Heavy Metal Music [UPDATED]

Heavy metal (or simply metal) is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the United Kingdom and United States.[2] With roots in blues rock, psychedelic rock and acid rock, heavy metal bands developed a thick, monumental sound characterized by distorted guitars, extended guitar solos, emphatic beats and loudness.

The electric guitar and the sonic power that it projects through amplification has historically been the key element in heavy metal.[11] The heavy metal guitar sound comes from a combined use of high volumes and heavy fuzz.[12] For classic heavy metal guitar tone, guitarists maintain gain at moderate levels, without excessive preamp or pedal distortion, to retain open spaces and air in the music; the guitar amplifier is turned up loud to produce the "punch and grind" characteristic.[13] Thrash metal guitar tone has scooped mid-frequencies and tightly compressed sound with multiple bass frequencies.[13] Guitar solos are "an essential element of the heavy metal code ... that underscores the significance of the guitar" to the genre.[14] Most heavy metal songs "feature at least one guitar solo",[15] which is "a primary means through which the heavy metal performer expresses virtuosity".[16] Some exceptions are nu metal and grindcore bands, which tend to omit guitar solos.[17] With rhythm guitar parts, the "heavy crunch sound in heavy metal ... [is created by] palm muting" the strings with the picking hand and using distortion.[18] Palm muting creates a tighter, more precise sound and it emphasizes the low end.[19]

Heavy Metal Music

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The lead role of the guitar in heavy metal often collides with the traditional "frontman" or bandleader role of the vocalist, creating a musical tension as the two "contend for dominance" in a spirit of "affectionate rivalry".[9] Heavy metal "demands the subordination of the voice" to the overall sound of the band. Reflecting metal's roots in the 1960s counterculture, an "explicit display of emotion" is required from the vocals as a sign of authenticity.[20] Critic Simon Frith claims that the metal singer's "tone of voice" is more important than the lyrics.[21]

The essence of heavy metal drumming is creating a loud, constant beat for the band using the "trifecta of speed, power, and precision".[26] Heavy metal drumming "requires an exceptional amount of endurance", and drummers have to develop "considerable speed, coordination, and dexterity ... to play the intricate patterns" used in heavy metal.[27] A characteristic metal drumming technique is the cymbal choke, which consists of striking a cymbal and then immediately silencing it by grabbing it with the other hand (or, in some cases, the same striking hand), producing a burst of sound. The metal drum setup is generally much larger than those employed in other forms of rock music.[22] Black metal, death metal and some "mainstream metal" bands "all depend upon double-kicks and blast beats".[28]

Heavy metal performers tended to be almost exclusively male[32] until at least the mid-1980s,[33] with some exceptions such as Girlschool.[32] However, by the 2010s, women were making more of an impact,[34][35] and PopMatters' Craig Hayes argues that metal "clearly empowers women".[36] In the power metal and symphonic metal subgenres, there has been a sizable number of bands that have had women as the lead singers, such as Nightwish, Delain and Within Temptation.

Brief, abrupt and detached rhythmic cells are joined into rhythmic phrases with a distinctive, often jerky texture. These phrases are used to create rhythmic accompaniment and melodic figures called riffs, which help to establish thematic hooks. Heavy metal songs also use longer rhythmic figures such as whole note- or dotted quarter note-length chords in slow-tempo power ballads. The tempos in early heavy metal music tended to be "slow, even ponderous".[22] By the late 1970s, however, metal bands were employing a wide variety of tempos, and as recently as the 2000s, metal tempos range from slow ballad tempos (quarter note = 60 beats per minute) to extremely fast blast beat tempos (quarter note = 350 beats per minute).[27]

Heavy metal songs often make extensive use of pedal point as a harmonic basis. A pedal point is a sustained tone, typically in the bass range, during which at least one foreign (i.e., dissonant) harmony is sounded in the other parts.[48] According to Robert Walser, heavy metal harmonic relationships are "often quite complex" and the harmonic analysis done by metal players and teachers is "often very sophisticated".[49] In the study of heavy metal chord structures, it has been concluded that "heavy metal music has proved to be far more complicated" than other music researchers had realized.[46]

Robert Walser stated that, alongside blues and R&B, the "assemblage of disparate musical styles known ... as 'classical music'" has been a major influence on heavy metal since the genre's earliest days, and that metal's "most influential musicians have been guitar players who have also studied classical music. Their appropriation and adaptation of classical models sparked the development of a new kind of guitar virtuosity [and] changes in the harmonic and melodic language of heavy metal."[50]

In an article written for Grove Music Online, Walser stated that the "1980s brought on ... the widespread adaptation of chord progressions and virtuosic practices from 18th-century European models, especially Bach and Antonio Vivaldi, by influential guitarists such as Ritchie Blackmore, Marty Friedman, Jason Becker, Uli Jon Roth, Eddie Van Halen, Randy Rhoads and Yngwie Malmsteen."[51] Kurt Bachmann of Believer has stated that "if done correctly, metal and classical fit quite well together. Classical and metal are probably the two genres that have the most in common when it comes to feel, texture, creativity."[52]

The thematic content of heavy metal has long been a target of criticism. According to Jon Pareles, "Heavy metal's main subject matter is simple and virtually universal. With grunts, moans and subliterary lyrics, it celebrates ... a party without limits ... [T]he bulk of the music is stylized and formulaic."[8] Music critics have often deemed metal lyrics juvenile and banal, and others[56] have objected to what they see as advocacy of misogyny and the occult. During the 1980s, the Parents Music Resource Center petitioned the U.S. Congress to regulate the popular music industry due to what the group asserted were objectionable lyrics, particularly those in heavy metal songs.[57] Andrew Cope stated that claims that heavy metal lyrics are misogynistic are "clearly misguided" as these critics have "overlook[ed] the overwhelming evidence that suggests otherwise".[58] Music critic Robert Christgau called metal "an expressive mode [that] it sometimes seems will be with us for as long as ordinary white boys fear girls, pity themselves, and are permitted to rage against a world they'll never beat".[59]

Heavy metal artists have had to defend their lyrics in front of the U.S. Senate and in court. In 1985, Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider was asked to defend his song "Under the Blade" at a U.S. Senate hearing. At the hearing, the PMRC alleged that the song was about sadomasochism and rape; Snider stated that the song was about his bandmate's throat surgery.[60] In 1986, Ozzy Osbourne was sued over the lyrics of his song "Suicide Solution".[61] A lawsuit against Osbourne was filed by the parents of John McCollum, a depressed teenager who committed suicide allegedly after listening to Osbourne's song. Osbourne was not found to be responsible for the teen's death.[62] In 1990, Judas Priest was sued in American court by the parents of two young men who had shot themselves five years earlier, allegedly after hearing the subliminal statement "do it" in the band's cover of the song "Better by You, Better than Me".[63] While the case attracted a great deal of media attention, it was ultimately dismissed.[57] In 1991, U.K. police seized death metal records from the British record label Earache Records, in an "unsuccessful attempt to prosecute the label for obscenity".[64]

In some predominantly Muslim countries, heavy metal has been officially denounced as a threat to traditional values, and in countries such as Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon and Malaysia, there have been incidents of heavy metal musicians and fans being arrested and incarcerated.[65] In 1997, the Egyptian police jailed many young metal fans, and they were accused of "devil worship" and blasphemy after police found metal recordings during searches of their homes.[64] In 2013, Malaysia banned Lamb of God from performing in their country, on the grounds that the "band's lyrics could be interpreted as being religiously insensitive" and blasphemous.[66] Some people consider heavy metal music to be a leading factor for mental health disorders, and that heavy metal fans are more likely to suffer poor mental health, but a study from 2009 suggests that this is not true and that fans of heavy metal music suffer from poor mental health at a similar or lower rate compared to the general population.[67]

For many artists and bands, visual imagery plays a large role in heavy metal. In addition to its sound and lyrics, a heavy metal band's image is expressed in album cover art, logos, stage sets, clothing, design of instruments and music videos.[68]

Down-the-back long hair is the "most crucial distinguishing feature of metal fashion".[69] Originally adopted from the hippie subculture, by the 1980s and 1990s, heavy metal hair "symbolised the hate, angst and disenchantment of a generation that seemingly never felt at home", according to journalist Nader Rahman. Long hair gave members of the metal community "the power they needed to rebel against nothing in general".[70]

Fashion and personal style was especially important for glam metal bands of the era. Performers typically wore long, dyed, hairspray-teased hair (hence the nickname "hair metal"); makeup such as lipstick and eyeliner; gaudy clothing, including leopard-skin-printed shirts or vests and tight denim, leather or spandex pants; and accessories such as headbands and jewelry.[73] Pioneered by the heavy metal act X Japan in the late 1980s, bands in the Japanese movement known as visual kei, which includes many non-metal groups, emphasize elaborate costumes, hair and makeup.[75] e24fc04721