A Brief History Of Heavy Metal... Part 2
One of the many defining aspects of metal, is its ability to evolve and change with the times. Starting off as an underground movement, shunned by the media and disrespected in the mainstream, metal slowly began to make its way across the world. As it spread, it reached far and wide, and helped not only establish some of the biggest metal bands, but also the many sub genres. Metal is one of the only music genre's to have so many sub genres as part of it.
In Brazil, the mighty Sepultura would form in 1984. Releasing some of metals best, like Roots, and ChaosAD, Sepultura are considered the leaders of the second wave of thrash metal in the late 80s to 90s. The same year over in Germany, a band would emerge who would become the creators of the power metal movement - Helloween. Not far away in Sweden, a new band would come together in 1983 and begin the start of black metal - Bathory. But it wasn't only Europe and South America making sub genres of their own, in the United States the times brought even more genres.
During the 80s, in the bright lights of Los Angeles, glitzy elements of disco combined with the heavy riffs of metal to create glam metal. Mixing make up and costumes with punishing metal riffs and solos, bands like Motley Crue and Guns N' Roses set new levels for debauchery. Not too far away in the Bay Area, the first wave of thrash metal was beginning to make its mark, spearheaded by bands like Slayer and Megadeth. In 1984 in Tampa, Florida, death metal would begin to take shape, with Obituary coming onto the scene while further upstate Cannibal Corpse would be formed in New York. Doom metal was a sub genre that can be traced back to Black Sababath, but came into its own with bands like Candlemass from Sweden and Cathedral from the UK leading the charge.
As these different metal genres began to take shape and create bands with a similar vein, the world began to awake to the sound of metal. MTV began with simply playing music videos, and this was used by US bands extremely well to create hype and interest in songs and tours. Soon metal was becoming a big revenue stream, and like always metal changed with the times - US bands becoming massive overseas and back home, while European metal originally grew where it was played the most. It wouldn't be long before metal came across something which would throw a spanner in the works, and it would take a select few to keep the banner of metal flying...
Stay tuned for Part 3, coming soon!
© 2019 Merchant of Rock