Blog Entry 4/23/11

            I am particularly excited about this week’s reading because it allows me the opportunity to go on a Metallica trip!

            The reading talks about Metallica and their breakthrough album Kill ‘Em All and how ground breaking the album was to the metal genre.  The main point that I would like to point out as being the most critical is the fact that although Metallica was playing extremely fast for the early 1980’s they were using a lot of precision.  They were and still are actually very good musicians.  This critical point is what I believe sets them apart from other bands of the same era.  

For example, punk is loud and fast but the music is not played with any precision.  It is pretty sloppy.  And on top of that it does not take much talent to play punk, as we learned in previous readings all you need to know is three chords and you are good to go.  Punk guitarists did not need to know scales either because there were rarely any guitar solos.  There were rarely any time changes and the music was pretty simple, just played fast.

The bands involved with the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, in my opinion, were very technical and although they played fast, they were not playing at the same speed as Metallica was in Kill ‘Em All.  They also had a cleaner sound and their arraignments were a little more complicated.

The book does not refer to Metallica as a crossover band but one can see where Metallica draws from the NWOBHM and punk at the same time.  Metallica plays very fast but with precision and keeps it in control.  They play very loud but not sloppy and they songs can range from somewhat simple chords and fast from beginning to end where other songs are longer and have difficult rhythms, time changes, and solos requiring some knowledge of music theory.

We all know that Metallica has since evolved in style from its roots in the thrash metal scene.  But without Metallica hitting the scene in the early 1980’s and pretty much showing other bands how thrash was suppose to be done, I do not think that bands like Slayer, Pantera, and Anthrax would have become who they are today.  I say this because all other bands after Metallica have not only tried to be as fast as Metallica, but faster and thrashier.  I believe that other bands heard Metallica then challenged themselves to take the music to another level.

I have posted some links in this blog of some songs from various bands and then the link to the Metallica cover of the songs.  I hope this gives a better example of how sonically different Metallica is and how it set a new standard for metal.

Breadfan, by Budgie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3-l_T6AuNk

Breadfan by Metallica: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Z6cVUOhLDw&feature=related

The Prince by Diamond Head: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_OA5J1HsGk

The Prince by Metallica: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_ubQnhIQ5I

Stone Cold Crazy by Queen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnGaEk0rZdU

Stone Cold Crazy by Metallica: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgndm6FTERk&feature=related

4th Blog Entry 4/15/11

            The reading this week concerning metal, punk and the crossover was very interesting to me mostly because I never really considered metal and punk to be related at all, but to my surprise at one point in history it was almost the same genre.  But out of this point in time we have the birth of Heavy Metal as a distinct and independent genre and that perhaps we have punk to thank.

            In the mid 1970’s there was a lot of development going on in the punk/metal scene that eventually led to the stand alone genre of metal we know today.  I will focus mainly on the musical styles and how their roots are somewhat similar and how they eventually evolved to become two different styles of music.

            Fast, trashy, and loud.  That can pretty much sum up metal and punk music.  Bands would turn up their amps as loud as they can and play.  The trashier it sounded the better because they didn’t want to sound too sophisticated.  And while they were at it they played as fast as possible regardless of their accuracy because they were more concerned with getting energy out than with their musicianship.

            But somewhere in the mid 1970’s you start to see a distinctive split developing.  We can start with the band Motorhead.  Although their playing style mirrored punk in the fact that the songs were short, loud, trashy, and played fast.  The songs included a guitar solo, which is essential to Heavy Metal.  Their image also changed from the trashy punk look to the leather/outlaw biker look.  The outlaw biker look is not quite essential to Heavy Metal, but leather sure is.  So in the case of Motorhead we see the beginnings of the split between metal and punk.

            A little later down the line punk had been clearly defined and adopted by the media but this left metal out in the cold.  Here steps in the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.  Although these bands played fast, they paid more attention to their musicianship.  Along with playing fast they were more accurate in their playing; their arrangements were longer and had more time changes, they were cleaner sounding than punk, and they had more of an emphasis on being in control of their instruments rather than making noise.

            It is in the New Wave of British Heavy Metal when we first see what is considered to be Heavy Metal.  We have bands like Black Sabbath and Deep Purple who set the foundations, then we have the metal/punk scene that infused the music with speed and attitude, then we have Motorhead who crossed over both genres, then finally we have the birth of a true metal genre in bands like Iron Maiden and Angelwitch.  A band like Iron Maiden has it all; it has the attitude, the speed, the accuracy, the tone and sound, and the control.

            I have heard many times in my life that metal music would not exist today without punk.  I never believed it before now, because if you take a serious, non bias look at the history and how intertwined the music was in the past, it becomes easy to see how the punk scene helped to develop the sound of metal and eventually push it into evolving into its own identity.

3rd Blog Post 4/8/11

            The portion of this week’s reading that really stood out to me was the piece called Factory Music: How the Industrial Geography and Working-Class environment of Post-War Birmingham Fostered the Birth of Heavy Metal, by Leigh Michael Harrison.

            The reading goes on to describe how the environment in which the members of Black Sabbath and Judas Priests grew up in had an enormous impact on the lyrical content and the style of playing they eventually developed.  Not only was much of Birmingham in ruins because of the bombing it suffered during WWII, it was heavily industrialized.  And on top of that the people who lived in Birmingham and the surrounding areas were lower middle class factory workers.

            Ozzy Osbourne describes on page 148 that “As a child, Osbourne lived in a

home with no inside toilet and shared a bed with five other siblings. The Osbourne

children only possessed one pair of shoes, one pair of trousers, one shirt and

jacket and no underclothing.”

            Geezer Butler states on 149 that “In the Second World War, in Birmingham,

that was where all the ammunition was made. That’s why it got so heavily bombed.

So there were a lot of bricks all over the place, bombed out buildings, all that kind

of stuff.”

            Just based off of this reading and these few examples I found myself wondering: “Where does metal music come from?”  A few of the answers I came up with, but there may be more, include misery, suffering, hardship, social inequality, despair, struggle, lack of security, abuse, oppression, fear, anger, retribution, etc.  But most importantly these things are experienced at a young age, in the formative years of an individual, where they still have the energy to push back against what they dislike about life.  Older people tend to accept things and are all too often complacent with the way things are.  Younger people have the energy to say “To hell with your old ways, systems, and institutions!  Everybody I see working and living in this society are unhappy and miserable and that’s not going to be me!”  Essentially I see metal coming from the youth who are immersed in a very unfavorable environment.

            Not only does Black Sabbath form the foundation for metal music through their songwriting and their style of playing, but they lay the foundation of what kind of individual would like metal music, and this individual is the downtrodden who is constantly fighting against a society that wants them to be dis-enchanted.

            Throughout the history of metal we can see individuals who have come from similar circumstances.  James Hetfield from Metallica was born into a lower middle class family that eventually became a broken home, and on top of that he lost his mother to cancer while still a teenager.  Dave Mustaine was also born into a lower middle class family, he moved constantly with his mother and sisters to avoid contact with his father and he dealt drugs as a teenager just to get by.  Then there is the band Slipknot from Iowa.  If memory serves, the band stated that the sheer fact that they had to grow up in Des Moines Iowa was a horrible enough experience they didn't need a whole lot more to piss them off.

            The main point I am trying to get at is that we don’t really see a whole lot of Heavy Metal Bands coming out of Holmby Hills Los Angeles, The Highlands near Seattle, or even Cherry Hills Village here in Denver.  I’m not saying that it’s not possible, it’s just highly unlikely because the environment an individual grows up in is going to be one of the most influential things that form who that individual is and how they are going to relate to the outside world.  In the case of Heavy Metal and the people who associate with it, they seem to be the ones born on the “other side of the tracks”.

Second Blog Post 4/1/11

            In this week’s reading I found the distinction between Grand Funk Railroad and the Beatles to be very fascinating.  You can see the roots of metal in GFR because they really put an effort into appealing to a certain crowd.  They were not interested in appealing to everybody for the sake of good reviews or better record sales.  They were more interested in connecting with the crowd.  As stated on page 39 of This Ain’t the  Summer of Love, “the Beatles were universally appealing, but GFR is taking their people out of the population and catering exclusively to them.”  They were also accused of not only fragmenting the audience but dividing it.  I think this is important because we see that division within the rock/metal fan base as rock/metal evolves.  Each new genre seems to exclude an even wider portion of the population and cater to a more exclusive, narrower portion.

This can also be linked to the idea of dis-enchantment.  If we look at GFR, their publicist Terry Knight pretty much sold the band as the non Beatles.  And if the Beatles had become accepted as normative, then there was nothing enchanting left about them.  They were simply a part of the norm.  Therefore GFR was the anti-establishment band of their time.  They took what had been accepted as “rock and roll” and pushed back to find what was really exciting about music.  And by doing this they pushed away some of the rock and roll fan base but those who were attracted to them were even more invested in the music and the band.  And those individuals who were attracted to GFR found themselves being re-enchanted by the music.  Also, in contrast to the Beatles, who tended to attract arena’s of teenage girls, GFR was able to attract tens of thousands of people, mostly men, who were attracted to the message GFR had to offer because the people themselves were in a state of dissatisfaction with their own lives along with society as a whole.

Overall the ability that GFR had to connect with the crowd was ground breaking because prior to that it was the audience was just viewing a show, where with GFR, the audience was a genuine part of the experience itself and it really paved the way for future acts in rock and metal.

The reading concerning Alice Cooper and Iggy Pop illustrated how they took the norms of rock and pushed the envelope even further.  What GFR was to the Beatles, Alice Cooper and Iggy Pop were to GFR.  Although Alice Cooper focused much more on the theatrics of performing a show where Iggy Pop focused more on the physicality of a show, they were similar in the sense that they were pushing the boundaries of rock were it has never gone before.  They were singing about death, sexuality, rebellion, drugs, etc but they were also performing it live at their shows.  I do not mean they were doing drugs or having sex on stage, but through Alice Coopers theatrics and Iggy Pop's physical self abuse, they were able to illustrate what it was they were singing about.  Their connection to the audience was not the same as it was with GFR, Alice Cooper and Iggy Pop were more shock and awe.  This shock and awe is important to the evolution of metal because it is the first time a rock show had been taken over the top in its theatrics, props, makeup, and wardrobe.  The experience of going to a rock show was no longer about the music and lyrics, although they do play a role, and no longer about participating with a larger community of like minded individuals, it was about viewing a spectacle that stimulated all of your senses.  It was also ground breaking in a sense that there was a feeling of spontaneity and maybe even perhaps danger because no one really knew what was going to happen because in all actuality, anything could happen.  This resulted in the fan feeling more alert and alive.  The rock show became a place where an individual could escape the monotonous routine of life and experience something somewhat chaotic and scary.