescaline, ecstasy and especially LSD. Characteristic features of the style include modal melodies, lengthy instrumental solos, esoteric lyrics and trippy special effects such as reversed, distorted, delayed and/or phased sounds. ... Jimi Hendrix James Marshall Jimi Hendrix (November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer, songwriter and producer who is widely considered to be the most important electric guitarist in the history of popular music. ...

Other oft-cited influences include Vanilla Fudge, who had slowed down and psychedelicised pop tunes, as well as earlier British rockers such as The Who and The Kinks, who had paved the way for heavy metal styles by introducing power chords and more aggressive percussion to the rock genre. Another key influence was Cream, who exemplified the power trio format that would become a staple of heavy metal. Some also cite The Beatles as a key influence; they had increasingly used distortion and heavier arrangements as early as 1967's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Vanilla Fudge was an American psychedelic rock band that recorded albums from 1967 to 1970. ... The Who is a British rock band. ... The Kinks, a British Invasion pop/rock band, were formed in London in 1963 by Dave Davies and Peter Quaife. ... In music, a power chord is an interval which serves the diatonic function of a major or minor chord. ... This article is about the 1960s rockband, Cream is also the name of a British nightclub. ... The power trio is a rock and roll format popularized in the 1960s. ... The Beatles (L-R, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, John Lennon), in 1964, performing on The Ed Sullivan Show during their first United States tour, promoting their first U.S. hit song, I Want To Hold Your Hand. ... 1967 was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1967 calendar). ... Sgt. ...

Perhaps the earliest song that is clearly identifiable as prototype heavy metal is "You Really Got Me" by The Kinks (1965). By late 1968 heavy blues sounds were becoming common: many fans and scholars point to Blue Cheer's 1968 cover of Eddie Cochran's hit "Summertime Blues" as the first true heavy-metal song; Beatles scholars cite in particular the song "Helter Skelter" from The White Album (1968), which set new standards for distortion and aggressive sound on a pop album. Dave Edmunds' band Love Sculpture released an aggressive heavy guitar version of Khachaturian's Sabre Dance in November 1968. The Jeff Beck Group's album Truth (late 1968) was an important and influential rock album released just before Led Zeppelin's first album, leading some (especially British blues fans) to argue that Truth was the first heavy metal album. However, it was the release of Led Zeppelin in 1969 that brought worldwide notice of the formation of a new genre. The Kinks, a British Invasion pop/rock band, were formed in London in 1963 by Dave Davies and Peter Quaife. ... 1965 was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1965 calendar). ... Blue Cheer was a San Francisco based power trio of the late 1960s. ... Eddie Cochran (October 3, 1938 – April 17, 1960) was an early American rockabilly musician. ... Summertime Blues is a classic and often-covered garage-band song about the trials and tribulations of teenage life in America. ... This article is about the Beatles song. ... The self-titled double album The Beatles, released by the Beatles in 1968 at the height of their popularity, is often hailed as one of the major accomplishments in popular music. ... 1968 was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1968 calendar). ... Dave Edmunds (born April 15, 1944) came out of Cardiff, Wales in the late 1960s, fronting a band called Love Sculpture who were playing blues and rocked up classical pieces. ... Aram Ilich Khachaturian (Armenian: Արամ Խաչատրյան, Russian: Аpaм Ильич Xaчaтypян) (June 6, 1903 – May 1, 1978) was a composer of classical music. ... This article is about the dance involving swords - for the uncontrollable upward movement of the F-86 Sabre: see Sabre dance The Sabre Dance is a movement in the final act of Aram Khachaturians ballet Gayane, completed in 1942. ... November is the eleventh month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of four Gregorian months with the length of 30 days. ... 1968 was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1968 calendar). ... The electric guitarist Jeff Beck (born June 24, 1944) is a British rock musician who played in a number of influential bands in the 1960s. ... Led Zeppelin (clockwise from left: Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Bonham, John Paul Jones) Led Zeppelin was a British band noted for their innovative, influential approach to heavy blues-rock and as one of the most popular and influential bands of all time. ... Led Zeppelin, released on January 12, 1969 (see 1969 in music), was the first album by the British blues/rock band Led Zeppelin. ...

The early heavy metal bands, like Led Zeppelin, Uriah Heep, UFO and Black Sabbath are often called hard rock bands rather than heavy metal, especially those bands whose sound was more similar to traditional rock music. In general, the terms heavy metal and hard rock are often used interchangeably, in particular when discussing the 1970s. Many people, including Heavy Metal musicians of prominent groups, believe that the foundations of the definitve style and sound of pure heavy metal were laid down by Judas Priest (another Birmingham band) with three of their early albums: "Sad Wings Of Destiny" (1976), "Sin After Sin" (1977) and "Stained Class" (1978). Led Zeppelin (clockwise from left: Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Bonham, John Paul Jones) Led Zeppelin was a British band noted for their innovative, influential approach to heavy blues-rock and as one of the most popular and influential bands of all time. ... See Uriah Heep (band) for the musical group. ... This article is about the rock band. ... From left to right, Bill Ward, Toni Iommi, Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler This article is about the British heavy metal band. ... Hard rock is a form of rock and roll music that finds its closest roots in early 1960s garage rock. ... Events and trends Although in the United States and in many other Western societies the 1970s are often seen as a period of transition between the turbulent 1960s and the more conservative 1980s and 1990s, many of the trends that are associated widely with the Sixties, from the Sexual Revolution... Judas Priest is a hugely influential heavy metal band formed in 1969 in Birmingham, England. ...

Origins of "heavy metal"

Cover from Led Zeppelin. The album greatly influenced many heavy metal musicians

The origin of the term heavy metal is uncertain. An early use of the term was by counter-culture writer William S. Burroughs. In his 1962 novel The Soft Machine, he introduces the character "Uranian Willy, the Heavy Metal Kid". His next novel in 1964 Nova Express, develops this theme further, heavy metal being a metaphor for addictive drugs. Cover of the Led Zeppelin album, Led Zeppelin. ... Led Zeppelin, released on January 12, 1969 (see 1969 in music), was the first album by the British blues/rock band Led Zeppelin. ... William S. Burroughs William Seward Burroughs (February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American novelist, essayist, social critic and spoken word performer. ... 1962 was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1964 was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ...

"With their diseases and orgasm drugs and their sexless parasite life forms - Heavy Metal People of Uranus wrapped in cool blue mist of vaporized bank notes - And the Insect People of Minraud with metal music"

Burroughs, William S, (1964). Nova Express. New York: Grove Press. p. 112

Given the publication dates of these works it is unlikely that Burroughs had any intent to relate the term to rock music; however Burroughs' writing may have influenced later usage of the term. William S. Burroughs. ...

The first use of the term "heavy metal" in a song lyric is the words "heavy metal thunder" in the 1968 Steppenwolf song "Born to be Wild" (Walser 1993, p. 8): 1968 was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1968 calendar). ... Steppenwolf is a 1960s and 1970s rock & roll band, best known for the hits Born to Be Wild and Magic Carpet Ride. They were named after the novel Steppenwolf by German author Hermann Hesse. ...

"I like smoke and lightning
Heavy metal thunder
Racin' with the wind
And the feelin' that I'm under"

The word "heavy" (meaning serious or profound) had entered beatnik/counterculture slang some time earlier, and references to "heavy music"—typically slower, more amplified variations of standard pop fare—were already common; indeed, Iron Butterfly first started playing Los Angeles in 1967, their name explained on an album cover, "Iron- symbolic of something heavy as in sound, Butterfly- light, appealing and versatile...an object that can be used freely in the imagination" Iron Butterfly's 1968 debut album was entitled Heavy. The fact that Led Zeppelin (whose moniker came partly in reference to Keith Moon's jest that they would "go down like a lead balloon") incorporated a heavy metal into its name may have sealed the usage of the term. Beatnik can refer to two different things: A pejorative term for a member of the Beat Generation An esoteric programming language This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... In sociology, counterculture is a term used to describe a cultural group whose values and norms are at odds with those of the social mainstream. ... Slang is the non-standard use of words in a language of a particular social group, and sometimes the creation of new words or importation of words from another language. ... Iron Butterfly was a U.S. hard rock and psychedelic band, mostly known for their sole hit In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. Their heyday was the late 1960s, but the band has reincarnated several times with various members. ... This article is about the largest city in California. ... The term heavy can mean several things: Heavy, an adjective used to describe the property of having much weight Heavy, a 1995 film Heavy, a term to describe a jumbo jet for purposes of air traffic control. ... Led Zeppelin (clockwise from left: Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Bonham, John Paul Jones) Led Zeppelin was a British band noted for their innovative, influential approach to heavy blues-rock and as one of the most popular and influential bands of all time. ... Keith John Moon (August 23, 1946 - September 7, 1978) was the drummer of the rock group The Who. ...

In the late 1960s, Birmingham, England was still a centre of industry and (given the many rock bands that evolved in and around the city, such as Led Zeppelin, The Move, and Black Sabbath) some people suggest that the term Heavy Metal may have some relation to such activity. Biographies of The Move have claimed that the sound came from their 'heavy' guitar riffs that were popular amongst the 'metal midlands'. See also Birmingham, USA, and other places called Birmingham. ... The Move is a 1960s rock music band from Birmingham, England, led by singer and songwriter Roy Wood. ... From left to right, Bill Ward, Toni Iommi, Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler This article is about the British heavy metal band. ...

Sandy Pearlman, original producer, manager and songwriter for the Blue Öyster Cult, claims to have been the first person to apply the term "heavy metal" to rock music in 1970. Sandy Pearlman was the original producer, manager and a songwriter for the Blue Öyster Cult. ... Blue Öyster Cult - Wikipedia /**/ @import /skins/monobook/IE50Fixes. ... 1970 was a common year starting on Thursday. ...

A widespread but disputed hypothesis about the origin of the genre was brought forth by "Chas" Chandler, who was a manager of the Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1969, in an interview on the PBS TV programme "Rock and Roll" in 1995. He states that "...it [heavy metal] was a term originated in a New York Times article reviewing a Jimi Hendrix performance", and claims the author described the Jimi Hendrix Experience "...like listening to heavy metal falling from the sky". The precise source of this claim, however, has not been found and its accuracy is disputed.

The first well-documented usage of the term "heavy metal" referring to a style of music, appears to be the May 1971 issue of Creem, in a review of Sir Lord Baltimore's Kingdom Come. In this review we are told that "Sir Lord Baltimore seems to have down pat most all the best heavy metal tricks in the book".

Regardless of its origin, heavy metal may have been used as a jibe initially but was quickly adopted by its adherents. Other, already-established bands, such as Deep Purple, who had origins in pop or progressive rock, immediately took on the heavy metal mantle, adding distortion and additional amplification in a more aggressive approach. Deep Purple was the biggest hit written by pianist Peter De Rose (1900—1953), who broadcast, 1923 to 1939, with May Singhi as The Sweethearts of the Air on the NBC radio network. ... The progressive rock band Yes performing in 1977. ...

History

The 1970s history of heavy metal music is highly debated among music historians. Some would call the period an era of "selling-out", in which bands like Blue Öyster Cult achieved moderate mainstream success and the Los Angeles hair metal scene began finding pop audiences, especially in the 1980s. Others ignore or downplay the importance of these bands, instead focusing on the arrival of classical influences, which can be heard in the work of Eddie Van Halen and Randy Rhoads and such like. Others still highlight the late-70s cross-fertilization of heavy metal with fast-paced, youthful punk rock (e.g. Sex Pistols), culminating in the New Wave of British Heavy Metal around the year 1980, led by bands like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. In the 1980s and onwards, heavy metal further spawned a host of new "metal" genres such as death metal. Selling out is a common slang phrase. ... Blue Öyster Cult - Wikipedia /**/ @import /skins/monobook/IE50Fixes. ... Griffith Observatory and the Downtown Los Angeles skyline. ... Hair metal is a type of heavy metal music that arose in the late 1970s, in the United States, and was a strong force in popular music throughout the 1980s and early-1990s. ... Events and trends The 1980s marked an abrupt shift towards more conservative lifestyles after the momentous cultural revolutions which took place in the 1960s and 1970s and the definition of the AIDS virus in 1981. ... Edward Lodewijk Van Halen, generally known as Eddie Van Halen, (born January 26, 1955 in Nijmegen, Netherlands,) is a virtuoso guitarist, classically-trained pianist, and founding member of the hard rock band Van Halen. ... Randy Rhoads (December 6, 1956-March 19, 1982) was a songwriter and guitarist with Quiet Riot and Ozzy Osbourne. ... Punk rock is an anti-establishment music movement beginning around 1976 (although precursors can be found several years earlier), exemplified and popularised by The Ramones, the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned. ... Left to right: Sid Vicious, Johnny Rotten, and Steve Jones, with drummer Paul Cook in the background. ... The New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) emerged in the late 70s, in part a reaction to the contemporary decline of traditional heavy metal bands such as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath, all three of which had been submerged by a mixture of personal problems, tiredness and... Judas Priest is a hugely influential heavy metal band formed in 1969 in Birmingham, England. ... Iron maiden is also the name for a torture device. ... Cover of Stop at Nothing by Dying Fetus Death metal is a form of heavy metal music with thrash influences which emerged in the United States (especially Florida and California), Europe (especially the United Kingdom and Sweden) and Canada in the late 1980s and early 1990s. ...

The explosion of guitar virtuosity (pioneered by Jimi Hendrix a musical generation earlier) was brought to the fore by Eddie Van Halen, and many consider his 1978 solo "Eruption" (Van Halen, 1978) a milestone. Ritchie Blackmore (formerly of Deep Purple), Randy Rhoads (with pioneers Ozzy Osbourne and Quiet Riot) and Yngwie Malmsteen went on to solidify this explosion of virtuoso guitar work, and in some cases, classical guitars and nylon-stringed guitars were played at heavy metal concerts. Classical icons such as Liona Boyd also became associated with the heavy metal stars as peers in a newly diverse guitar fraternity where conservative and aggressive guitarists could come together to "trade licks". Cover of the Van Halen album Van Halen. ... Van Halen is the self-titled debut album by American hard rock band Van Halen, released in 1978 (see 1978 in music). ... Events January January 1 - The Copyright Act of 1976 takes effect, making sweeping changes to United States copyright law. ... Richard Harold Blackmore, (born April 14, 1945) is a noted British guitarist. ... Randy Rhoads (December 6, 1956-March 19, 1982) was a songwriter and guitarist with Quiet Riot and Ozzy Osbourne. ... Yngwie J. Malmsteen (born Lars Johan Yngve Lannerbäck, June 30, 1963) is a guitarist from Sweden who achieved widespread acclaim in the 1980s due to his technical proficiency and fusion of classical music elements with heavy rock guitar. ... Liona Maria Carolynne Boyd was born in London, England on July 11, 1949, but moved to Canada at the age of eight. ...

This explosion would cool down in the music of Ronnie James Dio (who himself had a tenure at lead vocals with the legendary Black Sabbath) and continue to settle towards Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, who may be the final and complete consummation of "pure" heavy metal in the lineage of the "grandfathers" - Hendrix, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple. After Iron Maiden, metal would push the limits of aggressive loudness in thrash metal, speed metal, black metal and death metal. Ronnie James Dio on the cover of his band Dios 1997 compilation Anthology Ronnie James Dio (born Ronald James Padovana, July 10, 1942 (year unconfirmed)) is a Heavy Metal vocalist who has performed with Black Sabbath, Ritchie Blackmores Rainbow, and his own band Dio. ... Judas Priest is a hugely influential heavy metal band formed in 1969 in Birmingham, England. ... Iron maiden is also the name for a torture device. ... Thrash metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music. ... Speed metal is a genre of heavy metal that is often mistaken for thrash metal but tends to be more melodic and less punk-oriented. ... Black metal is a musical genre, related to styles of heavy metal, such as death metal. ... Cover of Stop at Nothing by Dying Fetus Death metal is a form of heavy metal music with thrash influences which emerged in the United States (especially Florida and California), Europe (especially the United Kingdom and Sweden) and Canada in the late 1980s and early 1990s. ...

In a separate development, taking place mostly in the U.S., heavy metal would return full circle through the pop vanity of the L.A. scene, led by Mötley Crüe. During the 1980s, a pop-based form of hard-rocking heavy metal (sometimes referred to as "hair metal" due to the long, curled hair of band members) dominated the music charts in some parts of the world, and superstars like Guns N' Roses, Def Leppard, Poison, Mötley Crüe, and Ratt helped lead the way. While their music has endured as representative of a particular view, time and place, this form is not always seen by metal purists as a particularly pure or well-executed form of metal. Grunge music appeared as a popularised endpoint of the punk rock-influenced alternative rock music of the 1990s which fought any mainstream influence (seen as "selling out") articularly reacted against overly-aggressive and increasingly formulaic hair metal bands from Ratt to Extreme. Grunge evolved out of Seattle in the work of Alice In Chains, Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. Cover of the Slayer album Reign in Blood. ... -1... Grunge music (sometimes also referred to as the Seattle Sound) is an independent-rooted music genre that became a commercially successful offshoot of hardcore punk, thrash metal, and alternative rock in the late 1980s and early 1990s. ... The term alternative rock or alternative music1 was coined in the early 1980s to describe bands which didnt fit into the mainstream genres of the time. ... Ratt was a 1980s Los Angeles metal band, originally formed in the 1970s as Mickey Ratt by vocalist Stephen Pearcy, guitarist Jake E. Lee, bassist Matt Thorr, guitarist Chris Hagar (no relation to Sammy Hagar) & drummer John Turner. ... See also Extreme value, Extreme sports, Extremophile Extreme was an American funk metal / hard rock band which achieved popularity in the late 1980s and early 1990s. ... The band Alice in Chains Alice in Chains, initially formed by lead singer Layne Staley (1967-2002) in the mid 1980s as Alice N Chains, was, along with Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, one of the most commercially successful bands to break out of the Seattle, Washington grunge scene. ... This article is about the 1980s-1990s grunge band Nirvana. ... Pearl Jam was one of the most popular bands of the grunge music era in the early 1990s. ... Soundgarden was a seminal Seattle rock band instrumental in creating the sound that came to be called grunge. ...

Cover versions of classic rock songs would become a standard part of many metal bands' repertoire. Notable is Mötley Crüe's version of "Helter Skelter" which very strongly brings to the fore the heavy metal undertones implied in the Beatles song. In pop music a cover version is a new rendition of a previously recorded song. ... The Beatles (L-R, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, John Lennon), in 1964, performing on The Ed Sullivan Show during their first United States tour, promoting their first U.S. hit song, I Want To Hold Your Hand. ...

An important element to be remembered is that heavy metal is considered by many to be primarily white, in opposition to the blues-based rock which derives from African-American music. This only means that the majority of the audience and the players are white. There are, however, examples of bands that have broken this mold -- Thin Lizzy's Phil Lynott, Living Colour and Suffocation are three examples, and the audiences can be quite mixed. Thin Lizzy was a hard rock/proto-heavy metal band, formed in Dublin by Birmingham born bassist and singer Phil Lynott in the late sixties. ... Philip Parris Lynott (20 August 1949 - 4 January 1986) was born to a Brazilian father and an Irish mother, in Birmingham, England and brought up in Ireland by his grandmother. ... Living Colour is a hard rock group formed in New York city in 1983. ... Suffocation, easily the most plagiarised death metal band, fused the predominant rhythmic styles of death and speed metal with grindcore song constructions to start a new subgenre of music, that of Death-Grind (death metal + grindcore). ...

Instrumentation

The most commonly used line-up for metal is: a drummer, sometimes using a double bass-drum, a bass guitar, a rhythm guitar, a lead guitar (in early metal bands a single guitarist often sufficed -- see power trio), and a singer (who is sometimes also one of the instrumentalists); sometimes a keyboard player can also be found. Guitar playing is very important in heavy metal. Amplification of guitars, as well as innovative effects and electronic processing is used to thicken the sound. The result was a simple yet powerful impact (although some of the original heavy metallers joked that their simplified sound was more the result of limited ability than of innovation.). A drummer is a musician who plays the drums, particularly the drum kit, marching percussion, or hand drums. ... Fender Precision Bass Bass Guitar is a commonly spoken phrase used to refer to the electric bass and horizontal acoustic basses, a stringed instrument similar in design to the electric guitar, but larger in size, commonly fretted and sometimes fretless and with a lower range. ... Rhythm guitar is the role of the guitar in playing accompaniment in various musical styles. ... Lead guitar refers to a role within a popular music band, especially a rock band, that provides melody, as opposed to the rhythm of the rhythm guitar, bass, and drums. ... The power trio is a rock and roll format popularized in the 1960s. ...

There is a great variety of ways that heavy metal singers sing, from mid-range clean vocals to a high-pitched wail to a deep growl. The black and death metal scene tend to use distorted and guttural voices called death grunts (as exemplified by the Florida band Death). Generally, it is hard to understand what the singer is "singing". Often, the text is considered to be too crude to be spoken out clearly (such as in Cannibal Corpse), but there are some bands that will have very good lyrics obscured by the style of the singing. The death grunt (also called death growl or death vocals or, derisively, Cookie Monster vocals) is a vocal style typically employed by death metal and grindcore bands. ... Death from the Individual Thought Patterns CD-sleeve Death was an influential death metal band from America. ... Cannibal Corpse Cannibal Corpse is a United States death metal band, noted for its controversial and ultra-violent lyrics and imagery, founded in 1988 by Chris Barnes, Bob Rusay, Jack Owen, Alex Webster and Paul Mazurkiewicz. ...

Intricate solos and riffs are a big part of heavy metal music. Guitarists use sweep-picking, tapping and similar techniques to obtain amazing fast playing. Heavy metal is not limited, however, to the standard outfit of guitars and drums. The Finnish cello quartet, Apocalyptica, has created their own version of heavy metal, difficult to categorise but leaning towards the darker side of metal. They apply various familiar effects to their sounds such as the all-familiar distortion, chorusing, flanging, etc. to create their style, which has fallen under a mixed assortment of applause and criticism due to their deviance. Sweep-picking is a guitar technique that involves playing one note per string, moving the picking hand in a smooth fashion, in a single up- or down-stroke (rather than using alternate picking) while lifting the fingers of the fret hand to dampen the note. ... Tapping is a playing technique (generally associated with electric guitar playing, though the technique can be performed on any string instrument) executed by using the fingers of the picking hand to tap the fingerboard, sounding notes. ... Finnish music band of three (formerly four) classically educated cellists. ...

The American band Grand Funk Railroad was one of the early proto-heavy metal bands (along with The Who, etc.) who set new benchmarks for volume levels during shows. The volume of the music was seen as the important factor rather than its musical qualities; though this influence is often denigrated as pointless extravagance, it has proven enormously influential and still dominates many people's perceptions of the genre. Motörhead and Manowar are more recent examples of bands that pride themselves of keeping the volume very high (cf. Manowar's 1984 song "All Men Play On Ten"). Grand Funk Railroad was an American Rock and Roll band in the 1970s, originally from Flint, Michigan. ... The Who is a British rock band. ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... Manowar Members Manowar is an American heavy metal band from Auburn, New York, which formed in 1980. ...

Themes

Heavy metal, as an art form, is more than just music; it is as much visual as it is audible. Album covers and stage shows are almost as important to the presentation of the material as the music itself. Thus, through heavy metal, many artists collaborate to produce a menu of experiences in each piece, offering a wider range of experiences to the audience. In this respect, heavy metal becomes perhaps more of a diverse art form than any single form dominated by one method of expression. Whereas a painting is experienced visually, a symphony experienced audibly, a heavy metal band's "image" and the common theme that binds all their music is expressed in the artwork on the album, the set of the stage, the tone of the lyrics, in addition to the sound of the music.

Rock historians tend to find that the influence of Western pop music gives heavy metal its escape-from-reality fantasy side, as an escape from reality through outlandish and fantastic lyrics, while African-American blues gives heavy metal its naked reality side, focusing on loss, depression and loneliness.

If the audio, and thematic components of heavy metal are predominantly blues-influenced reality, then the visual component is predominantly pop-influenced fantasy. The themes of darkness, evil, power, and apocalypse are fantastic language components for addressing the reality of life's problems. Further, in reaction to the "peace and love" hippie culture of the 1960s, heavy metal developed as a counterculture, where light is supplanted by darkness, and the happy ending of pop is replaced by the naked reality that things do not always work out in this world. Whilst fans claim that the medium of darkness is not the message, critics have accused the genre of glorifying the negative aspects of reality. Cover of the Guns N Roses album Appetite for Destruction. ... Hippies (singular hippie or sometimes hippy) were members of the 1960s counterculture movement who adopted a communal or nomadic lifestyle, renounced corporate nationalism and the Vietnam War, embraced aspects of Buddhism, Hinduism, and/or Native American religious culture, and were otherwise at odds with traditional middle class Western values. ... In sociology, counterculture is a term used to describe a cultural group whose values and norms are at odds with those of the social mainstream. ...

Heavy metal themes are typically more grave than the generally airy pop from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, focusing on war, nuclear annihilation, environmental issues, political and religious propaganda. Black Sabbath's "War Pigs", Ozzy Osbourne's "Killer of Giants" and Metallica's "...And Justice for All" are examples of serious contributions to the discussion of the state of affairs. The commentary on reality sometimes tends to become over-simplified because the fantastic poetic vocabulary of heavy metal deals primarily with very clear dichotomies of light and dark, hope and despair, good and evil, which do not make much room for complex shades of grey. From left to right, Bill Ward, Toni Iommi, Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler This article is about the British heavy metal band. ... John Michael Osbourne (born December 3, 1948, in Aston, a suburb of Birmingham, West Midlands, England), better known as Ozzy Osbourne, was the lead singer of the rock band Black Sabbath and later a popular solo artist and reality television star. ... Old logo as used in Master Of Puppets Metallica is an American heavy metal band active from the 1980s to the 2000s. ...

Some might differentiate by observing that pure heavy metal does not generally sing about love, while many hair metal songs are focused on love. In some respects, one might argue that the hair metal scene of the 1980s was the logical endpoint of the glitter or glam rock movement of the 1970s; the visual similarities between the two, with the make-up and fanciful costumes, makes the argument more compelling. Glitter rock, however, was lyrically focused on sexual ambiguity, free expression and individuality, while hair metal was unambiguously macho and heterosexual, with little room for diversity of political or social opinions. Ultimately, "pure" heavy metal would position itself at the periphery of pop culture, never quite at centre, and metal denizens contend that the move towards the centre was a commercialism that compromised both the artistic integrity of the form and the opportunity for messages to be taken seriously. Cover of the Metallica album Kill Em All. ...

Classical influence

The appropriation of classical music by heavy metal typically includes the influence of Bach and Paganini rather than Mozart or Franz Liszt. Though Deep Purple/Rainbow guitarist Ritchie Blackmore had been experimenting with musical figurations borrowed from classical music since the early 1970s, Edward Van Halen's solo cadenza "Eruption" (released on Van Halen's first album in 1978) marks an important moment in the development of virtuosity in metal. Following Van Halen, the "classical" influence in metal guitar during the 1980s actually looked to the early eigtheenth century for its model of speed and technique. Indeed, the late Baroque era of western art music was also frequently interpreted through a gothic lens. For example, "Mr. Crowley," (1981) by Ozzy Osbourne and guitarist Randy Rhoads, uses both a pipe organ and Baroque-inspired guitar solos to create a particular mood for Osbourne's lyrics on the legendary occultist Aleister Crowley. Like many other metal guitarists in the 1980s, Rhoads quite earnestly took up the "learned" study of musical theory and helped to solidify the minor industry of guitar pedagogy magazines (such as Guitar for the Practicing Musician) that grew up during the decade. In most instances, however, metal musicians who borrowed the technique and rhetoric of art music were not attempting to be classical musicians. (An exception can arguably be found in Yngwie Malmsteen, though many argue that his music relies more on virtuosity and the use of classical-sounding elements such as the harmonic minor scale to appear classical without actually being classical). Cover of the Ozzy Osbourne album Blizzard of Ozz. ... Johann Sebastian Bach, 1748 portrait by Elias Gottlob Haussmann Johann Sebastian Bach (March 21, 1685[1] (O.S.) – July 28, 1750[2] (N.S.)) was a German composer and organist of the Baroque period, and is universally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time. ... Niccolò Paganini Niccolò Paganini, (Genoa, October 27, 1782 - Nice, May 27, 1840) was a violinist and composer. ... Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (January 27, 1756 – December 5, 1791) was one of the most significant and influential of all composers of Western classical music. ... Franz Liszt (October 22, 1811 – July 31, 1886) was a virtuoso pianist and composer. ... Deep Purple was the biggest hit written by pianist Peter De Rose (1900—1953), who broadcast, 1923 to 1939, with May Singhi as The Sweethearts of the Air on the NBC radio network. ... Rainbow is a British hard rock band that formed in 1974. ... Richard Harold Blackmore, (born April 14, 1945) is a noted British guitarist. ... Edward Lodewijk Van Halen, generally known as Eddie Van Halen, (born January 26, 1955 in Nijmegen, Netherlands,) is a virtuoso guitarist, classically-trained pianist, and founding member of the hard rock band Van Halen. ... Van Halen is a United States hard rock band named after the guitarist Eddie Van Halen and his brother drummer Alex Van Halen. ... Baroque music is Western classical music from the Baroque era, after the Renaissance music era and before the Classical music era proper. ... The gothic novel is an English literary genre, which can be said to have been born with The Castle of Otranto (1764) by Horace Walpole. ... John Michael Osbourne (born December 3, 1948, in Aston, a suburb of Birmingham, West Midlands, England), better known as Ozzy Osbourne, was the lead singer of the rock band Black Sabbath and later a popular solo artist and reality television star. ... Randy Rhoads (December 6, 1956-March 19, 1982) was a songwriter and guitarist with Quiet Riot and Ozzy Osbourne. ... This article or section should be merged with Organ (music) The Casavant pipe organ at Notre-Dame de Montréal Basilica, Montreal. ... Adoration, by Peter Paul Rubens: dynamic figures spiral down around a void: draperies blow: a whirl of movement lit in a shaft of light, rendered in a free bravura handling of paint The Baroque was a style in art that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce... Aleister Crowley Aleister Crowley ( 12 October 1875 – 1 December 1947) was a British occultist, mystic, writer, poet, astrologer, sexual revolutionary, painter, mountain climber, and social critic. ... Music theory is a set of systems for analyzing, classifying, and composing music and the elements of music. ... Yngwie J. Malmsteen (born Lars Johan Yngve Lannerbäck, June 30, 1963) is a guitarist from Sweden who achieved widespread acclaim in the 1980s due to his technical proficiency and fusion of classical music elements with heavy rock guitar. ...

The Encarta encyclopedia claims that "when a text was associated with the music, Bach could write musical equivalents of verbal ideas". As heavy metal uses apocalyptic themes and images of power and darkness, the ability to translate verbal ideas into musical ideas that successfully convey the ideas of the words is critical to heavy metal authenticity and credibility. An excellent example of this is the theme album Powerslave, by Iron Maiden. The cover is of a dramatic Egyptian pyramid scene, and many of the songs on the album have subject matter that requires a sound suggestive of life and death, including a song entitled "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", based on the poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Iron Maiden - Powerslave album cover Used on Wikipedia under fair use guidelines: Low resolution copy of the album cover 223x222 RedWolf 07:35, Aug 19, 2004 (UTC) This is an album cover. ... Encarta Dictionary Technology (to be written) Encarta made use of various Microsoft technologies. ... Powerslave is a studio album by the heavy metal band Iron Maiden, released in 1984. ... Illustration by Gustav Dore. ... This page is about the nineteenth century English poet. ...

Key artists

The above discussion of the history of heavy metal, from its 1960s precursors to the proliferation of heavy metal sub-genres of the late 1980s, can be summarised in the following key artists from three main waves of bands that to a large extent came out of Britain:

1. influential rock bands like The Beatles, The Who and The Rolling Stones in the 1960s;
2. "early" heavy metal exemplified by Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and KISS in the early and mid 1970s; and
3. the New Wave of British Heavy Metal pioneered most successfully by Iron Maiden and Judas Priest in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Importantly, it was this last generation of metal musicians who first self-consciously marketed themselves as "heavy metal" bands. By the mid-1980s, as the term "heavy metal" became the subject of much contestation, heavy metal had branched out in so many different directions that new sub-classifications were created by fans, record companies, and fanzines, although sometimes the differences between various sub-genres were unclear, even to the artists purportedly belonging to a given style (see List of heavy metal genres). Notable early 80s sub-genres where the overarching term "heavy metal" is occasionally still in use include the faster thrash metal, pioneered by the 'Big Four Of Thrash' (including Anthrax, Megadeth, Metallica and Slayer, with San Francisco quintet Testament sometimes being included in this group), and a hard-edged form of pop-metal (sometimes categorised pejoratively by purists as hair metal), from bands like Guns N' Roses and Def Leppard that brought pop-friendly music to mainstream audiences (to a mix of critical acclaim, mainstream popularity and purist disavowal). The Beatles (L-R, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, John Lennon), in 1964, performing on The Ed Sullivan Show during their first United States tour, promoting their first U.S. hit song, I Want To Hold Your Hand. ... The Who is a British rock band. ... For other uses, see Rolling Stones (disambiguation) The Rolling Stones in 1964 The Rolling Stones are a British rock and roll band who rose to prominence during the mid-1960s. ... Led Zeppelin (clockwise from left: Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Bonham, John Paul Jones) Led Zeppelin was a British band noted for their innovative, influential approach to heavy blues-rock and as one of the most popular and influential bands of all time. ... From left to right, Bill Ward, Toni Iommi, Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler This article is about the British heavy metal band. ... Deep Purple was the biggest hit written by pianist Peter De Rose (1900—1953), who broadcast, 1923 to 1939, with May Singhi as The Sweethearts of the Air on the NBC radio network. ... KISS is a New York City-based heavy metal band that became famous in the mid 1970s. ... The New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) emerged in the late 70s, in part a reaction to the contemporary decline of traditional heavy metal bands such as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath, all three of which had been submerged by a mixture of personal problems, tiredness and... Iron maiden is also the name for a torture device. ... Judas Priest is a hugely influential heavy metal band formed in 1969 in Birmingham, England. ... Since the forms development in the late 1960s, Heavy metal has spawned a number of often overlapping subgenres. ... Thrash metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music. ... The Big Four of Thrash are four influential Thrash metal bands that are often considered to be the best, most commercially successful, and influential Thrash metal bands. ... Anthrax bacteria. ... Megadeth is an American thrash metal band led by Dave Mustaine. ... Old logo as used in Master Of Puppets Metallica is an American heavy metal band active from the 1980s to the 2000s. ... This article is about the Thrash metal band. ... Testament is a thrash metal music group from California. ... Hair metal is a type of heavy metal music that arose in the late 1970s, in the United States, and was a strong force in popular music throughout the 1980s and early-1990s. ... The original lne-up of Guns N Roses. ... Def Leppard. ...

Later styles of heavy rock music in the 1990s, such as grunge (the typical example being Seattle's Nirvana), show influences of heavy metal but are typically not labelled sub-genres of heavy metal, as opposed to thrash metal and hair metal. The general absence of virtuosic guitar solos is perhaps one reason grunge bands haven't been considered heavy metal bands. Later work by Megadeth, combined the relentless, speedy thrash metal riffs with the fancy guitar soloing of classic metal ala Judas Priest. Cover of the Black Sabbath album Paranoid. ... Grunge music (sometimes also referred to as the Seattle Sound) is an independent-rooted music genre that became a commercially successful offshoot of hardcore punk, thrash metal, and alternative rock in the late 1980s and early 1990s. ... This article is about the 1980s-1990s grunge band Nirvana. ... Megadeth is an American thrash metal band led by Dave Mustaine. ... Thrash metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music. ... Classic metal is a genre of heavy metal music which is characterized by thumping fast basslines, fast, but less heavy riffs, extended lead guitar solos, high pitched vocals and anthemic choruses. ... Judas Priest is a hugely influential heavy metal band formed in 1969 in Birmingham, England. ...

Quiet Riot Metal Health album cover This is an album cover. ...

Cultural impact

The loud, confrontational aspects of heavy metal have led to friction between fans and mainstream society in many countries. Due to the hedonistic nature promoted by the music and its occasional anti-religious sentiments heavy metal as a sub-culture has come under attack in many Islamic countries where even wearing a black T-shirt can be an arrestable offence. In Europe and America, the fan base for heavy metal consists primarily of young white males, many of whom are attracted to heavy metal's overtly anti-social yet fantastical lyrics and extreme volume and tempos. Hence, the stereotype of the spotty-faced, adolescent headbanger venting his rebellious urges by listening to presposterously loud, morbid music. This image has been highlighted in popular culture with such television shows and movies as "Beavis and Butthead"" and "Airheads". Heavy metal's bombastic excesses, exemplified by hair metal, have often been parodied, most famously in the film This Is Spinal Tap (see also the phenomenon of the heavy metal umlaut). Douglas Adams neatly satirised the propensity for excessive volume in The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy with the fictional rock band Disaster Area — creators of the loudest sound in the known universe. It should be noted, however, that Adams was satirising Pink Floyd stage shows specifically, rather than heavy metal in general. Beavis and Butt-head is an animated comedy show that aired on US TV station MTV from 1993 to 1997. ... Promotional Poster Airheads is a comedy film released on August 5, 1994. ... In medicine, spinal tap is a synonym for lumbar puncture. ... A heavy metal umlaut is an umlaut over a letter in the name of a heavy metal band. ... Douglas Noel Adams (March 11, 1952 – May 11, 2001) — also known as Bop Ad or Bob after his illegible signature, or by his initials DNA — was a British comic radio dramatist and author, most notably of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (HHGG or H2G2). ... The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy was first and foremost a 1978 radio comedy series written by Douglas Adams. ... Ummagumma album cover Pink Floyd is a British progressive band famous for its songwriting, harmonic classical rock compositions, bombastic style and elaborate live shows. ...

Many heavy metal stylings have made their way into everyday (albeit ironic) use; for instance, the "devil horns" hand sign first popularised by Ronnie James Dio has become a common sight at many rock concerts. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, flirtation with occult themes by artists such as Ozzy Osbourne, W.A.S.P. and Iron Maiden lead to accusations of "Satanic" influences in heavy metal by conservative Christians. One popular contention during that period was that heavy metal albums featured hidden messages urging listeners to worship the Devil or to commit suicide (see Judas Priest and backward message and Allegations of Satanism in popular culture). The mano cornuto (horned hand) gesture, also known as the devil horns, goat horns, Hook em Horns, or just the horns, is made by making a fist and extending the index finger and the pinky (figure A) . This is not to be confused with the ASL I Love You sign... Ronnie James Dio on the cover of his band Dios 1997 compilation Anthology Ronnie James Dio (born Ronald James Padovana, July 10, 1942 (year unconfirmed)) is a Heavy Metal vocalist who has performed with Black Sabbath, Ritchie Blackmores Rainbow, and his own band Dio. ... John Michael Osbourne (born December 3, 1948, in Aston, a suburb of Birmingham, West Midlands, England), better known as Ozzy Osbourne, was the lead singer of the rock band Black Sabbath and later a popular solo artist and reality television star. ... This article is about the band. ... For information about the heavy metal band, see Iron Maiden (band) Categories: Stub | Torture ... Satanism is a religious or philosophical movement centered around Satan or another entity identified with Satan, or centered around the forces of nature, particularly human nature, represented by Satan as an archetype. ... This article is about the religous people known as Christians. ... The Devil is the name given to a supernatural entity who, in most Western religions, is the central embodiment of evil. ... Judas Priest is a hugely influential heavy metal band formed in 1969 in Birmingham, England. ... A backward message (otherwise, but incorrectly, known as Backmasking) is a supposed message hidden in an audio recording that is only fully apparent when played backwards. ... Allegations of Satanism in popular culture have been made by some Christian Fundamentalists in recent years, particularly in the United States. ...

Subgenres and related styles

Heavy Metal has proven somewhat difficult to categorise. Some fans and musicians have a firm concept of genre and subgenre, but others reject such categorisation as limiting or useless.

Heavy metal is the progenitor of the "metal-family" of genres including black metal, death metal, thrash metal, hair metal and others. Most metal derives directly from blues and rock, while some sub-genres include an evident influence of Western classical music. Thus, even if classical heavy metal and avant-garde black metal belong to the same family, there are important differences between them. Pure heavy metal is mainly blues-based, with pentatonic scales and a blues-like song structure; black metal and related forms often draw on classical music, even if at a first glance it seems to be only distorted guitars playing a very fast repeating melody. Black metal is a musical genre, related to styles of heavy metal, such as death metal. ... Cover of Stop at Nothing by Dying Fetus Death metal is a form of heavy metal music with thrash influences which emerged in the United States (especially Florida and California), Europe (especially the United Kingdom and Sweden) and Canada in the late 1980s and early 1990s. ... Thrash metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music. ... Hair metal is a type of heavy metal music that arose in the late 1970s, in the United States, and was a strong force in popular music throughout the 1980s and early-1990s. ... Blues is a vocal and instrumental musical form which evolved from African American spirituals, shouts, work songs and chants and has its earliest stylistic roots in West Africa. ... Rock and roll (also spelled Rock n Roll, especially in its first decade), also called rock, is a form of popular music, usually featuring vocals (often with vocal harmony), electric guitars and a strong back beat; other instruments, such as the saxophone, are common in some styles. ... Classical music is music considered classical, as sophisticated and refined, in a regional tradition. ... In music, a pentatonic scale is a scale with five notes per octave. ...

Glitter rock, a short-lived era in the mid-1970s, is the extreme exploration of the fantasy-side of the reality-fantasy parents of heavy metal. T. Rex, Richard Simmons, David Bowie and Alice Cooper are among the more popular standard examples of this sub-genre. Queen - Sheer Heart Attack album cover Used on Wikipedia under fair use guidelines: Low resolution copy of the album cover Ðåñηÿßôý | Talk 21:04, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC) This is an album cover. ... Glitter rock, a short-lived genre in the mid-1970s, was an extreme exploration of the fantasy-side of the reality-fantasy parents of heavy metal. ... Before finding teenybopper adulation as a 1970s pop group T. Rex began life as Tyrannosaurus Rex, darlings of the hippy/lighter weight end of the UK Underground scene in 1960s London. ... For the actor, see Richard Simmons (actor) Richard Simmons (born July 12, 1948, New Orleans, Louisiana) is a U.S. fitness guru and celebrity. ... David Bowie David Robert Jones (born January 8, 1947), better known as David Bowie, is a British rock and roll musician, actor, and artist who has had a profound influence on rock and roll from the 1960s to the present. ... Alice Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier, February 4, 1948), is a heavy metal singer, musician, and composer. ...

Hard rock, mentioned earlier, is also closely related to heavy metal, but does not consistently match the description of what purists consider the definition heavy metal. While still guitar-driven in nature and sometimes deriving off of riffs, its themes and execution differ from that of the major heavy metal bands listed earlier in the article. This is perhaps best examplified by The Who in the late-1960s and early-1970s, as well as other 1970s and 1980s bands like Queen, Aerosmith, Thin Lizzy and AC/DC. Hard rock is a form of rock and roll music that finds its closest roots in early 1960s garage rock. ... The Who is a British rock band. ... Queen is a British rock band which was popular in the 1970s and 1980s. ... Arrowsmith is a 1925 book by Sinclair Lewis. ... Thin Lizzy was a hard rock/proto-heavy metal band, formed in Dublin by Birmingham born bassist and singer Phil Lynott in the late sixties. ... From left to right: Singer Brian Johnson, Rhythm Guitarist Malcolm Young, Bass Guitarist Cliff Williams, Lead Guitarist Angus Young, Drummer Phil Rudd. ...

Punk rock is a sometimes closely related form, established by The Ramones, the Clash, The Stooges, Black Flag, The Velvet Underground, The New York Dolls and Sex Pistols. Punk rock is an anti-establishment music movement beginning around 1976 (although precursors can be found several years earlier), exemplified and popularised by The Ramones, the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned. ... The Ramones were a hugely influential punk rock band, formed in Forest Hills, Queens, New York in March 1974. ... The Clash was a British punk rock group that existed from 1976 to 1985. ... Not to be confused with The Three Stooges. ... Black Flag was a punk rock group formed in 1976 in southern California, largely as the brainchild of Greg Ginn, guitarist, primary songwriter and sole continuous member through multiple personnel changes. ... The Velvet Underground and Nico (from left to right: John Cale, Nico, Lou Reed, Sterling Morrison, and Maureen Tucker) The Velvet Underground (Affectionately known as The Velvets, or V.U. for short) was an American rock and roll band of the late 1960s. ... The New York Dolls were a glam rock band in the 1970s that prefigured much of what was to come in the punk rock era. ... Left to right: Sid Vicious, Johnny Rotten, and Steve Jones, with drummer Paul Cook in the background. ...

In the early 1980s the New Wave of British Heavy Metal made metal music very popular (especially in Europe) with bands like Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, and Saxon. The New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) emerged in the late 70s, in part a reaction to the contemporary decline of traditional heavy metal bands such as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath, all three of which had been submerged by a mixture of personal problems, tiredness and... Iron maiden is also the name for a torture device. ... Def Leppard. ... -1...

However, the purest form of Heavy Metal was evident in the early 1980s, in the form of Classic metal, which included of such true metal artistes as Judas Priest, Dio, Dokken, Iron Maiden, W.A.S.P., Scorpions and Motörhead. These bands played traditional metal, but there was a youthful vibe and an air punching dynamo confluenced intricately with melody. This genre was characterised by thumping fast basslines, extended lead guitar solos, high pitched vocals and pounding drums. Classic metal should not be confused with the Traditional metal or the Roots Of Metal genre which was evident in the 1970s with pioneering artistes like Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and Alice Cooper. Heavy metal is a form of music characterised by aggressive, driving rhythms and highly amplified distorted guitars, generally with grandiose lyrics and virtuosic instrumentation. ... Classic metal is a genre of heavy metal music which is characterized by thumping fast basslines, fast, but less heavy riffs, extended lead guitar solos, high pitched vocals and anthemic choruses. ... Judas Priest is a hugely influential heavy metal band formed in 1969 in Birmingham, England. ... Alternate meaning: Dio Cassius. ... Dokken was formed in 1978, one of the classic metal bands from that era, joining contemporaries like Twisted Sister, Judas Priest, Quiet Riot and Iron Maiden. ... Iron maiden is also the name for a torture device. ... This article is about the band. ... For other uses, see Scorpion The Scorpions are a heavy metal band, originally from Hanover, Germany. ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... Classic metal is a genre of heavy metal music which is characterized by thumping fast basslines, fast, but less heavy riffs, extended lead guitar solos, high pitched vocals and anthemic choruses. ... From left to right, Bill Ward, Toni Iommi, Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler This article is about the British heavy metal band. ... Deep Purple was the biggest hit written by pianist Peter De Rose (1900—1953), who broadcast, 1923 to 1939, with May Singhi as The Sweethearts of the Air on the NBC radio network. ... Alice Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier, February 4, 1948), is a heavy metal singer, musician, and composer. ...

There are numerous, often overlapping subgenres. See List of heavy metal genres. Since the forms development in the late 1960s, Heavy metal has spawned a number of often overlapping subgenres. ...

Heavy metal dance styles

Although most heavy metal fans would disagree with the term "dance," there are certain body movements that are nearly universal in the metal world, including:

• Air guitar
• Air Drumming
• Headbanging
• Moshing

The following are also found, although they are considerably rarer at heavy metal shows: Air guitar is the act of pretending to play guitar, consisting of an exaggerated strumming motion and often coupled with loud singing or lip-synching. ... Air guitar is the act of pretending to play guitar, consisting of an exaggerated strumming motion and often coupled with loud singing or lip-synching. ... Headbanging is a type of dance which involves violently shaking your head in time with music, most commonly heavy metal music. ... This article or section should include material from mosh pit. ...

• Crowd surfing
• Stage diving

A crowd surfer Crowd surfing describes the process whereby a person is passed from person to person, transferring the person from one part of the concert venue to another, above everyones heads, with everyones hands supporting the persons weight. ... Stage diving is the act of getting onto the stage at a concert while a band is playing—usually heavy metal or punk rock—and then diving into the crowd below, hoping they will catch you. ...

Nicknames for heavy metal fans

• Headbanger (or just 'banger)
• Metalhead
• Metaller
• Mosher
• Rocker
• Hammer head
• Thrasher (mainly one who listens to Thrash metal)
• Hessian/Hesher

Headbanging is a type of dance which involves violently shaking your head in time with music, most commonly heavy metal music. ... Metalhead is the most popular term for a devoted fan of heavy metal music. ... Rocker refers to the curvature on the bottom of a surfboard, skimboard or bodyboard. ... hammer head hammerhead shark dancing style Categories: Disambiguation ... Thrash metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music. ...

Source

• Walser, Robert (1993). Running with the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music. Wesleyan University Press. ISBN 0819562602.

Robert Walser is a musicologist associated with the new musicology. He is author of Running With the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music, ISBN 0819562602. ...

External links

• Encyclopaedia Metallum: The Metal Archives (http://www.metal-archives.com) Encyclopedia of metal bands
• Metal-Rules! (http://www.metal-rules.com/) Heavy metal webzine
• Metal Sludge (http://www.metalsludge.tv/) Politically incorrect news and views from the world of hard rock and heavy metal
• Blabbermouth  (http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/) Heavy metal news
• Metal Storm (http://www.metalstorm.ee/) International webzine