Certif1ed

Deep Purple started BEFORE Led Zeppelin. While DP were touring with their Mk1 lineup, Led Zep were still either leaving the Yardbirds, in the process of forming, or supporting Frijid Pink...

As a blues rock band with organ player, they cultivated an original heavy sound that is quite dissimilar to that of Zep - the whole musical style is also worlds away. Apart from the obvious common blues rock root (Cream, and more strongly, Yardbirds and Bluesbreakers, but also many unsung Garage acts of the time), Zeppelin had a strong folk flavour on their first 4 albums, while Deep Purple went for Classical influences and hardly dipped into folk at all.

Not sure how you can say this as "fact" - although Priest may have formed in 1971, they didn't release an album until 1975, and "Rocka Rolla" is practically a Prog Rock album, with meandering compositions that are nothing like the brand of heavy metal they went on to develop.

Metal had, "in fact" already begun in the music of UFO (debut album 1970) and The Scorpions (debut 1972). Both created metal anthems in 1974 - The Scorpions song "Speedy's Coming" on "Fly To The Rainbow" is the heaviest, but UFO's album "Phenomenon" is a more consistently heavy metal sounding album. Also in 1974, Glam rock bands had started to acquire a heavier sound, particularly The Sweet, whose "Action" and "Hellraiser" were later covered by NWoBHM technical/speed metal pioneers Raven, and notably Queen - who included heavy numbers on their albums from their 1971 debut, but produced the first "thrash" style song "Stone Cold Crazy" also in 1974 on their album "Sheer Heart Attack".

The Scorpions, UFO, The Sweet and Queen were not alone in producing heavy music, of course, but these are the first definite offerings of the style which would become known as heavy metal, as disctinct from heavy blues-based rock. Glimmerings had been seen long before the 1970s in 1960s garage bands like The Sonics and The Pretty Things.

Priest didn't really cement their brand of heavy metal until 1977's "Sin After Sin", which is odd, on reflection, as they had Rodger Bain, Black Sabbath's producer behind the controls.

Although Sabbath (specifically Iommi) used the minor pentatonic a lot, he also appears to be among the first to use the diabolus in musica - the tritone - and drop-tuning. These two innovations are what made Sabbath's sound stand out so starkly from the pack, and are a DIRECT influence on modern metal, which practically depends on both, even more than it depends on non-pentatonic scales.

Deep Purple (among many others) had been using many Classical key structures and modes for ages - not to mention the proliferation of Prog Rock musicians, who had a strong influence on many metal bands. I don't think that this is a good generalisation, because there are many metal bands (e.g. Rammstein) who use simple power chords (with Sabbat-esque tritones).

The use of Minor keys is nothing new in rock or metal, and doesn't differentiate between modern and old metal at all. There's no such thing as a diminshed key, BTW - "diminished" refers to intervals between notes, not key signatures.

Likewise, as I said, Purple used diatonic modes, as did jazz musicians decades earlier. Since many jazz musicians crossed over into rock and metal, use of these modes is nothing new - although the huge proliferation of people learning them is. Listen to any album by the Mahavishnu Orchestra for modal madness over glorious rock music.


Not really - it was the "Big 4", and Exodus were not among that number, despite Kirk Hammet's involvement.

Metal Church were also very important in the evolution of thrash, but always get overlooked.

Thrash tried to debut several times - 1974, as I pointed out above, in "Stone Cold Crazy" (although some might argue the case for "Highway Star", by Deep Purple (1972). For me, though, the first true thrash song was "Exciter" by Judas Priest, even though the drumming is not "proper" thrash drumming.

In the late 1970s, punk rock outfit UK Subs delivered a fast, thrashy cover of "She's Not There", by The Animals, which seemed to kick off a new wave of punk bands playing ever faster - particularly Bad Brains and The Misfits, who had just as strong an influence on thrash as Venom and the fledgling Metallica, some 2-3 years later.


I really don't like all these subgenres - it's either metal or it ain't. Subdividing is just that - divisive.

Venom so badly wanted credit for something (because they sure as hell could not play when they started out), that they went to all lengths to coin the phrase for "the new style of metal" (which, to be fair to Venom, it was), as well as put on outrageous stage shows and put on that laughable satanic act. I only say laughable because I was laughing WITH them - I got the joke, they were a kind of Spinal Tap, but for real!

Possessed likewise are responsible for "Death Metal" (if you need the labels so badly), because their first album features all the odd time signatures you could ever need, as well as the distinctive Death Metal sound.


That's enough dissecting for now