Beginnings Pt.3

And now, last but definitely not least, it's Metals turn. And away we go...

You could argue that metal started back in the late 60's and early 70's, with bands like Cream, Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. By incorporating heavy guitar riffs with the style of blues and jazz, They paved the way for metal music, along with progressive bands like Rush, and even psychedelic bands. Like punk, however, metal is more than just music. It's a way of life.

By the mid 70's, early metal had found a home with artists like Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. Keeping strong into the 80s, bands like KISS, Iron Maiden, Metallica, and Slayer were becoming increasingly popular, fueling the genre that is metal. As the times progressed, the earlier metal acts gave way to new genres of metal, ranging from speed metal to death metal (we'll discuss sub-genres at a later date) and new artists.

Metal bands threw away the jazz and blues influence for the most part, and replaced it with the speed and intensity of punk music. Typically consisting of a drummer, bassist, guitarists, vocalist and sometimes a keyboardist. More than often, especially in the current times, metal vocalists tend to lean towards less melodic lyrics, replacing the melodies with aggressive screaming. There are bands who strictly prefer melodic vocals though, or even a mix of the two. More often than not, instrument tuning will be taken down a notch.

Metal was often associated with Satanists and the devil, but mostly by people who feared the music and were looking for an excuse to de-popularize it. However, there were those bands like Black Sabbath who adopted this generalization and used it to their advantage, and cleverly so. Metal was just about doing what you want, not what you were told (much the same way as punk) and it still is today.

So, now we have a quick idea of what the 3 genres consist of. Now we have to figure how to balance them, in all aspects. This needs to be a group effort if it's going to work, right? Right. So we'll have to do it together. Next time, we'll begin a list of aspects from the 3 genres we can use to create a new one. It's going to be a long list (or atleast, it SHOULD be a long list) and Ideas are, as always, welcome.