An overview of the genre

Despite ongoing contestation by both fans and musicians as to what constitutes the genre and which acts should be included under its banner, heavy metal and its close derivatives have been a vibrant, successful and influential musical genre for over thirty years. Unlike many of the other musical forms in this book, heavy metal (henceforth ‘metal’) has at least partially subverted the vagaries of fashion and ‘coolness’ by being a consistently successful commercial genre. In 1989, Rolling Stone magazine termed heavy metal ‘the mainstream of rock and roll’ (Walser 1993: 3).

The musical roots of metal lie chiefly within blues rock and psychedelic rock. From these two genres, metal drew upon such elements as the constructed notions of ‘roots’ and ‘authenticity’, as well as an interest in virtuosity and timbral intensity achieved through new production techniques, effects, structures and playing styles.

In the main, the earliest manifestations of metal in the mid to late 1960s (and known at the time as ‘rock’ or ‘hard rock’) can be found in the work of groups such as The Yardbirds, Cream and The Jimi Hendrix Experience in Britain, and Blue Cheer, Steppenwolf and Vanilla Fudge in the US. In particular, the centrality of the distorted guitar riff and the powerchord, in songs such as Cream's Sunshine Of Your Love and Blue Cheer's Summertime Blues, set the tone for probably the most important textural element in most subsequent metal recordings.

The audience for metal, certainly until the early 1980s, was overwhelmingly male, white and working class (or in US parlance, ‘blue collar’). In Britain, its most fervent devotees were often found in regions historically associated with heavy industry - South Wales, the Midlands and the North East. Similarly, in the States, industrial cities such as Cleveland and Detroit became known as ‘rock cities’ - as did whole tracts of the urban Mid-West. This geographical determinant is seen as an important element by many critics - for Robert Walser ‘that heavy metal bands now labor in spaces abandoned by industry is particularly appropriate for a music that has flourished during a period of American deindustrialization’ (Walser 1993: x).