a well-regulated metal militia
(Hoisted from, of all things, a discussion of the cultural significance of Def Leppard’s “Hysteria”, and slightly expanded for clarity. Reposted here mostly because I’m amused by the idea of a deep metaphysical similarity between Bret Michels and Camille Paglia.)
On the one hand, there may be no argument in the world more ( Read more... )
There's a whole separate line of argument where, for instance, AC/DC isn't metal but is rather an Australian-accented reinterpretation of the Stones' influences and is more appropriately thought of as a parallel to Aerosmith, Nugent, etc. (Definitely don't get me started on BOC.)
For metal's starting points you've got to look at what guys like Ritchie Blackmore and Tony Iommi were doing and listening to in the mid-'60s. There are serious lines of argument insisting that Vanilla Fudge is the key to the whole thing, but of course there are others. Jeff Beck fits in here somewhere too. Jimmy Page was doing something else, but of course he wasn't -- just playing blues forms in the same loud stompy spirit as Blackmore was riffing on classical forms and Iommi was grabbing modal jazz bits, really. (The early Sabbath sound = Dorian mode. Way cool.)
These are the guys, though. Lots of fun to trace the threads from there. The Deep Purple family tree in particular is *immense* and connects to amazing numbers of people who were key to all this.
But is DL metal? They definitely were in 1983, but might not be now. But at the same time, "Paranoid" and "In Rock" are still metal albums, and will be 100 yrs from now. Brain-bending.
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