Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Torn Curtain
From what I read on the French entry of wikipedia on heavy metal, there's a distinction between hard rock and heavy metal, hard rock retaining palpable blues rock influences while heavy metal departs from them. In that sense AC/DC are hard rock more than heavy metal.
|
Hmmm...That's interestingly contradictory, because all my growing up, I heard the difference explained in 180-degrees opposite fashion. According to all the magazine articles and books published in the '70s and early '80s, 'heavy metal' got started in the mid '60s with a souped-up, deafening approach to the blues by the likes of The Yardbirds, Cream, The Hendrix Experience, Blue Cheer, etc. The next wave of groups--early Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple (Mark II), Uriah Heep, Budgie, etc.--traced their roots to these bands. 'Hard rock', on the other hand, had its roots in soul/R&B and rockabilly, and its 'founders' were groups like Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels, The Who, MC5, etc. There was also the bizarre, can't-quite-be-defined category of 'heavy rock', which more or less died with the '60s. This category seems to have either existed as a gray area between the other two, or was a heavy metal approach to the styles of rock that inspired hard rock. (I'm confusing the hell out of you now, aren't I?!!) 'Heavy rock' was defined by groups like Vanilla Fudge, the less classical-inspired side of The Nice, Iron Butterfly, Deep Purple (Mark I), etc.
Anyway, I think when they diagnose heavy metal as being further separated from the blues than hard rock, they are thinking of post-1980 heavy metal, which is really a genre (as opposed to a sub-genre) in itself, just as influenced by punk, hardcore, noise, industrial, etc. as what it is the '70s heavy metal bands. In fact, if one is going to pick the original Metallica or Slayer as a prime example of heavy metal, then one must automatically conclude that all pre-1981 heavy metal isn't really heavy metal, and is just barely proto-heavy metal at best in the case of 4 or 5 groups (Sabbath, early Rainbow, Scorpions, Judas Priest, Motorhead). Like I said in a previous post on this thread, by the definition I grew up on, the last true heavy metal bands that considered themselves heavy metal were Anvil, Iron Maiden and Trouble, and there hasn't been a well-known new example of the sub-genre since 1984. I would argue that hardcore albums like Black Flag's
Slip It In and grunge albums like Soundgarden's
Badmotorfinger have vastly more in common with the original heavy metal music of the late '60s/early '70s than, say, Slayer's
Hell Awaits or Anthrax's
State of Euphoria. Ironic, isn't it?