Metal music, which has entered our lives, continues to be one of the most popular music genres today. Although the new generation continues to listen to metal music with great pleasure, many people may not even know how this music emerged and how it developed. Metal music, which had its shocking birth throughout the world in the 1970s, has never slowed down and has always grown its audience.
What is Metal Music?
When metal music is mentioned, a meaningless definition such as a noisy form of music arises in the minds of people who have not been involved in metal music or are not very interested in this branch of music.
For many people, metal music is called rock music as we know it. However, metal music has a structure independent from rock music and is not a sub-branch of rock music. Because just as rock music separated from blues music and created another movement, metal music also separated from rock music and created another field of its own.
Metal music is formed by the combination of many parts such as aggressive vocals, heavy drums, bass and distorted guitar chords. For this reason, it is a branch of music that is difficult for many people to get used to and requires effort if they want to learn it.
The most basic thing is that the vocalist adds power to the song with his own interpretation and the song gains personality with guitar solos or drum solos. Although the “Flower Children“, i.e. “Hippie” movements of the 1960s are considered the basis for metal music, this cannot actually be called true.
However, again in the 1960s, the Flower Children left blues music and sought a little more harshness in the transition to rock music, and actually wanted to put forward a protest. During this period, metal music actually emerged with a structure similar to rock music. While it became very different, it gave birth to Black Sabbath and many other important bands.
How Was Metal Music Born?
Although metal music began to emerge gradually in the mid-1960s, it was not as popular as desired in those periods. During these periods, especially British bands had a significant impact on metal music.
British bands such as Jeff Beck Group, Cream and Yardbirds broke away from the rock and blues music base and started to create a separate branch with heavy metal music. In the period towards the 1970s, while this style had a positive impact on people, heavy metal continued to develop.
The emergence of metal music in the mid-1960s and its popularization with the bands Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath in the early 1970s led to the formation of a new branch of music.
In fact, while different bands such as Aerosmith or Alice Cooper demonstrated a completely different style with both guitar and drum solos, their American and world tours during these periods provided a significant fan base in metal music. It was during this period that Black Sabbath, the first band in metal music, created a legend.
The Legend of Black Sabbath in Metal Music
Although Metallica comes to mind first when heavy metal music is mentioned throughout the world, it is necessary to mention the band Black Sabbath as the band that provided the first examples and birth of this genre.
Because after this band was founded in Birmingham in 1968 as a band called “Polka Tulk Blues”, it started to leave blues and rock music and switch to metal with its first four members. Their first metal music album was the album of the same name, which they released in 1970, inspired by a horror movie called Black Sabbath. Moreover, the band name was changed to Black Sabbath, and the band became a great success.
While the Black Sabbath band first made its mark in the metal music world with this name in 1970, this album was not appreciated by some audiences and was seen as very valuable by some audiences as dark blues. As 4 friends who felt obliged to become musicians in the first team established,
- Tony Iommi on guitar and founding position
- Bill Ward on drums
- Geezer Butler on bass guitar
- Ozzy Osbourne took part in vocals.
With these four members, the group quickly appeared on the charts since 1970 and achieved high album sales in both England and America. In their second album, they achieved a significant impact with a song called “War Pigs” to criticize America’s Vietnam War, and the album was named “Paranoid”.
With this album, heavy metal started to gain a mass audience throughout the music world. In the same period, while metal music was developing thanks to Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, Black Sabbath took its success to the next level with many albums.
In the mid-1970s, fame, high income and recognition caused some problems to arise in the Black Sabbath group. While Ozzy Osbourne, in particular, caused problems within the group due to drugs and parties, he was later removed from the group and a major change took place in the group. During this period of change, a new member, Ronnie James Dio, joined the band on vocals. Later, thanks to Dio, the band managed to rise again with their new album.
Black Sabbath continued to exist throughout the period from the 1970s to the 1980s, with changes and people joining or leaving the band. While the group released many new albums after the change that took place with the participation of Dio, their reunion in the 1990s and even the concerts given with the invitation of Ozzy Osbourne in the following years turned the group into a legend.
The song “Iron Man” from the 1998 album “Ruenion” won the “Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance“. Until their reunion in 2006, thanks to Ozzy Osbourne, and their farewell concert in 2017, Black Sabbath continued to provide fans with the pleasure of metal music.
How Did Metal Music Develop?
Metal music, which was born thanks to Black Sabbath and gained rapid popularity around the world, began to lose some of its influence in the late 1970s, especially with the popularity of disco music.
However, in the 1980s, many bands such as Iron Maiden and Guns N’ Roses released albums and songs that revived metal music. So much so that after this period, metal music began to be divided into different genres and experienced small changes. In this way, in subheadings
- The most prominent and popular metal music genre is trash metal, which has a negative impact and is known for Metallica.
- Black metal, a disorganized and unbalanced version of metal
- Death metal, where the drums appear heavier and are influenced by black metal
- Power metal combined with fantastic elements
- Glam metal, which was once brought to the fore by groups that gave importance to aesthetic images
- Thanks to hardcore punk and extreme metal, genres such as metalcore, which stands out with technical guitar playing, were found.
Over time, during the changes metal music has experienced with different genres, it has also led to the establishment of giant metal music bands such as Iron Maiden, Megadeth and Metallica. In this way, Metallica has become a legend in a way that its name comes to mind when metal music is mentioned today.
Metallica in the Golden Age of Metal Music
While metal music began to spread around the world with the work of British bands, the heavy metal band Metallica was founded in Los Angeles, USA, in 1981. While they spent their most popular period in the world in San Francisco, they were mentioned as one of the 4 important founding bands, especially in trash metal, the most main genre of metal music.
The band’s first album, “Kill ‘Em All”, was released in 1983. In 1986, the band released the most inspiring album of all time and the world in the trash metal genre with the album “Master Of Puppets”.
While Metallica achieved great commercial success with its 5th album titled “Metallica”, which was released in 1991, this album was known as the “Black Album“. After this album, known as one of the most successful albums in the history of metal music, Metallica has continued to be recognized as a metal music legend until today.
The group, which included members such as James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Dave Mustaine, Ron Mcgovney and Lloyd Grant in 1981, later included important members such as Kirk Hammett and Bob Rock. The unforgettable songs in their albums, without undergoing major changes in the band’s foundation,
- Anesthesia
- Fight Fire With Fire
- Creeping Death
- Fade to Black
- Unforgiven
- Enter Sandman
- Sad But True
- Nothing else matters
- What’s that
- It has become one of the indispensable songs with songs such as Mama Said.
Legendary Bands in Metal Music
When metal music is mentioned, Metallica comes to mind around the world. While the birth of this music is associated with Black Sabbath, famous heavy metal music groups should not be forgotten. For example, while Iron Maiden was founded as a British band in 1975, its album “The Number of Best” in 1982 turned the band into a legend in terms of heavy metal.
Contemporaneous with the Black Sabbath era, Led Zeppelin is a British rock band and is among the founders of metal music with its guitar-oriented songs. In other words, this band, which is among the ancestors of heavy metal, has brought great development to the field of music with its albums.
Megadeth is an American band founded in Los Angeles in 1983. Megadeth, which has a great complexity in guitar themes and is one of the 4 biggest bands when it comes to trash metal, is considered among the most important bands in the world in the development of this metal genre.
Finally, Judas Priest, a British band founded in Birmingham in 1969, is considered one of the most innovative bands in the world. In fact, he is one of the most mentioned names in this field, along with Black Sabbath. The band achieved one of the world’s biggest commercial successes with its 1980 album “British Steel”.
See you in the next post,
Anil UZUN