Although most people see metal as a relatively new genre, its roots can actually be traced back as far as the 1950s, when power chords and riffs reliant on distortion effects were first introduced. However, metal itself wouldn’t begin to grow or become known until into the 1960s.

Early Metal

Legends of the music industry Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin are most often credited as the founders of the genre, but other bands, including Steppenwolf, are often thrown into the conversation, too.

However, U.S. west coast band Blue Cheer actually recorded the first metal song, which was a January 1968 cover of “Summertime Blues.” The same month also saw the release of Steppenwolf’s debut album that included their signature track, “Born to be Wild.” Despite these being seen as early examples of metal music, it is accepted today that these were widely experimental, and it wasn’t until Led Zeppelin’s 1969 debut and the emergence of Black Sabbath and Deep Purple in 1970 as leaders in the genre that metal was truly born.

Leaning Towards Punk

In the 1970s and 1980s, metal music became unpopular almost as quickly as it had once risen to prominence. Metal during this time became disliked due to its tendency to be over produced and have too much going on, and punk would become loved for its simplicity.

However, bands like Motorhead and Van Halen would enjoy huge success by being able to straddle the two genres.

Later Metal

This traditional metal music is what would become known as ‘heavy metal.’ Throughout the late 1980s and up until the present day, heavy metal has been seen as something of a generic categorisation.

The following subgenres of metal would often be used to describe the type of music a band or artist was producing:

• Thrash metal, which was categorized by faster riffs and more aggressive music, was pioneered by bands like Metallica and Megadeth.
• Death metal takes musical inspiration from thrash, but uses lyrics associated with Satanism, among other things. Napalm Death and Morbid Angel are recognized as leaders in this genre.
• Black metal came from Europe, categorised by growling and almost indecipherable vocals from bands like Cradle of Filth.
• Alternative metal is sometimes used to categorize the grunge sound that bands like The Pixies and Nirvana brought into the mainstream in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
• Nu-metal is a controversial genre, used to group bands such as Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, and Slipknot, who would emerge from the U.S. in the 1990s, although Slipknot in particular are regularly classified as a thrash or death metal band.

Metal Today

Metal remains popular to this day, but is more a combination of genres rather than being out and out metal. Bands like Bullet for My Valentine, Avenged Sevenfold, and Mastodon are widely seen as being the closest to producing what would be considered a metal sound while gaining mainstream exposure.

Image Author: Flickr – Saad Faruque

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