Adolph Rickenbacker invented the electric guitar in 1931. Before this, heavy metal did not exist. The electric guitar is the backbone of heavy metal. Debates continue, though most consider groups such as Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and Deep Purple to be the first Heavy Metal bands. From there the style evolved and branched into the numerous subgenres. Within some genres the guitar is quiet and mellow, however most are loud, powerful, speedy and aggressive.
To discuss heavy metal, we must first look at its roots, and its roots cannot be viewed without analyzing their origins as well as the political circumstances, which shaped the public image. We must begin by looking at rock music and its origins. ‘Country folk’ music was a part of American culture since the early days of the Republic; it was derived from English drinking songs, Celtic folk music, German popular music, and proto-gospel singing of Scottish immigrants. This history was gradually forgotten as new populations came to power replacing the old. The members of society who wanted to advance American popular music as an artform were not of the original Northern European population and were not disposed to thinking kindly of them. Advertising celebrated novelty and uniqueness in order to replace the ‘traditional and boring’ ways of doing things, and this ‘image over function’ shaped the character of America. Thus blues, as solely an African-American artform, is a myth, and Celtic, English, and American folk influences on rock and blues were denied. Blues is therefore and aesthetic, as opposed to musical, variation on the English, Scottish, Irish, and German folk music that became a standardized art perspective. Following this was a re-introduction of country music, which had less drumming than the original German waltz and popular music bands.
Blues-Country then became ‘rock’ in the 1930s-1950s mainly due to technology, with the invention of the electric guitar, and other advances in portability, recording equipment, and microphones. “Rock ‘n’ Roll” was the marketing standard, and soon became “rock” as it was consumed by the mainstream.
As America expanded, fought a civil war, freed slaves, and accepted immigrants, unification became of high importance. It was and era of populism, that is, the pandering of society to the population for the common goal to become socially equal. The aforementioned marketing of image-based music genres was in part based on this populism of the era, as were certain movements in Architecture, such as FLW’s prairie style, as an ‘architectural style for America’.
Individualism is the pursuit of individual rather than common or collective interests, also referred to as egoism. Decisions and values of the individual are therefore considered most important. This opposes populism however, grew parallel to it. The United States marketed the slogan “land of the free” in order to justify the nuclear engagement against “totalitarian” empires. In this capitalistic liberal democracy, art tends to follow the trends of each era. More than any other force, the stylistic aspects of rock’n’roll were shaped by individualism. This is because under individualism, all art is seen as equal, thus if it appeals to one due to sentimental or visual reasons, it becomes more important than any meaning it may be trying to convey.
The “Beat generation” is a term used to describe a group of writers who came into prominence in the 1950s. Central elements of the Beat culture they wrote about included a rejection of mainstream values, experimentation with drugs and alternate forms of sexuality, and an interest in Eastern spirituality. By the end of 1950’s the Beats faded, they were statistically insignificant except in academia, which meant that teachers of the 1960s were well versed and taught it to students from age 13 on. As a result, the youth coming of age in 1965 burst into full flower as a Counterculture.
Rock music of the 1950s was wholesome and focused largely on puppy love, those who felt left out ventured to rebellious and alienated themes. A number of bands such as Blue Cheer, Jimi Hendrix, and the Who improvised in varying forms ranging from crude, arty, or technique oriented variations, generating music that was on par with the jazz and big band-acts of the time. As creative use of distortion and dissonance continued, most bands focused on peace and love, until the first dark rock band appeared: the Doors. The Doors brought a “Nietzsche-inspired morbid subconscious psychedelia” to rock music. The influences of these bands saturated public consciousness, rock was a developing artform, and by 1969, hard rock (Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple) and proto-metal (Black Sabbath) simultaneously occurred. These bands developed the distorted, power-chord based, technical music from King Crimson.
Black Sabbath picked up where the Doors left off; they surged forward with a new sound, the sound of horror, and a similar morbid, occult and negative lyrical outlook similar to the Doors. They combined progressive rock with electric blues; it almost exclusively used power chords, bassier distortion, and narrative song structures creating a new sound. It was a shock, but more shocking was its success; it homed in on something that the worldwide audience found relevant and appealing.
Black Sabbath sought to express the experience of horror and truth thus avoiding the rigid morality of rock bands around them. Though the band collapsed by 1978, the formula for Heavy Metal had been established.
Faith in previous ideologies faded in the postwar era; between the cold war and failures in Vietnam, people began to look to technological futurism. The 1970s were a futuristic decade, the future and technology were to be the savior in place of ideologies, and the industrial revolution then became its own value system. The optimism of futurism soon faded at the turn of the eighties, as the reality of subservience set in. Pragmatism of gaining money and power soon took hold. Dissidents arose; paranoia against the industrial society began to rise. Heavy metal declared that the world had become obsessed with its own power and political moral attitudes, and had forgotten that human life is finite. Heavy metal gained mass appeal, and momentum; certain subgenres became a new style that embraced death, evil, and nothingness, channeling the thermonuclear fears of the previous metal generation into certainty of existential fate.
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