Origins
Metal began as an off-shoot, a reaction if you will, from the Psychadelic Rock movement. Proto-metal bands such as Blue Cheer began exploring the concept of darker, distorted riffs. This formula was later pioneered by Black Sabbath in 1970 with their album titled Black Sabbath. The music combined various elements ranging from Gothic themes, Led Zeppellin styled Hard Rock and influences from horror movie soundtracks. This acted as the birth of metal music and the blueprint of what was to come.
Similarly, another movement formed in a similar fashion, the Punk movement. Influenced by a few Garage Rock bands (otherwise known as Protopunk bands) such as Iggy Pop and The Stooges. The band sparked an idea of minimalism. The Ramones proved that the pristine production of popular bands and complex playing of Prog Rock were irrelevant in songwriting. This created an explosion of interest within the underground scene which drew the attention of even the mainstream media.
Diversification
Heavy Metal, like Punk Rock, also exploded in popularity as it divided into two styles. The first was the famous New Wave of British Heavy Metal Scene (NWOBHM) which combined the neoclassical style with metal. Metal became extremely popular at the time with Iron Maiden and Judas Priest acting as the leaders of the movement. The second style, Doom Metal, exhibited a stronger Black Sabbath influence. Witchfinder General was arguably the band which pioneered this style. A similarity both movements shared was that the original experimentation of Gothic elements in Metal were rapidly being progressed upon and added into the music.
The late 70s and early 80s were the glory days for Punk Rock. I cannot stress the importance of this period enough. The roots of virtually any form of Modern Rock music present today can be traced back to this movement. The first prominent style to come out of this is Hardcore Punk. The music embraced deconstructionist idea present in original Punk and expanded on it. This resulted in an even more atonal, abrasive, anti-authoritarian and aggressive style of music. Great examples of this can be seen in Black Flag and Dead Kennedys. Another form of Punk that also embraced anti-authoritarianism was commonly called Anarcho-punk. This movement adopted The Clash's Left Anarchist tendencies into their music, returning Punk to the correct Anarchist ideas (as opposed to the one bastardised by the Sex Pistols). The final one I choose to talk about is Post-Punk (If I were to go through all offshoots, we would be here all day). Well shit. Explaining Post-Punk is like explaining the colour blue but I'll try my best.
Home
Help
Search
Login
