What's the first modern metal album?

XP: Garage rock, despite some similarities is not the forebear of heavy metal. (Although it may well be an influence on some players.)

My mate worked with Bill Ward for a few months recently. He said his sincerity was so profound it was almost psychedelic and he found himself almost bursting into tears after the most mundane of conversations with him.

― Duran (Doran), Thursday, August 12, 2010 9:29 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

This post almost makes me burst into tears. Ive heard he's one of the nicest guys ever. When you see his interviews he seems so goddamn cool.

A feeling that Blackmore doesn't inspire in me somehow... (even though I respect his right to dress up as Mediaeval minstrel on a dirty weekend...)

http://www.thehighwaystar.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/bn_promo_2003.jpg

Balls.

http://www.thehighwaystar.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/bn_promo_2003.jpg

Never gets old that photo (same cannot be said of Richie)

He doesnt look that bad compared to some of his contemporaries. Has anybody seen a picture of Mick Ralphs lately? Holy shit.

"Garage rock, despite some similarities is not the forebear of heavy metal."

its certainly one of them. along with cream and hendrix and others. the roots of metal are found in the roots of garage rock. the who, animals, them, pretty things, kinks, etc.

I don't disagree. As are Hammer House of Horror soundtracks, but I wouldn't say that the OST to the Abominable Dr Phibes was the first heavy metal album.

Another way I might put it is to define "modern metal" as "NWOBHM"...
Force It came out in '75, sounds like it could be '85...
Montrose does not sound like a 1973 heavy rock record.

Okay, I'm finally getting this. "Modern metal" basically means "fast '80s metal (but not hair and not necessarily thrash and what came after)", then.

this is what I'm thinking this poll is getting at, the sound that accompanied metal's rise to prominence as a genre during the 80s. metal is too disparate to identify one single album that contains all its impulses, but if you want to see who set the tone for the late 70s through to slayer, ya gotta go with priest's sad wings.

I love sabbath above all other metal bands, but the only bands in the 80s who were trying to sound like sabbath were freaks like kilslug and drunks with guns. today there's a bunch of ppl who try to sound like sabbath but that's a revivalist subgenre, stoner/sludge/doom/whatever. if I listen to more recent metal stuff like dillinger escape plan, kylesa, rwake, mastodon, howl, neither paranoid nor sad wings can really be seen as templates for what they're doing. too much water under the bridge, or years of slayer/metallica pollutants.

but if you want to talk about who generated the connective tissue between early bluesy/hard rock metal and speed/thrash/death, I'm going with priest. or spinal tap.

roots of metal are found in the roots of garage rock. the who, animals, them, pretty things, kinks

Troggs, too -- who had some direct connections with Sabbath, right? (Too lazy to look up the specifics right now.) And even if garage rock was not in the lineage of metal (which it totally was -- lots of guys from '60s garage bands -- or the kinds of bands that were later called "garage", anyway, since nobody used the term at the time apparently -- wound up in early '70s metal bands. And obviously there were lots of bands on the cusp, from the Amboy Dukes to Black Pearl to Chocolate Watchand etc), to say the Kinks didn't inspire " loads of groups had purposefully modified or fucked up amps to mimic this sound, with loads of groups having this really raw distortion" just sounds wrong. I was thinkig the same thing as Col. Poo, before he typed it. You don't need alternate history; it's already there.

I do like Duran Doran's focus on the British class system, though. Interesting -- and the comparison with donk probably makes sense. Though I doubt people will still be playing it four decades from now.

Even people like Lester Bangs (who popularized the use of the term heavy metal in association with music), I'm pretty certain, saw Sabbath as a novelty band (and a piss poor one at that) until Masters Of Reality came out.

Metal Mike Saunders, who used the term heavy metal to describe the genre (in a Sir Lord Baltimore review in Creem iirc) before Bangs did, loved Sabbath from the gitgo, as I recall. But he was basically a kid at the time, way more in Sabbath's target demographic than older critics then were.

I do like Duran Doran's focus on the British class system, though. Interesting

... but not entirely convincing tbh

never trust an old fart critic is the moral of the story then? ;)

"I understand what you're saying but The Sonics and MC5 and The Trashmen etc don't trace their proud lineage back to a 45 by The Kinks."

Large % of garage rock does trace back to the noise-ier end of the Kinks, Yardbirds, Stones, Who, Troggs, Pretty Things, Them, etc...

XP: There's a definite difference to the way that garage rock, heavy rock and heavy metal are related in the US though. Over here for example, there are loads of garage rock groups that we think of as being par for the course because of the internet and CD reissue culture etc that Black Sabbath just wouldn't even have heard of when they were starting out. And the heritage of US rock is always easier to define. There's an easier to follow family tree. I can see how Link Ray relates to The Sonics relates to Blue Cheer much easier than I can hear Helter Skelter or You Really Got Me or what have you being an influence on The Village or Black Sabbath.

If you read about what the various members of Black Sabbath were listening to in the late 60s, sure The Kinks were probably in there somewhere (as probably were The Troggs and Hendrix and The Yardbirds as well) but this is all kind of secondary to the novel aspect of introducing the element of horror. The devil's interval. The tolling bells. The bludgeoning sound that suggested primitavism. This is all the stuff that introduced the break with what went before hand. I know heavy metal wasn't invented in a vacuum but it was different enough from what went before to be remarkable. (And can you really say that about Vanilla Fudge or Blue Cheer?)

But still, to get back to the poll, I'd say that it was still also part of a tradition enough to be just a sub genre of rock music until the dawn of modern metal. But when did that start? I'd say with Judas Priest. That's when metal became a genre in it's own right. Right?

"but this is all kind of secondary to the novel aspect of introducing the element of horror."

Screaming Lord Sutch and Crazy World of Arthur Brown so bitter.

Judas Priest. That's when metal became a genre in it's own right. Right?

Wrong. At least if you trust all the people who considered it a genre in its own right before then.

But again, throw the ambiguous "modern" in there, and you might have a point.

XP: ""I understand what you're saying but The Sonics and MC5 and The Trashmen etc don't trace their proud lineage back to a 45 by The Kinks."

Large % of garage rock does trace back to the noise-ier end of the Kinks, Yardbirds, Stones, Who, Troggs, Pretty Things, Them, etc.."

Look, I'm only saying how I see it, but one more time: that one record wasn't the start of garage rock but Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath, the track arguably was the start of heavy metal. I'm sorry I haven't made myself more clear on this thread.

As for the working class roots of metal... well, this is another argument for another day. I'd almost say metal's roots as a provincial working class genre are so obvious as to make the argument almost redundant but I'll lay out my case tomorrow if anyone's interested.

When did metal become so middle class in the UK? It definitely was like that when I left school in 1990

"but Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath, the track... was the start of heavy metal."

I actually agree with this. That's why I voted for that album.

Alex In SF: there's that idea of novelty again.

XHUXK: That's exactly what I'm saying.

Pfunk: It may be a regional thing. I left school in the mid 80s and it was definitely a working class thing. There again, I went to a nearly 100% working class school in a working class area, so I've just realised I've got no real way of telling...

I blame that Bruce Dickinson

XP: I mean, would it be any easier to pin point when hip hop 'became a white thing' (in terms of who buys it) in the US? Or even if this is actually the case...

so did i, but there was still some middle class kids and they were the few that listened to metal. Most people were into U2, INXS, Simple Minds & co

xps

Yes, the Beastie Boys.

Most people were into U2, INXS, Simple Minds & co

The Minds, you mean

but Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath, the track... was the start of heavy metal."

I actually agree with this. That's why I voted for that album.

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Thursday, August 12, 2010 10:37 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

absolutely

well Ayr wasnt actually 100% working class, it always had a tory mp, but it was a catholic school so pupils came from all over the place.I lived in Prestwick which was like 50/50.

I blame that Bruce Dickinson

ha, me too! maiden went from songs about finding yr deadbeat dad and stabbing ppl at tube stations to adaptations of coleridge poems wtf

I'm voting for "Boris the Spider" as the start of heavy metal (Hendrix's fave. Who song)

anyway it wasnt kids whose parents bought their house and working hard to pay for it, it was definitely kids of teachers, doctors,lawyers that were into maiden and the like. Could just have been my school, if there was more than 10 people in my school who liked metal I'd be shocked (gnr were the exception)
Some ilxors who went to private school say metal was really popular in the late 80s.

mussorgsky invented metal when he wrote "night on bald mountain"

first metal video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8Ca_edg6RE

i think we were just hung up on the wrongness of this:

"it's just that no one really followed on from this single, giving it more of a novel nature."

"Now, imagine an alternate history where loads of groups had purposefully modified or fucked up amps to mimic this sound, with loads of groups having this really raw distortion, then the history of popular music as we know it would be totally different. But for better or worse, they didn't."

the other stuff you have been saying seems less wrong. though i still think metal bands of the 70's were more inspired by the four million metallic and distorted kinks covers recorded in the 60's then they were hammer movie soundtracks. hammer MOVIES i definitely see as an influence for bands like sabbath and zior and other 70's doomsters.

Well, I can only apologize. I don't think that the Kinks are uninfluential. I don't think that metal doesn't have some roots in garage rock. I'm just interested in looking at things from a non-canonical point of view and I don't 'feel' a visceral link between You Really Got Me and Children Of The Void... purely a personal thing. As for the Hammer thing, I'm only going on what the band have said themselves (even though I know bands aren't always the most reliable of witnesses.

Poster upthread is right about Dicko. He's insanely posh. My colleague had a lecture on Coleridge's Ancient Mariner from him while at school. He flew to the lesson in his spitfire and landed on the rugby field, walking into the classroom wearing a leather flying helmet and goggles.

I was speaking to him outside a Metal Awards bash in Hackney some years ago and when two young ladies walked past he said, in the style of Terry Thomas (apologies to American posters and anyone under the age of 35): "Oh hello! Ding dong!" I was both appalled and elated simultaneously.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c5IC9YZqi0&feature=related

I feel that I shouldn't have to keep on saying, by the way, that the Kinks reference is specifically in relation to the birth of heavy metal and not to rock music in general. Slightly aggravating case of internet literalism. As much as I don't like The Kinks, I am vaguely aware of their heritage...

... now there was a working class band!

terry-thomas rules

Although he's more proto-Sparks than proto-Maiden.

terry-thomas had a pretty substantial part in It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World, just for example, so it's not as if he's totally unknown in the US

I misread that as It's A Man's, Man's...

Look man... I was just being polite... but thanks for clearing up that up, who knows what would have happened if you'd just left it unmentioned.

Good story Doran, and some other great posts. Definitely the best discussion of any poll threads of my making. Hopefully more than like eight people voted this time!

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

A wholesale rejection of the idea of modern metal then, heh. Well, great discussion anyway.

I think 30 of you are wrong, but hey great vote turnout! Think of it this way, bands with obvious similarities to Sabbath are doom metal and stoner rock. So half the early Sabbath acolytes are basically retro-metal, and the other half aren't even metal. The Sabbath debut started it all for sure, but the majority of modern metal owes 90% more to Judas Priest, Scorpions . . . and Sabotage.

For the record I voted for Sabotage. Judas Priest are certainly key in the development of modern metal, and for years I would have considered Sad Wings as the obvious answer. But both Sabotage and In Trance are closer to Priest than what came before to my ears. Sabotage and In Trance may have been mere giant steps compared to Sad Wings' great leap, but they were first.

Dio may have been metal personified, but he wasn't enough to overrule Blackmore's archaic, decidedly un-metal chooglin' rock 'n' roll on those Rainbow albums. Van Halen came out the same day as Stained Class on Feb 10, 1978. A great day for metal and hard rock. Despite their huge influence on metal, they were nothing more than hard rock 'n' roll.

Feb 10 should be a heavy rock/metal holiday. Or it should be metal month, as Sabbath debuted that month too.

Fastnbulbous, you should ask your friend Glenn to pinpoint where (British rock magazines maybe?) Sabbath were so lumped, or who was doing the lumping. It makes sense, in a way, since they definitely (as I said before) seemed to be moving away from blues structures toward more Yurropean, maybe classical ones (I think I've heard people compare them to Grieg and Dvořák before, but I'm classically illiterate and I have no idea whether that's baloney.) Also, is Glenn saying the genre name "heavy prog" was actually used at the time, or is that his own formulation? Curious who else would qualify for that genre, from that time, either way....Uriah Heep, I guess? Some King Crimson? Who else?

A belated answer from Glenn -

I'm also too young to have any first-hand knowledge of Black Sabbath being considered heavy prog. But it's something I've heard at least a few people talk about. I don't have much of a library of rock criticism, but there's a half-sentence about it in the foreword of Popoff's '70s metal book. I don't think "heavy prog" was a specific label at the time. There was art/prog rock in the last few years of the '60s, and then Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, King Crimson, and Uriah Heep came along and, from what I've heard, they were thought of, by at least some people, until the better term "heavy metal" became more widespread, as a heavier form of art/prog rock. But I'm not an authority on this.

Anyone old enough to remember?

"As much as I don't like The Kinks, I am vaguely aware of their heritage..."

i don't think i could ever truly understand someone who doesn't like the kinks. or at least a fan of rock who doesn't like them. i could understand an opera fan who doesn't like the kinks. is it a u.k. thing? like brits who don't like queen or the jam? i guess i can understand that kinda thing a little. cuz then someone could be like * i hate the kinks because they remind me of my tory uncle and my sad summer bank holidays as a child to the spa at scarborough and that time that we saw eileen derbyshire from coronation street at seafest and she made fun of my stammer.* or something else suitably parochial and obscure.

I was watching a re-run of Sam Dunn's Metal Evolution Part 3.
http://www.vh1.com/video/metal-evolution/full-episodes/early-metal-uk/1676778/playlist.jhtml

There's a funny scene where Dunn sadly sits in the office of Led Zeppelin's manager where no one will talk to him as the band don't want to be associated with metal.

At 16:20
Sam Dunn: "To what extent did you consider yourselves a heavy metal band?"

Geezer Butler: "We just thought we were a hard rock band at the time. That's what we liked. And the first I heard of being called heavy metal was somebody being derogatory about us. I read this review when we were on tour criticizing us, business as usual, and they said it sounded like heavy metal being dropped, not musically whatsoever."

SD: "Black Sabbath clearly didn't self-identify as a heavy metal band."

Roger Glover, Ian Paice, Jon Lord

25:34
SD: "At that time in the early 70's period, did you see yourselves as a heavy metal band?"

Ian Paice: "We just called ourselves a hard rock band."

Jon Lord: "Some people said we had a hand in early heavy metal, and I accept that we could be one of the godfathers. But I defy the parenthood, that wasn't us. We weren't the parents."

Dunn then talks about how Zep, Sabbath and Purple began to shift their sounds. "I always wanted to know why these bands drifted away from their iconic aggressive sound." He's refers to Houses of the Holy, Vol. 4, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath where they work with Rick Wakeman.

But dude, what about Sabotage? I really wished he would have asked Ward and Geezer when they DID start to self-identify as a metal band. Might they have said around 1974-5?

The episode ends, of course, with Judas Priest proudly owning it, the first band to self-identify as metal.

"Heavy Metal" and "punk" were terms I first saw in early 70s Creem; I never heard any fans using those tags 'til the mid-70s. Of course, from the 60s on, there was "That's heavy," re a serious comment/situation (and Bob Seger's "Heavy Music," but that was out of my neck of the woods, didn't hear it 'til way later).
Never heard of "heavy prog" before this thread, but can recall listening to In The Court of The Crimson King in the same stack of records with early Sabs ("20th Century Schizoid Man" went well with "Iron Man," at the time), Cactus, Bloodrock's D.O.A etc. Emerson Lake & Palmer were heavy live, even Yes (when I was standing in the wings, and heard drums & bass over the rest of that stuff, on '72 tour).

The earliest use of "heavy metal" I can recall reading (not really remembering the context in which William Burroughs used it) was a Metal Mike Saunders review, a show review I think, of Humble Pie. Bangs used it for BOC as soon as they showed up.