What's the first modern metal album?

I'm not surprised by that CREEM list. I stopped reading it regularly in '83 because it seemed to be going downhill. I always liked their irreverence, but it was becoming dangerously similar to CIRCUS. No Metallica, Maiden, Scorpions, Priest, Mercyful Fate, Raven, Loudness, Dio, even Def Lep = useless!

Kinda doubt Circus would have listed Troggs/Black Pearl/Pere Ubu/Godz/bootleg BOC EPs in any metal Top 10s, ever, to be honest. (And Creem Metal was always way funnier and more irreverent than Circus in general, are you kidding? Then again, you stopped reading it -- Which explains how you wouldn't know.)

I assume a bunch of totally out of touch old farts who didn't like anything post 79 wrote for it?
xp

Well, some did. But sometimes they were right.

Metallica, Maiden, Scorpions, Priest, Mercyful Fate, Raven, Loudness, Dio, even Def Lep

Also, wouldn't some or most of these bands have been all over CIRCUS, actually? (Pretty sure they all got coverage in Creem Metal at times, too; just not always fawning coverage, boo hoo.)

pre-83, but still...

http://judaspriest.free.fr/magazines/USA/198108uscreem.jpg

http://earfarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/halfordcreem.jpg

Fwiw, those top 10s I listed were by Richard Riegel (60s), Gregg Turner (of Angry Samoans/fighting a lot with Metal Mike Saunders fame) (70s), and Sylvie Simmons (who was also in KERRANG a lot iirc) ('80s.)

Heh, I just meant I stopped reading it regularly. I still have a couple issues lying around from 84-85 (see below). Seems like David Lee Roth was on multiple covers a year. I'm not saying there weren't still major differences between CREEM and CIRCUS. So those lists were just from those individuals and not polled from the whole staff, which makes a lot more sense.

http://www.creemmagazine.com/_site/ArchiveImages/1984_03.jpg
http://www.creemmagazine.com/_site/ArchiveImages/1985_02.jpg

While Lemmy vehemently insists that his music is simply "rock 'n' roll" as opposed to metal, the debut Motörhead album clearly was a big influence on modern metal with it's power, speed and grit. So much that punkers often exclusively respected the band among their hard rock and metal peers.

while i don't doubt or question motorhead's metalness, i don't think being liked/respected by punks in the late '70s and early '80s is a good argument for them. if anything, that would go in the "con" column, wouldn't it? my impression is punk-rockers liked 'em back then because they didn't sound like metal at all to their ears. they sounded like the "rock n roll" that lemmy claimed to be. punks weren't exactly clamoring to buy priest or maiden albums back then.

Pere Ubu? Metal?? Is crazytalk.

xp Did you ever see Creem Metal, though (which probably ran, oh, maybe '86-'88, thereabouts)? It was pretty great, in lots of ways, and we got a lot of leeway about what we could call metal. (Pretty sure no other national magazines were doing much coverage of White Zombie singles and Skin Yard and Leather Nun and Redd Kross and the Mentors at the time. Not to mention Dick Destiny and the Highway Kings.) And the Triumvirate of Metal Wisdom (Kordosh/Dimartino/Holdship) reviewing Cinderella and Queensryche -- "a rage to order women's clothes!") was a trip and a half. So yeah, those guys and Rick Johnson (who had a video column for a while) were old farts who had basically no use for '80s metal whatsoever; hey thought it all sucked, except Motorhead maybe. And that's part of what made them good.

xxpp Nah, "30 Seconds Over Tokyo" is totally "Electric Funeral."

loud guitar-heavy music? check
pummelling drums? check
lyrics about depraved shit like loving like a reptile and shooting people in the back? check
leather? check
denim? check
fan-base heavily populated with bikers? check
serious drug/alcohol issues? check
long hair? check
menacing skull based trademark? check
umlauts? check

Sorry Lemmy, you're metal

lynyrd skynyrd and david allan coe qualify too, of course, give or take an umlaut.

I totally missed Creem Metal. Not surprising, as I temporarily lost interest in new metal albums between 85-88 with just a few exceptions (Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer). I have to say the regular CREEM issues look pretty interesting from 1987 -- I wish I had subscribed again then. Looks like Chuck had a choice cover story on the Beastie Boys too.

xp - Punks liked Motorhead for being hard and fast, something that would become pretty important for a lot of modern metal. They probably appreciated Lemmy's wit, which was less apparent in, say, Rainbow. I sometimes wonder if it was overstated the number of punks who truly hated all metal. Or maybe not, any geezers here who went to metal shows in the UK in 76-78?

I totally missed Creem Metal. Not surprising, as I temporarily lost interest in new metal albums between 85-8881-90

^^^that would be sad fate too.

xp Also, Motorhead subject matter seemed really down to earth and blue collar, none of that grandoise dungeons and dragons crap; they'd rather eat the rich. (Which would inspire some '80s metal, too.)

Did British punks like AC/DC, assuming they even heard them? (They apparently were initially, unsuccessfully marketed as punk rockers in the States, even to the point of being booked at CBGBs. But U.S. punks, inasmuch as they existed, weren't noticing.)

couldn't imagine Patti Smith and David Byrne getting too worked up over AC/DC.

Led Zeppelin IV or Paranoid define Metal more or less, esp the album covers and all the Satanic mysterioso. the preceding albums are still too blues or 60s

or maybe it started right here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRt3PIDER94&feature=related

xp Another thing about Motorhead in the U.K. is they initially recorded for Stiff and then for Chiswick, which was basically a pub and punk rock label (Count Bishops, 101ers, Johnny Moped, Damned), right? Which always made me wonder whether they had a "punk" audience before they got a "metal" one.

couldn't imagine Patti Smith and David Byrne getting too worked up over AC/DC.

― Quo riff just isn't a suitable vehicle for interplanetary exploration (Ioannis), Monday, August 9, 2010 2:54 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i'd pay to see the look on their eggheaded, elitist faces as AC/DC wiped the floor of some downtown punk joint

it's a funny old list, the acts that were on Chiswick (tho' yeah, predominantly pub punk bands):

Amazorblades
The Count Bishops
The Damned
Dr. Feelgood - (Fast Women and Slow Horses album) (1982)
Drug Addix
The Gorillas
Jakko Jakszyk
Jeff Hill
Johnny Moped
Johnny & the Self Abusers
The Jook
Kid Rogers and the Henchmen
Killerhertz...
Little Bob Story
Matchbox
Motörhead
The Nipple Erectors
The 101ers
The Radiators From Space
Radio Stars
Riff Raff
The Rings
Sniff 'n' the Tears
Rocky Sharpe & The Razors
Skrewdriver
T. V. Smith
The Stukas
The Table
Whirlwind

There is no question in my mind -- Black Sabbath s/t is the first metal album.

But if you want to split hairs on "modern metal", is there anything that presages the 80s more strongly than "Symptoms of the Universe?"

"Led Zeppelin IV or Paranoid define Metal more or less, esp the album covers and all the Satanic mysterioso."

Cover Black Sabbath s/t WAY WAY WAY more Metal than Paranoid.

Black Sabbath. But the thread title confused me too - these are all very much 'trad' metal' by any standard.

My friend Glenn emailed me a great response. He doesn't post on ILM and hopefully won't mind if I post this:

"Sad Wings Of Destiny".

As you discuss, this totally depends on the definitions of "modern" and "metal". Black Sabbath, when they started, were often lumped in with prog, and I still think "heavy prog" is perhaps a better label for them than "heavy metal" or "doom". I've also always liked the term "acid rock" for a lot of the proto-metal stuff. In discussing critical proto-metal, I'd add The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Blue Cheer, and Mountain to the Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, and Budgie that you mention. Mountain, especially, does not get its due, in my opinion. I'm tempted to make the case that the song "Don't Look Around" on their "Nantucket Sleighride" album (January 1971) may be the first "modern metal" song, even though the album as a whole does not qualify as the first "modern metal" album.

To me, the phrase "modern metal" suggests a few things:
- lots of lead guitar, with solos, speed, and something like a screaming quality
- a fair amount of high-pitched and dramatic vocals
- a certain style of bass that I don't know music theory well enough to explain
- a further, even if subtle, step away from the blues, prog, and acid underpinnings of metal
- a conscious identification with--or at least not a rejection of--"heavy metal" as that term was understood prior to around 1978

Another way I might put it is to define "modern metal" as "NWOBHM" and adopt the "I know it when I hear it" approach.

We get really close from 1973 to 1975. Here are some highlights just from 1974:
Black Sabbath "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath"
Budgie "In For The Kill"
Hawkwind "Hall Of The Mountain Grill"
Judas Priest "Rocka Rolla"
Queen "Sheer Heart Attack"
Rush "Rush"
Scorpions "Fly To The Rainbow"
Thin Lizzy "Night Life"
UFO "Phenomenon"

Each of those is a great album, with some NWOBHM parts, but if you heard any one of them for the first time, would you think it was a long lost NWOBHM album?

In 1976, we get "Sad Wings Of Destiny", and it is something we just haven't heard an entire album of before, for which labels like "blues rock", "acid rock", "heavy prog", or "hard rock" are clearly not adequate.

I've been saying for many years that I don't think Scorpions get enough credit as a pioneer of what I consider "modern metal". But I just listened to "Fly to The Rainbow", "In Trance", and "Virgin Killer" and, while perhaps the closest runner-up, they just don't redefine things the way Judas Priest did with "Sad Wings Of Destiny".

Most of those are good choices.

These, however, merit a little more discussion.

Lizzy's Night Life wasn't very good, in terms of its place in my collection. Fighting is far better. But I always considered it more a rock and roll album.

UFO's Phenomenon has Schenker for the first time. But half of it, at least, just putters along in low gear. "Crystal Light," "Space Child" -- some awful psyche holdover from earlier, the dreadful "Built for Comfort." They'd up the voltage the next one out by quite a lot. This one only has "Doctor Doctor" and
"Rock Bottom" to get by on.

UFO is actually a pretty good call here. Force It came out in '75, sounds like it could be '85. Same with Montrose, both were pretty ahead of their time. Montrose does not sound like a 1973 heavy rock record.

Ted Nugent definitely needs a sneak in here since it was 1975. For example, it just kills Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow which is rather quaint by comparison, having the twee version of "Greensleeves" on it. "Stormtroopin'," "Motor City Madhouse," "Just What the Doctor Ordered" -- they're very Seventies metal, every bit as much as mid-Seventies Judas Priest.

In 1976, we get "Sad Wings Of Destiny", and it is something we just haven't heard an entire album of before, for which labels like "blues rock", "acid rock", "heavy prog", or "hard rock" are clearly not adequate.

real good point, re: the inadequacy of other language. it must be metal cuz it clearly isn't anything else.

Sad Wings has it's moments of metal innovation, but it harkens back a LOT to acid rock and gam and southern rock, like Skynyrd. I think moreso than Sabbath did, much of the time.

gam, because, you know...the thighs!

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. So the Yesterday & Today (self-titled, 1976) and Riot (Rock City, 1977) LPs I've been playing so much this would maybe fit, too, though they probably came out too late to be in the running. This thread did just inspire me to pull out my copy of Force It, though (Phenomenon, too, though I'll wait a little longer on that one, probably.)

"...playing so much this year," that is.

So anyway, maybe a clearer way to ask the question would be "What was the earliest heavy metal album that sounds like it should've come out in the '80s rather than '70s," right? (I don't know the answer.)

Roxy Music? (j/k)

This thread did just inspire me to pull out my copy of Force It, though (Phenomenon, too, though I'll wait a little longer on that one, probably.)

^Phenomenon has still has some traces of their earlier phsychedelic incarnation, like Gorge said.I think it's pretty good.

Riot - Rock City rules. I should have put that in there. I need to hear that first Yesterday & Today. I like pretty much every album UFO & Thin Lizzy ever released.

Did British punks like AC/DC, assuming they even heard them?

They'd certainly have heard them, "Let There Be Rock" was a Top 20 album in 1977. I don't think they'd have taken much notice of them and probably wouldn't have been caught dead listening to them if they did, pretty sure Heavy Metal was considered a rival to punk rock.

It was, but my mate and his big bro listened to both, I think the whole punks selling off the 70s heavy rock albums thing came later (my mate regrets doing it in the 80s)

silly old farts

Hard to imagine that oi! boys (or their Sham 69/Bishops/etc. fan predecessors) wouldn't love, say, "T.N.T." if they actually heard it. But music fans are weird.

Wikipedia:

High Voltage gained the band a following among the then-substantial British punk audience.

AC/DC came to be identified with the punk rock movement by the British press. Their reputation, however, managed to survive the punk upheavals of the late 1970s.

Quietus:

Having moved to London in 1977, AC/DC were somewhat bemused to find themselves lumped in with punk rock. Finding little in common with the barrage of the Pistols, The Clash et al, the Antipodeans reacted against the prevailing winds by delivering an album of blistering rock’n’roll in its purest sense.

They may have reacted against punk, but also Let There Be Rock benefits from the same liberating force that other punk bands did.

rose tattoo were popular with skinheads/punks too.

Judas Priest's Sad Wings Of Destiny is definitely a strong candidate.

first thing that sprang to mind when I saw this thread

sometimes I listen to sad wings and think to myself 1976! 1976! (was actually recorded in 75 tho)

AC/DC came to be identified with the punk rock movement by the British press.

No they didn't

High Voltage gained the band a following among the then-substantial British punk audience.

No it didn't

So anyway, maybe a clearer way to ask the question would be "What was the earliest heavy metal album that sounds like it should've come out in the '80s rather than '70s," right? (I don't know the answer.)

I expected there would be some disagreement in what is meant by "modern metal." Think of how modernism is used in the context of art, architecture, literature, and music in general: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism_%28disambiguation%29

In literature, there are certain factors that distinguished a postmodern movement: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-modern_literature. I believe metal had certain sub-genres splinter into its own postmodern era at least since the 90s. What constitutes postmodern metal is a can of worms for a separate discussion, of course. For the purposes of this poll, I consider power metal, NWOBHM, true, thrash, speed, black, death, grindcore and some others all as modern metal. Some of you view Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, Budgie, early Scorpions, as just plain metal, pure and simple, rather than proto-metal. Understandable. Compared to European art music, this could constitute the Baroque, Classical and Romantic periods. The early period of Blue Cheer, Iron Butterfly, Led Zep, Mountain, Steppenwolf, Vanilla Fudge, Jeff Beck, etc. could be compared to the early periods of Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque. Modern metal would be like 20th century European art music.

Discuss!

Not sure it can break down exactly the same, since some of these periods/movements lasted longer than the entire history of Metal, and "Modernist" & "Post-Modernist" were umbrella terms for cultural shifts across nearly all of the arts in the early 20th century & post-WWII eras, rather than a specific genre period--like, say, Realism in literature. Metal (especially the prog-leaning stuff) was already kind of Modernist when it started, though it could also be said that the combo of high art classicism with horror movie kitsch was Post-Modernist. There are similarities between current metal and Atonal composers. The audience-alienating harshness.

I think of "modern metal" appearing when hard rock and early metal lost its swing, so went with Stained Class; "Exciter" rollocks and gallops but has no lateral movement. Though Simon Phillips could gallop with the best of them (see "Dissident Aggressor") he still gets the hips and shoulders moving. Les Binks gets the head nodding but nothing below the neck. The Scorpions didn't reach that stage till later, though Dierks production obviously had a huge influence on the sound and the instrumental balance of "modern metal."

I kind of like the idea of Modern & Non-Modern: like Vincebus Eruptum and Kick Out the Jams are the last of the non-modern metal albums, the first two Zep albums are the transition, and the first Sabbath album is the emergence of heavy metal, fully formed (hence the unity of vision implied by naming the album after the band, and the opening track after both)(though it prolley didn't happen in that order)

Zep II might actually be the first modern metal album; thinking of Heartbreaker & Whole Lotta Love especially, but also the emergence--in Thank You and Ramble On--of the medieval-pastoral side of metal which has proved just as integral to its identity as power chords & Satan. I can't really stand that album: tedious wankery is the glue that holds it together, and besides, there seems still to be too many blues/jazz pastiches to really count (hello What Is & What Will Never Be)(<-best song on Zep II btw)...

in short: Zep II = first song-long drum solo = it wins (but I voted Sabbath...)

Black Sabbath, when they started, were often lumped in with prog, and I still think "heavy prog" is perhaps a better label for them

I actually find this really interesting, partly because I definitely was too young to be paying attention when Black Sabbath started, and I'd never really heard anybody make this point before. 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?

iron butterfly.

YESSSSSS

Think that came out before the first Sabbath album, too?

Ignore my SN for this post

I've been working on a review of Martin Popoff's "Who Invented Heavy Metal Book," and I started digging again to try to nail down when both bands and audiences started to agree on the existence of metal. From articles, it's basically Mike Saunders wishing metal into existence through sheer force of will in his pieces in '72 to '74. A good summary of his way of shoehorning everything he liked into heavy metal in "A Brief Survey Of The State Of Metal Music Today," Phonograph Record, April 1973:

A year later, the outlook has changed drastically. 1972 was not a good year for heavy metal. Dust were the first to bite it, with their infuriatingly uneven and pretentious album Hard Attack. Alice Cooper came next in the washout category, followed by Grand Funk's abandonment of metal for mainstream rock and Black Sabbath's Vol. 4, a disturbingly unpleasant and depressing effort. Topping it all off, Led Zep failed to show, a huge disappointment when their double album was postponed until this February or so. Nitzinger had a good debut album and Uriah Heep had Demons And Wizards, but both wiped out badly with their following releases. New groups have not arisen to replace all these aging stalwarts, mainly because record companies have just not signed many metal groups and don't seem interested in changing this policy.

So the state of metal music today can be summed up in one word: stagnant. Outside of Blue Oyster Cult, The Stooges (whose stunning comeback is more than I'd dared even dream of), and hopefully Led Zep (their LP still not out as I write this), the field is simply in a state of outright decay. Many groups are either well past their peak or in a temporary slump – Grand Funk, Uriah Heep, Deep Purple, possibly Alice Cooper, and particularly Black Sabbath, in whose case I really have extreme difficulty imagining any sort of viable future.

...It all seems to point to heavy metal's having been a transitional phase. A possible development might be the amalgamation of metal techniques into the three-minute pop form of the aforementioned current groups – such a trend could be quite incredible, making most of the old metal groups sound like dinosaurs. It's my bet that such a style would come from a new generation of metal rockers, though. None of today's metal groups seem capable of such a switch, with the possible exceptions of Led Zep and Blue Oyster Cult. Anyhow, it's all speculation, and we know where that leads. Into the void.

Read the whole thing at http://www.metal-archives.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=80629

Then in '74 Sandy Pearlman decided to promote Blue Öyster Cult as the embodiment and future of metal. From a Nick Kent article in 2 March 1974 NME:

The band don't talk too much, preferring to allow Pearlman to verbalise on their behalf, if only to outline the collective at work on the B.O.C. heavy-metal vision.

"Hey, I invented the term "Heavy metal' – did you know that? I was the first writer to use it. I was a scientist at college – graduated with tons of awards – and I used the terminology in my articles. I first used the phrase in a Byrds review in '67. That was before the 'Heavy metal thunder' line in 'Born to Be Wild', even."

Here's the first times I found other writers using the term:

9/73 - Keith Altham, NME, 2/74 - Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, 3/74 - Nick Kent & Ian McDonald, NME, 4/74 - Wayne Robbins, Creem, 11/74 - Jon Tiven, Circus Raves, 2/75 - Max Bell, NME, 3/75 - Chris Salewicz, NME, 7/75 Ron Ross - Circus, 8/75 - Geoff Barton, Sounds, 12/75 - Jaan Uhelszki, Creem, 9/76 - Pete Makowski, Sounds, 5/77 - Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds

But when did anyone else outside of a couple journalists acknowledge the existence of metal? When did a significant subculture of fans start self-identifying as heavy metal fans, metalheads and headbangers? When did bands other than Judas Priest self-identify as metal? There's like a big gaping hole in metal history that must be lurking about in interviews and photos. From what I can tell in this NWOBHM documentary, there seemed to already be local metal scenes scattered throughout England by at least 1977, possibly 1976? Is there a decent Priest biography I've missed that covers this?

https://youtu.be/BZUUUIDIsqk?t=2m6s

Newly disciplined research reveals that metal was actually not invented until Queensrÿche's Rage for Order.

The more I listen and read about metal, the more it seems like it took punk to make metal what we think of today. Most people seem to agree that Black Sabbath was the first true metal band, as far as heaviness. However, when I think about "modern" metal, I think about bands like Motorhead and Venom (and other NWOBHM acts) taking cues from punk, regarding intensity, speed, vocal style, and pushing the envelope of what was acceptable to rock-learned ears.

There's certainly a strong case for metal not really existing until 1979! Judas Priest kind of held the fort all by their lonesome for a few years.

Has anyone read this? There doesn't really seem to be a widely published, well written Priest book.

Judas Priest: The Early Years (1983)
http://www.amazon.com/Judas-Priest-Early-Years/dp/B000KY3YGI/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1442353790&sr=1-7&keywords=judas+priest

And yeah, along with Motorhead, lots of hard rock influenced metal - Scorpions, AC/DC, UFO, Thin Lizzy, Van Halen, etc.

This might be promising:

Neil Daniels - The Story Of Judas Priest - Defenders Of The Faith (2010)
http://www.amazon.com/Story-Judas-Priest-Defenders-Faith-ebook/dp/B003FV7G4E/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1442354906&sr=1-10&keywords=judas+priest

The Birth Of Metal

Was heavy metal invented by a single band? Was it dreamed up by a journalist? Was it born on a particular album, perhaps premature and deformed, denied by its parents and returned to live in an orphanage until it was adopted years later by a DJ, a journalist, a bunch of younger bands and some headbangers? ...

http://fastnbulbous.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/blacksabbath-born-again.jpg

This is a really cool thread, like what is the Big Bang of metal or whatever… leaning towards sad wings right now because I’m uhhh listening to an og pressing* right now and:

1) the ripper, cmon, especially the beginning
2) dreamer, deceiver is so… lighters up

*sold the bullshit promo I had that had all these lame radio-friendly edits like omitting the fade in to “victim of changes”

oh also, rob goddam vocals trills holy shit