| Unknown Soldier |
10-03-2014 01:08 PM |
1983
1983 was a natural continuation of 1982 as far as half the scene were concerned, which is fairly logical considering metal’s prominent position as a music genre by this time. Bands like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Van Halen ruled the metal roost, but they would now be joined by Def Leppard largely thanks to the release of their Pyromania album, which went off in the USA like a nuclear bomb! For those who don’t know it, it not only became one of the biggest selling metal albums of its time, but one of the biggest of the year for any genre! Metal’s success at this time could be attained to several factors 1) Its now lengthy history had a huge amount of quality bands behind it of which many were innovators. 2) Metal usually had quality musicans and vocalists, unlike the dubious minions that roamed punk. 3) Along with AOR bands they were fully capable of functioning as arena rock bands and this would fill out arenas. 4) Bands like Iron Maiden brought quality album artwork to the highest level, as this was an age where artwork sold albums. 5) The NWOBHM demonstrated that the genre could give birth to explosive revolutions from within the genre and still strengthen it even further. 6) They were able to embrace MTV when the opportunity came along. 7) Despite the huge commercialism of the genre in certain areas, it always kept its hardcore fanbase. Now all this largely explains the first half of the metal spectrum as mentioned above. The other half for many would actually be more interesting, because metal had finally branched out from its grass roots which had been laid down by bands such as Venom and Manilla Road to name just two, to start embracing what would become known as the extreme metal genres which would splinter into multiple sub-sections with their own identities. Most grass roots bands would certainly owe a debt to the Metallica debut which came out in 1983 and besides being a classic debut, is probably more important for what it would signify as a statement, to a lesser degree the Slayer debut holds a certain amount of importance as well. Also the slowly growing glam metal movement fronted by band’s like Motley Crue and Twisted Sister would finally hit the big time thanks to another band and that was Quiet Riot, who would turn glam metal into an overnight sensation in 1983 largely due to a Slade cover song. Both Motley Crue and Twisted Sister were better bands than Quiet Riot, but it was very much ‘right place at the right time’ for them. Kiss finally demasked on their Lick it Up album, even though they should’ve done it a year earlier on their Creatures of the Night album, which was a stronger album. Finally Dio relased Holy Diver…………… what more can I say, does it get any better than that? |
