Heavy Metal Culture

Where, When, How and Why?

INDEX Introduction P.1 Musical Roots.P.1 Kick-Off..P.2 The First Two GenresP.2 Brief History ClassP.2 EvolutionP.3 Social Impact..P.4 A Crusade Against the Devils MusicP.4 Metal Nowadays..P.5

Rodrigo Oliveira N26093 12M

Introduction

In this work, Im going to talk write about the heavy metal culture and its origins, who which started it, the main characteristics and its impact on society.

Musical Roots

The roots of Heavy Metal music are the Classical music and the Southern-American Blues. The main classic influence in heavy metal is Richard Wagner. Wagner restructured the orchestra adding more rhythm and bass instruments and more important, he introduced the octobass in the orchestra as well. This instrument has a higher intensity compared to the majority of the instruments. With these changes, Richard Wagners orchestra was more powerful and intense making this one of the first steps to the heavy metal music.

Blues was the other style that influenced the creation of heavy metal. It avoids major scale notes, this means that the blues sound have lower frequencies producing a more melancholic kind of sound that fit properly in the needs of the Southern-American oppressed people. The lyrics often included subtle suggestions or protests against slavery or ways to escape it. The blues has exerted great influence on Western popular music, setting and influencing the emergence of most musical styles including jazz, rhythm and blues, rock and roll (the beginning of heavy metal) and country music.

With this and the help of some other genres like Gospel, Folk, Country and R&B, Rock and Roll is created establishing the foundations of HEAVY METAL

Kick-Off

Since the beginning of the 1970s many people argue about who is the first true Heavy Metal band is. We can find a large amount of opinions like: -Alice Cooper -Black Sabbath -Blue Cheer -Deep Purple -Led ZepplinZeppelin What I usually say is that no one invented Heavy Metal it just progressed, but in my opinion Black Sabbath was the most important influence in early metal but examples like the ones above surely influenced Heavy Metal and even the Beatles contributed with "Helter Skelter". And Jimi Hendrix, Keith Richards or Eric Clapton who influenced basically every guitarist at the time. The First Two Genres

In the beginning of the Heavy Metal culture two genres appeared: The Early Metal (also called Rock/Hard Rock/Heavy Metal) - is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and in the United States with roots in blues rock and psychedelic rock. The Early Punk (also called Punk Rock) - Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. These bands often talk about politics and non-conformism. Brief History Class

As I said before the Heavy Metal music started to develop in the finals at the end of the 1960s and early 1970s creating a more massive sound, characterized by highly amplified distortion, extended guitar solos, fast beats and a powerful sound. In the mid 1970s some bands decided to take out the blues influence from Metal and instead they put some Punk Rock influences creating a new sub-genre called New Wave of British Heavy Metal. This sub-genre was started by Motorhead, Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. At this point the fans of this kind of music started to have a new designation: metalheads or headbangers. In the 1980s a new sub-genre emerged called Glam Metal that soon became a major economic force[mjm1], with groups like Twisted Sister, Mtley Cre But while Glam was on the tops the underground scenes produced a great number of extreme and aggressive styles like Thrash Metal, Black Metal and Death Metal creating the first boom of genres. Bands like Metallica, Slayer and Megadeth started to be known worldwide as they are nowadays. In the beginning of the 1990s new genres started to emerge like Nu Metal (New Metal), Metalcore and others that have further expanded the definition of the genre

This is just a little summary of the evolution of Heavy Metal culture and of course there are a lot more sub-genres in it. This family tree shows almost all of them (the more important)

(Better Quality in the PowerPoint) Evolution

As the Heavy Metal culture started to get worldwide a lot more people started to be aware of their lyrics, their looks and their attitude. The principal problem was the lyrics. A great number of people didnt react well to the lyrics of these bands. We can find a great number of important themes in the songs like personal trauma, drug-use, war, sociopolitical themes, philosophical themes, etc., but a lot of people started to see things that werent on the lyrics and start saying that this music was horrible and people shouldnt listen to it. They said that the lyrics were extremely violent and could lead to the beginning of violent groups or cults. The fans and the musicians where were considered disrespectful, rebellious, repulsive, horrible and even Dangerousdangerous. It was called unsophisticated music for unsophisticated people.

Social Impact

This genre of music surely changed the society since it was (and still is) one of the most popular genres in the world. The fans could see this kind of music as a beacon of hope or a safe harbour so, a new worldwide group started to emerge called the headbangers. I call it a worldwide group because I see all these people that go to shows outside their country and share the same interests as a big and united group that even if you are from the other side of the world, they are always ready to share a word with you. The majority of the fans are teens and some of them can relate problems that they have in their lives with the lyrics of the songs. Lyrics that approach problems related to family, school, being an outcast, politics and social problems and when you see yourself with no other way to express yourself or connect with others you start playing an instrument, put together a band and do it with music. In my opinion, when you see yourself with a lot of problems the best way to deal with them is by trying to express yourself and send your message to the world and help others in the same situation. That way, this group stand strong and everybody have has a song or a band that can relate to their problems. A Crusade Against The Devils Music

In 1985 is seen an increase parental control happened over the access of kids to music and the P.M.R.C. is established. The Parents Music Resource Center was an American censorship committee formed in 1985 with the goal of increasing the parental control over the access of children to music considered violent, sexual or related to drugs. This committee was founded by Tipper Gore, Susan Baker, Pam Howar and Sally Nevius. The PMRC started to label all covers, albums and songs that were considered inappropriate or dangerous, forced record stores to put cds cds with violent images out of sight and many other things. All of this led to the removal of rock music and magazines from American stores including Wal-Mart, J. C. Penney, Sears and Fred Meyer. This association was covered by several important newspapers and T.V. channels that gave them the power to act like this. This picture below is the Filthy Fifteen, the list created by PMRC for the most dangerous artists:

Heavy Metal Nowadays

The Heavy Metal Culture is evolving and new genres are being created. Since the beginning of the XXI century new genres are emerging, mainly the New Wave of American Metal and the Folk Metal. But even now there are some difficulties that still persist like the non-ending criticism about the looks, the fans are usually labelled as violent people, animals, Satanists or drug-addicts. Currently the Heavy Metal movement is reaching countries like Saudi Arabia, Israel, India, New Zealand And we all know the social side [mjm2]of this type of counties countries but the people from there will not give up, they will continue the fight, the fight for their freedom.

No conclusion, Biblio/webgraphy.