|
|
Post by Erik Rupp on Sept 22, 2011 18:28:48 GMT -5
After Cream, Jimi Hendrix, and Led Zeppelin (and to a lesser degree, Steppenwolf) laid the groundwork there were a handful of bands that took what they did and created Heavy Metal.
Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Uriah Heep each had groundbreaking albums that changed everything. Music got heavier. The beat got stronger. Musicianship got better.
I'm going to post some of the songs that along with the albums they came from totally changed the direction of Rock and Roll for decades to come.
Starting with Black Sabbath...
|
|
|
|
Post by Erik Rupp on Sept 22, 2011 18:29:28 GMT -5
From the first album.
Clearly, this was something different - something new. I can imagine the, "WTF is THIS," look on teenagers' faces as they heard this album for the first time. It was Led Zeppelin, only dirtier, angrier, and heavier. It was Birmingham. Judas Priest later mirrored Sabbath's Birmingham sound. It was an industrial sound from an industrial town. It reflected the working class and the struggles of their daily lives - not just lyrically, but musically.
And it was good.
February, 1970...
|
|
|
|
Post by Erik Rupp on Sept 22, 2011 18:30:24 GMT -5
The forgotten band. The band that really added some CRUNCH to both guitar AND keyboards.
Mick Box cranked up the distortion to early 1980's proportions on this album, and Ken Hensley figured out how to distort his Hammond organ to the same level. This was a band that sounded like Tony Iommi and Jon Lord forming a band with a bunch of guys stuck musically in 1968. It was harsh. It was heavy. But at times these guys could be fairly gentle and mellow. They were schizophrenic. When they cranked it up they were HEAVY. But they never forgot that music is about melody, and their signature sound came in large part from the five part harmonies that they could pull off both in the studio AND live. They also had a real dichotomy about their music. They could have amazingly simple parts in the same songs as fairly complex, prog influenced parts.
Uriah Heep - the debut album called ...Very 'Eavy...Very 'Umble (aka Uriah Heep in the U.S.).
June, 1970...
That last one - I'll Keep On Trying - has a riff that sounds a bit like one of the riffs from Master of Reality, Lord of This World (the Heep song came a year earlier).
...Very 'Eavy...Very 'Umble was an album that wasn't a huge hit, but found homes with a lot of musicians and became a very influential album.
|
|
|
|
Post by Erik Rupp on Sept 22, 2011 18:33:52 GMT -5
At the same time that the above album came out it's more celebrated brother was released.
Deep Purple, In Rock.
This was the album where Deep Purple became DEEP PURPLE!!!
Ian Gillan and Roger Glover made an immediate impact on the band. Gone were the 60's era psychedelic elements, and in their place was a new, Hard Rocking ethic that influenced thousands of bands. This was groundbreaking stuff. This was early Metal, stuff that left a lasting impression on several musicians who would work together a decade later as Iron Maiden.
June, 1970.
The last one there actually came out as a single prior to the release of the album and was not included in the final tracklisting for In Rock.
Later Purple albums would surpass this one in sheer quality, but none of them shook up the world the way this one did. (And this album, while not as great as Machine Head was still incredibly good...)
|
|
|
|
Post by Erik Rupp on Oct 11, 2011 21:49:37 GMT -5
And then in September, 1970, the album came out that cemented what Heavy Metal was and was going to be for decades to come.
Taking their first album two steps forward, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, Bill Ward, and Ozzy Osbourne created a classic that remains one of the most iconic albums in the history of the Heavy Metal genre...
Paranoid.
I'll just let the music do the talking -
|
|
