On The Genealogy Of Heavy Metal
A Nietzschean Journey Into Metal Morality
There is perhaps no other musical genre that has challenged conventional morality and the status quo more than heavy metal. Often associated with rebellion, the spirit of heavy metal, its foremost Geist, transcends straightforward themes of nonconformity and societal resistance. More so than rock and roll and hard rock, heavy metal is an active affirmation of all that is noble, powerful, and unashamed in man.
Originating in the late 1960s, heavy metal traces its roots to the blues. Here one finds the nuclear musical taxonomy that begins with rock and roll. Out of rock and roll evolved hard rock. Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Black Sabbath share a genesis here. Characterized by more aggressive vocals and distorted guitar tones, hard rock pushed the envelope that rock and roll established with more ferocity, edge and power. Of these three aforementioned bands, Black Sabbath stretched those boundaries furthest, resulting in the conception of a distinct genre: heavy metal. Faster, more abrasive, and heavier, Black Sabbath began to eschew the bluesier elements characteristic of Led Zeppelin in favor of a darker, more forceful sound.
Defining the titular characteristic, heavy, can prove somewhat elusive. Physically, sonically, one must explore the qualities of timbre to account for this sonic edge and mystique in metal. Timbre refers to the “color” or tone quality of music rather than its pitch or intensity. Differences in timbre account for much of the evolution of heavy metal from rock and roll and hard rock. These differences are primarily found in an examination of the guitar tones used. Heavily distorted guitars, placed front and center in the mix, are perhaps the single most identifying characteristic of heavy metal. Syncopation is sparse and employed more judiciously. The vocals are ancillary to the music itself. The distorted riff is king. Dynamically, the percussion carries the power of a freight train. The bass is a throbbing pulse. This combined innovation in timbre and dynamics produces an increase in abrasiveness. Combined with a passionate ambition and assertion of individuality, it is this abrasive stripping of convention and moral pretense that serves as heavy metal’s primary artistic power source.
This abrasive stripping necessitates a revelation of authenticity. It cannot help but do so. It functions through an intensity of attention, a concentrated force. Unafraid to challenge religion, politics, and everyday societal constraints, heavy metal is the embodiment of a new affirmation of values, and a rejection of what no longer serves humankind. Heavy metal’s cosmically bold lyrical themes notwithstanding, this abrasive stripping is often achieved through musical prowess, virtuosity and speed, but can also be accomplished through atmosphere and mood.
The titular track from Dio’s Holy Diver (1983) provides the quintessential example of this process through prowess and elegance. Perhaps only rivaled by Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson, Dio’s lead vocalist, the late Ronnie James Dio, personified classic heavy metal’s bold, assertive Geist with an elegant vocal timbre and poetic execution: “Between the velvet lies, there’s a truth as hard as steel. The vision never dies, life’s a never-ending wheel.”
Decidedly unchristian, Dio’s “never-ending wheel” espouses cosmic themes akin to Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence. Christian ideas of the afterlife certainly do not play with any cyclical themes of reincarnation. In his The Gay Science (1882), Friedrich Nietzsche proposes the ontological thought-experiment of the eternal recurrence: “What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: ‘This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more’ … Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: ‘You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine!’”
The vision never dies, indeed. Such heavy metal Hyperboreans are naturally visionaries. Revealing a “truth as hard as steel” implies a commitment to intellectual integrity, a quest for knowledge, no matter the damage it may inflict on one’s comfortable, preconceived notions. The strength and passion behind Dio’s majestic execution is indicative of one who addresses Nietzsche’s demon as a god, and boldly charges forth with an affirmation of life. This affirmation transcends the conventional, antithetical morality of “good” and “evil,” or ideas about what modern man “should” and “should not” do. Nothing is taken for granted. Man will assert himself as a god of his own making, by his own design, in this life, or he will die trying. He will live this life in such a way as to want this same life, again and again. Nothing is surrendered in this life in hopes of a divine reward in an unproven afterlife.
In Twilight of The Idols (1889), Nietzsche writes: “To talk about ‘another’ world than this is quite pointless, provided that an instinct for slandering, disparaging and accusing life is not strong within us: in the latter case we revenge ourselves on life by means of the phantasmagoria of ‘another’ life, a ‘better’ life.”
What does heavy metal’s unabashed affirmation of this life presuppose? Authenticity. Authenticity, and a direct challenge to contemporary morality; a “grand declaration of war” upon the deeply ingrained set of social value judgements born out of Christian machinations that have infected society beyond the confines of the religion itself. A war upon this viral morality of submissiveness, conformity, humility and a surrendering of value for this life in favor of a better, ethereal life; a morality that creates what Nietzsche referred to as “the bad conscience,” a psychological state forged from shame and ressentiment (resentment).
In Twilight of The Idols Nietzsche continues: “Let us consider finally what naivety it is to say ‘man ought to be thus and thus!’ Reality shows us an enchanting wealth of (psychological) types, the luxuriance and prodigal play and change of forms: and does some pitiful journeyman moralist say at the sight of it: ‘No! Man ought to be different’ ?… He even knows how man ought to be, this bigoted wretch; he paints himself on the wall and says ‘ecce homo’! (Behold the man!)…”
The next step in the evolution of heavy metal began with the advent of extreme heavy metal. Extreme metal first manifested in the form of thrash metal. Thrash combined the raw intensity and speed of hardcore punk with the musical prowess of the new wave of British heavy metal (NWOBHM). Thrash was the predominant vehicle for continued growth in ferocity and virtuosity. There is perhaps no more fitting example of this evolution than in Megadeth’s “Holy Wars…The Punishment Due” from their 1990 masterpiece, Rust In Peace. The main riff is an intricate, galloping assault. Not only does Megadeth innovate with their jaw-dropping speed and virtuosity, they challenge the logical absurdities in religion that account for catastrophically regressive values in humankind: “Brother will kill brother, spilling blood across the land. Killing for religion, something I don’t understand. Fools like me who cross the sea and come to foreign lands, ask the sheep, for their beliefs, ‘Do you kill on God’s command?’”
Megadeth’s lyrics are eerily timely 34 years later. At the dawn of 2024, men and women continue to commit industrial murder over differences in creed and nationality. Megadeth’s challenge to such absurdity is not a toothless call for a submissive utopia with herd delusions of the “brotherhood of man” a la John Lennon’s “Imagine,” but rather an unbridled, focused assault against the ontological conundrum itself. An abrasive stripping, napalm to unexamined psychological and moral assumptions.
Extreme metal continued to evolve into death metal and black metal. Culminating in Norway, black metal is characterized by its lo-fi production, tremolo-picked guitar riffs, shrieking, non-pitched vocals, and textured, atmospheric qualities. Physically, sonically, but also thematically, nowhere is metal more abrasive than in the subgenre of black metal.
Eschewing polished production and technical virtuosity in favor of atmosphere and mood, black metal pioneered an innovative Geist characterized by a premeditated effort to achieve what Varg Vikernes eloquently referred to as a “corpse-sound, or necro-sound,” -an intentionally raw and unpolished, abrasive timbre. Burzum, the one man black metal project of the aforementioned notorious Norwegian, embodies these aesthetic virtues while pushing the boundaries of the subgenre to its limit. “Dunkelheit,” from Burzum’s Filosofem (1996), embraces the less-is-more school of aesthetics, elevating this ethos onto a heightened plane of artistic achievement. The layered, buzz-saw guitars, the distorted vocals coming through a tornado of fuzz, as if through a dense Norwegian winter storm, combined with the creeping tempo and synthesizers, create a grim, contemplative atmosphere: “When night falls, she cloaks the world in impenetrable darkness. A chill rises from the soil and contaminates the air. Suddenly, life has new meaning.” New meaning indeed.
Contemplation can result in new perspectives. As perception is indeed reality, a new perspective is the fertile soil for the creation of new meaning. For new meaning to be created, a revaluation of values is needed, often revealing the contamination of the status-quo.
Nietzsche’s Übermensch embodies a transcendence of contemporary moral values, eschewing them in favor of affirming his own values. He is beyond contemporary, antithetical ideas of “good” and “evil.” The Übermensch serves as a theoretical ideal for the higher-type man. Creators, innovators and artists, especially pioneering heavy metal artists, approach this ideal most directly.
For Nietzsche, morality is fundamentally about dealing with impulses. Nietzsche’s Übermensch is unfettered by the socially imposed Christian morality, which is characterized by an extirpation of the impulses. Nietzsche argued that Christianity achieves its well-adjusted “good man,” by castrating his impulses through a life-denying morality. Only weak spirits, unable to forge their own path, conform to this psychological castration. They have a need for it. Conversely, the Übermensch, Nietzsche’s creative ideal for man, sublimates his impulses and passions, transfiguring them into creativity, art and continued personal growth. His superior nature presupposes this ability.
Defying Christian dogma, Nietzsche did not believe all men were created equal. Humanity ought not be measured by its conformity to a rigid set of life-denying principles, but rather in the achievements of its highest-type specimens. For Nietzsche, there is a greater gap between Ronnie James Dio and the average man than there is between the average man and a chimpanzee. Man must earn his transcendence from his animality. It is not divinely given a priori. Art represents the highest realm of achievement for Nietzsche’s higher-type specimens. Nowhere is this sublimation more authentic, more abrasive to all that is status-quo, than in heavy metal.
In his Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist (1950), the preeminent Nietzsche scholar, Walter Kaufmann, identifies the Übermenschen creators’ unifying ontological predicament: “It is overlooked that as human beings we have ideals of perfection which we generally find ourselves unable to attain. We recognize norms and standards of which we usually fall short; we long for a triumph over old age, suffering, and death; we yearn for perfection and immortality-and seem incapable of fulfillment. We desire to be ‘as gods,’ but we cannot be so.” (254)
From its inception, metal has rattled the cage of contemporary value judgements. Both aesthetically and philosophically, it abrasively strips their veneer of civility as citristrip removes varnish. No genre has been more critical of religion, nationalism and the political war machine, and their myriad abuses to humankind, than heavy metal. Heavy metal affirms, both lyrically and musically, all that is noble, authentic, and unashamed in man. Heavy metal -the premier aesthetic representation of man’s desire to be “as gods.”
