Is Black Sabbath realy heavy metal

To me, the interesting aspect of this discussion is how metal has developed, and the lesson is that we have to be able to - hard though it is - step out of our origo (the here-now-I perspective of our ego) and take a bird's eye view in order to be able to understand why Queen, Grand Funk, and Mountain are metal when Cannibal Corpse, Napalm Death, and Dying Fetus are also metal. Or to understand the application of the metal label to as diverse acts as Bon Jovi, AC/DC, Soundgarden, Anal Cunt, Golden Resurrection, Novaks Kapelle, MC5, and even Nirvana.

And, yes, there is a lot of really heavy music on the first handful of Queen albums.

Black Sabbath, to me, are not metal per se.  They are very instrumental in the birth of metal, and have influenced almost every metal band out there.  That being said, they are firmly a part of proto-metal, a pillar upon which metal as we know it is built.

Honestly, IMHO, for most intents and purposes, metal begins with Judas Priest.

Other artists included, Journey and REO Speedwagon.

...and this was 1980.

Discuss.

Triceratopsoil wrote: Nah dude, Vol. 4 was already more metal than anything Priest would do until like 1978.

Master of Reality was metal before!

satangodofmetal wrote: I was listening to an album called scream by ozzy, and it sounded heavy but is it realy heavy metal?

  How is Ozzy Osbourne Black Sabbath??

UMUR wrote: Triceratopsoil wrote: Queen is a heavy metal pioneer?� I'm pretty sure they have like 2 songs that anybody could describe as metal � Queen has lots of heavy metal related moments in their music. Read my reviews of their first 7 albums where I point some of them out

The song "Stone Cold Crazy" on the album "Sheer Heart Attack" (if memory serves me correctly!!!), released in 1974 is possibly the very first thrash metal song, and you could trace the link from that song, via The Sweet's "Set Me Free" ("Sweet Fanny Adams", also 1974) to Judas Priest ("Exciter").

ChaosAngel wrote: Black Sabbath, to me, are not metal per se. They are very instrumental in the birth of metal, and have influenced almost every metal band out there. That being said, they are firmly a part of proto-metal, a pillar upon which metal as we know it is built.Honestly, IMHO, for most intents and purposes, metal begins with Judas Priest.

I would love to have this conversation in full, but work is really busy. I'll revisit in a month or so when it all quietens down, but Sabbath practically invented Heavy Metal. Priest took a lot of inspiration from Sabbath (and even shared the same producer, Rodger Bain, on their first 2 albums).

Priest also took influence from fellow Brummies The Sweet, and Queen - Metal does not begin with Priest, but Priest were the biggest single influence on the NWoBHM in 1979.

Metal can be seen to begin with the heavy blues bands - it evolved from the blues - such as Cream (1966), Hendrix (there is an untraceable report of a journalist describing his music as "Heavy Metal falling from the sky"), Spooky Tooth (who recorded an album in 1967 as "The Heavy Metal Kids, and influenced Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin), and others that I discussed in a "Proto Metal Appreciation" thread a while back - none "pure" metal, but all pulled the right ingredients together.

Sabbath made what I would think of as the first "pure" metal, but then we'd have to define Heavy Metal to settle this one!

There is a red herring doing the rounds in most "History of Metal" articles I've read, which is worth of exposure for whatever nuggets of truth really lie in it, and that is the use of the phrase "Heavy Metal Thunder" in Steppenwolf's "Born To Be Wild".

I am pleased to note that the Wikipedia article on Steppenwolf has recently been updated to correct this reference! How they got their name, and what the name stands for is fascinating too, and has driven me to seek out the book. It does explain quite a lot about the metal culture.

Why aren't The Who considered heavy metal? Is it because of their cultural associations? Just a thought to consider - I'm not hung up on this, so please don't bust a gut trying to explain why they're not metal, as I don't really care!


The term was bandied about quite a lot by journalists and fans in the early 1970s, and referred typically to bands like Zep, Purple, Queen and Kiss. Who are we now to say that what they called heavy metal back then is no longer heavy metal?

Enough of my rambling, already - must crack on.