What is Heavy Metal Music?

“What is 'Heavy Metal' music?” This is the main question people have. Some people try to explain it as a wall of sound composed of roaring guitars, soaring vocals, pounding drums, and a strumming bass.  But to put it simply, it’s heavy music. It’s not so hard to understand once you hear it. Heavy music was birthed in the late 1960’s with bands we all know such as Led Zeppelin and to a lesser degree Deep Purple. But it goes back even further to the Beatles and the Kinks. But the real culmination of that iconic sound that is “Heavy Metal” goes to the band Black Sabbath, who changed the world with their self-titled debut in 1970. Back when it was first released it actually scared people when they heard it. As the album starts with a roaring thunderstorm then suddenly a loud strum form a guitar breaks the sound of the storm and pierces into the listener. That opening song also called Black Sabbath, used what is called the devils tritone. This set of notes, the devils tritone, was actually banned for a time because of the sound it produced. Although now days we have much more fearsome and scarier music, but then that was a different time and place. Heavy music sure has evolved since then, from the subjects of love and sex (although this theme persisted through the 80’s), to touching on subjects of death, drug abuse, the occult, and Satanism. Now I have to make a point that about 99.9% of all bands and artist that fall into this category are not Satanists. In fact more musicians are actually born-again Christians. The other 0.1% are the Norwegian death metal bands, who I will touch upon on a later post.

Now the question some may have is what’s the difference between “Metal” and popular music? Well “Pop” is music that is made to be popular. I call it cookie cutter music. Song writers find a formula that works then create 20 other song that differ slightly, but are the same. Another thing about “Pop” is the fan-base. People get into an artist for a little while and then they move on to the next artist and continue on this cycle. I call it the flavor of the month bands, not to jab at the fandom of popular music. I was once a fan of it myself in my preteens. Now compared to “Metal”, which isn’t made to be popular. The song styles and genres are unique to each band. In the beginning, some metal bands went commercial to trying to appeal to more people with varying degrees of success. Then again it was the 70’s and 80’s, most record companies had most if not total control of these bands. Metal music is very diverse with over 25 different subgenres, and then subgenres of those subgenres. The fan-base while mostly characterized as something you’d see in biker bar looking like they belong in Hell’s Angels or on the TV show “Sons of Anarchy”. In reality, most metal heads are average people like you and me from all over the world. They may wear a shirt of their favorite band like Iron Maiden or Megadeth. But mostly no different from you or myself. But the fan-base is the most most loyal out of any other genre.If you compare a metal fan and a fan from any other genre, say rap for example. Have them listen to music from an artist of their choice and then we wait 15 years. While both will have moved on to different artists. The metal fan with without a shadow of a doubt still be listening to that artist to this day. I can’t speak for rap fans due to my own ignorance, but I think unless they were really nostalgic probably won’t listen to that same artist or will vary rarely listen to them again.

This blog is not to deter or gain people from listening to heavy metal music, but rather to express a subjective view from someone who is a fan of this music and share it with everyone. I also want to show that this music has a long history and global reach far beyond anyone’s wildest dreams.