What's the first modern metal album?

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.

any band basically that played hard rock with extended organ solos.

So Deep Purple too, obviously.

gets the head nodding but nothing below the neck.

Agree with a lot of this, and I've grown to like plenty of late '70s and '80s metal that fastnbulbous might called "modern", but I'll always be dumfounded that this change was considered an improvement. Why is "not swinging" considered better -- or harder, or heavier, or more modern -- than swinging?

I mean, I guess it could be "heavier" in the sense of being more leaden, but why is that good? (And a lot of the stuff we're talking about is fast, so "leaden" wouldn't really apply, either.)

Not everyone thinks from their knob?
xp

(not that I'm saying you do)

(honest)

any band basically that played hard rock with extended organ solos

attila

(sorry!)

(but not really sorry)

(billy joel was)

Well this isn't about the best metal or modern metal album. I never argued that modern is implicitly better. Just different. The question is, when can that difference be pinpointed. I like a handful of proto-metal albums more than most modern metal. Of course overall there is just more modern stuff, which I also like for different reasons.

Obviously European music spans centuries and metal emerged toward the late 20th century, when pretty much all culture is accelerated. No reason one can't compare them in general. Modernism and postmodernism occur in differing time periods depending on whether you're talking about visual art, architecture, literature, European music and metal.

I'll always be dumfounded that this change was considered an improvement. Why is "not swinging" considered better -- or harder, or heavier, or more modern -- than swinging?

I don't get it either - I like a lot of stuff that doesn't swing but I certainly don't see it as an improvement; it's just different. I wish that metal had continued to evolve in both directions, but British Steel seemed to put a lot of nails in the classic swinging style.

that's why i picked judas priest instead of sabbath. obviously sabbath got the ball rolling but metal really did take the form of priest in a big way. and a modern way! for years. and even now. or maybe i should just say priest/maiden?

Why is "not swinging" considered better -- or harder, or heavier, or more modern -- than swinging?

If it actually is considered better, it's probably nothing more thought-out than that it seperates it from what came before - the music of *that* generation - and lends it a certain unfriendly extremity ie freaks out the squares

I mean, no doubt there are some out there with dubious Geirish cod-musicological theories, but I doubt it's the norm

i also think that a lot of 70's bands were well-versed in other genres. they had played in a zillion garage/bar bands and they had grown up on blues rock, but also r&b and other dancey musics. modern day metal warriors listen to LOTS of metal and they learn how to play metal and they are really, um, into metal. early thud rock "proto-metal" bands were heavily influenced by sabbath but they were also heavily influenced by bands like grand funk - a band whose influence should never be underestimated - and the blooze rock trios and quartets had funky feet at times. which is why i love 70's stuff so much. and bands that could blaze hard rock and then pull out an extended funky percussion break like it wasn't no thing. but modern dudes if they came from anywhere else but the metal world came from, like, the hardcore punk world. or the other way around. not much variety there. thus, most of them couldn't swing if their lives depended on it. or want to swing for that matter.

but you still love it?

the first glimmers of "modern" metal go back a LONG way too. here's a random example from 1972:

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

Scott's post is great. I know the Coverdale/Hughes era of Deep Purple gets slighted, mostly because of what those guys did AFTER they left that band, but that band could fucking swing and rock like no other. When they got Tommy Bolin in the band, it sounded like Stevie Wonder on steroids (a good thing). Come Taste the Band is one of the most underrated things ever.

"and bands that could blaze hard rock and then pull out an extended funky percussion break like it wasn't no thing"

This sentence sums up Coverdale-era DP perfectly.

dubious Geirish cod-musicological theories

Ha ha, I've been listening to UFO's Force It this morning, and it's a good record, but what hits me is that it mainly seems to be about melodies. There's something missing for me; it feels thin, somehow. I like it, but don't love it. Wonder what Geir would think if he heard it.

maybe i should just say priest/maiden?

Yeah, I was wondering why Maiden weren't a bigger presence on this thread; seems what metal eventually evolved into is as attributable to them at least as much, maybe more, than Priest (who sound more rock'n'roll, of the two, right?) And obviously what's always most stood in my way with those two bands, what I've always probably held against them, is that they got rid of metal's swing. (Never liked their singing much either, so sue me.) And swing is a big part of what I always loved about both Motorhead and AC/DC (though I'd say both of them forfeited a lot of it, as time went on.)

Also wondering why Blue Oyster Cult haven't been mentioned here more. Didn't they sound pretty modern, early on? Or is it just that almost nobody later was able to replicate what they were great at?

Guess lots of Tull (and lots of other bands) would count as "heavy prog" too, come to think of it.