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A Beginner’s Guide to Heavy Metal
Part I — origins, classics, and a peak down some branches
Just a few short days ago, a handful of regular punters participated in the Album of the Month discussion, which is brought to you by The Riff. The peerless Charles in San Francisco led us through the album Human. :II: Nature. by the Finnish symphonic metal stalwarts, Nightwish.
We were in agreement that the album was indeed a great piece of work. However, a couple of us considered symphonic metal to be a somewhat safe introduction to the world of metal — a ‘gateway metal’ perhaps!
A couple of our members admitted to not knowing much about metal, with one person admitting that they might not be able to name one song by the biggest metal band in the world.
I offered to throw together a playlist that would be a short history of the genre. I did exactly that and sent that playlist off to our discussion participants.
Now that I have had five minutes to scratch myself and sit at the keyboard, I present that playlist to you all with some explanatory notes on the selections I made.
Some caveats. This list is obviously not complete or comprehensive. It is my attempt to teach some friends about the genre. I’ve included a bunch of classics and amusing pieces, and I started down the paths of some sub-genres. One probably could not do this task justice with 100 selections — I’ve gone with just 28 (and called it part I). There will be plenty of “why didn’t you include … ” moments from readers, so please hit the comments section. There are songs and bands that I can’t believe I left out!
I hope you enjoy the read!
The birth of heavy metal
Many people credit the trio of Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple as the pioneers of heavy metal. And those people would be largely correct. You have the doom of the tritone interval in Black Sabbath, the roar of Jimmy Page’s Les Paul, and the Ian Gillan wail, all setting the tone for heavy metal.
However, a bunch of other acts were just as influential in the genre's development. I included the Blue Cheer version of Summertime Blues and Homicidal, Suicidal from the first Budgie album to give one an…
