Heavy metal music is a type of rock music characterized by loud, distorted electric guitars, aggressive rhythms, dramatic vocals, and extended guitar solos. There are many different varieties of heavy metal music, and new varieties continue to develop.
Heavy metal music is rooted in blues -based rock music. It is influenced by such psychedelic rock acts of the late 1960’s as the British group Cream, the American group Blue Cheer, and the American-British group the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Psychedelic rock, also called acid rock, attempted to re-create the mind-altering effects of LSD and other drugs through music. Heavy metal music is also influenced by such British hard rock bands as Led Zeppelin and The Who, and such British progressive rock bands as Hawkwind and King Crimson. Progressive rock combines rock with elements of classical music, jazz, and other forms of music.
As it became more popular, different types of heavy metal music developed, including thrash (aggressive, fast-paced) metal, speed (abrasive and extremely fast-paced) metal, Christian metal, “nu metal,” folk metal, progressive metal, death metal, and gothic or goth metal. Death metal features distorted guitars and growling vocals. Goth metal is characterized by dark, mysterious, or supernatural themes.
The British group Black Sabbath is widely considered to be the first heavy metal band. The band released its first album, Black Sabbath, in 1970. However, the term heavy metal had not yet been applied to a style of music. The term was first used in 1971 in a review of Kingdom Come, the first album by the American group Sir Lord Baltimore, in the American rock magazine Creem. Other early heavy metal bands were the groups Deep Purple, Motörhead, UFO, and Budgie from the United Kingdom; the Irish group Thin Lizzie; the German group Scorpions; and the American group KISS. Like Black Sabbath, however, these bands were not initially classified as heavy metal.
Heavy metal music remained mostly outside the mainstream of popular music throughout much of the 1970’s. But the explosion of punk rock in the late 1970’s significantly changed the sound of heavy metal music. Punk rock has a loud, fast, and energetic sound, and punk rockers bring an angry, rebellious attitude to their music. The influence of punk was most obviously heard in such American speed metal bands as Megadeth, Metallica, and Slayer. The release of Van Halen (1978), the first album by the American rock group Van Halen, also changed the sound of heavy metal music. The fast, precise playing of the group’s guitarist Eddie Van Halen moved heavy metal music away from a simple blues-based structure to one that focused more on technical skill and innovative musicianship.
Heavy metal music’s popularity exploded in the 1980’s. In 1983, Metal Health, by the American group Quiet Riot, became the first heavy metal album to top Billboard magazine’s “Billboard 200” music chart. The British bands Judas Priest and Saxon and the American band Dio combined the brashness of punk with the theatricality of glam, a stylistically polished form of heavy metal music. These bands helped increase the popularity of heavy metal music around the world. In the late 1980’s, the cable television music network MTV helped popularize such American “hair metal bands” as Poison, Mötley Crüe, and Ratt. These bands sported exaggerated glam looks but appealed to more mainstream rock audiences.
The rise of grunge in the early 1990’s brought further attention to metal. Grunge had a raw, fiery sound and an angry, rebellious attitude. Such American grunge bands as Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and Pearl Jam were heavily influenced by Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Motörhead. During the 1990’s, the American groups Metallica and Megadeth rose to the top of the rock music charts, and heavy metal music developed into other forms. Such American nu metal bands as Korn, Limp Bizkit, and Linkin Park brought elements of hip-hop, funk, and electronic music into their sounds. The American bands Sleep and Eyehategod, and the Japanese group Boris featured slower tempos and feedback. Feedback is the sound distortion created when a microphone or electric guitar picks up sound from an amplifier and sends it back through that amplifier.
Since the early 2000’s, heavy metal music has continued to branch off even further. The American bands Type O Negative and the Dillinger Escape Plan, and the Swedish group At the Gates popularized goth metal, mathcore (aggressive, rhythmically complex heavy metal), and melodic death metal.
