the 5 were much more then punk. they were heavy metal/hard rock/free
jazz. alice made kiss possible introducing the theatrical rock show.
On Friday, February 19, 2016, Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I'd call MC5 and Stooges the original punk bands. Alice Cooper? I wouldn't
> call his music heavy metal, but he does get lumped in there sometimes. Glam
> rock? Some sort of rock music centric performance art? Rhino put Alice
> Cooper into the metal box set, likely because he was a Warner Brothers
> artist.
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "D. Allen" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Friday, February 19, 2016 1:24 PM
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Heavy metal as world music?
>
>
> detroit: MC5 / The Stooges /Alice Cooper ...
>>
>> On Friday, February 19, 2016, Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> One topic I'm interested in is the debate about the beginning of heavy
>>> metal. As I said, I peg it to England, Birmingham, Black Sabbath. The
>>> change from hard rock such as was practiced by Led Zeppelin to heavy
>>> metal
>>> was Tony Iommi's guitar tuning and tone, necessitated because he damaged
>>> his fingers in a metal press (Spinal Tappish now, because things turned
>>> out
>>> alright, but sad at the time). Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin both formed
>>> around the same time. Zeppelin was a natural outgrowth of blues, rock 'n'
>>> roll and psychedelic rock, founded by experienced studio musicians (Jimmy
>>> Page and John Paul Jones) who had evolved forward from skiffle music.
>>> Black
>>> Sabbath was formed by younger, less experienced musicians, from poor
>>> working class backgrounds in a grim industrial city. They definitely had
>>> blues-rock elements, but the darker tuning of the guitar and the occult
>>> themes in their songs were a different thing at the time. In my opinion,
>>> this was the beginning of heavy metal (which wasn't called that until
>>> several years later). The Rhino box set pegs it to the U.S., with
>>> harder-rocking psychedelic and garage bands. I think this is more the
>>> roots
>>> of punk music, which I believe sprang out of the industrial Midwest of
>>> the
>>> U.S. in the late 60's and caught on very late in England, but is often
>>> associated with London in the Thatcher era.
>>>
>>> At the risk of getting too academic (and always keeping in mind the
>>> "mock-umentary" aspect of waxing too seriously about any of this), some
>>> of
>>> the themes in heavy metal lyrics and its staging harkens back to Viking
>>> culture and rituals. So, to my thinking, it's very natural that hotbeds
>>> of
>>> metal would be the U.K., Scandinavia and Russia, all places where Vikings
>>> roamed. In the U.S., pure heavy metal bands happened later, and the
>>> biggest
>>> "contribution" was hair-metal in the early days of MTV. Also in the U.S.,
>>> there's an interesting blurring and broadening of the genre. For
>>> instance,
>>> is Van Halen a heavy metal band? Due to a variety of musical elements,
>>> staging and solo-playing mastery and flash, I'd argue yes. But David Lee
>>> Roth's lyrics, stage persona and general outlook are somewhat Vaudeville,
>>> definitely not very occult or ominous. Probably the purest metal
>>> forward-movers from the U.S. were Ronnie James Dio and then, a few years
>>> later, Metallica (the members of which were heavily influenced by punk
>>> and
>>> garage rock rather than older-school heavy metal). The other interesting
>>> thing to come out of the U.S. is the metal-rap blurring, for instance
>>> Anthrax "I'm The Man," the collaboration between Aerosmith (another band
>>> on
>>> the metal-hard rock borderline; I put early Aerosmith more in the metal
>>> camp than "Love In An Elevator" Aerosmith) and Run-DMC, etc. And where
>>> does
>>> American glam-metal-rock stuff like Kiss and Twisted Sister fit in? In
>>> the
>>> U.K., there are characters like the late great Lemmy, who connect metal
>>> to
>>> punk. There, where does a band like Arctic Monkeys, early version, fit
>>> in?
>>> Was it a metal band?
>>>
>>> Caveat -- I'm not trying to pigeon-hole or categorize music for any sort
>>> of divisive reason, just interested in drilling down to what musical,
>>> lyrical and cultural elements define heavy metal music. Personally, I
>>> like
>>> a wide variety of music so how something is described or categorized
>>> isn't
>>> going to effect whether I like it or not, so I don't want to put any
>>> great
>>> music out of the earshot of any listener based on labels and categories.
>>>
>>> -- Tom Fine
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brandon Michael Fess" <
>>> [log in to unmask]>
>>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>>> Sent: Friday, February 19, 2016 11:17 AM
>>> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Heavy metal as world music?
>>>
>>>
>>> There's actually a growing musicological literature on metal, in all its
>>> forms. I've seen an ever-growing number of journal articles being
>>> published
>>> in recent years, and there are now several small conferences dedicated to
>>> the academic study of metal. Check out the "Metal Music Librarians"
>>> Facebook page if you're interested in this topic - it does a great job of
>>> aggregating information regarding metal in academia.
>>>
>>> Brandon Fess
>>> MLIS, Syracuse University 2015
>>> (585) 703-0739
>>>
>>> ________________________________________
>>> From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List <
>>> [log in to unmask]> on behalf of Adam Jazairi <[log in to unmask]>
>>> Sent: Friday, February 19, 2016 10:23 AM
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Heavy metal as world music?
>>>
>>> Well put, Tom. In my view, metal music has endless potential as a subject
>>> of ethnomusicological study. Folk metal, which the blog post touches on,
>>> just scratches the surface.
>>>
>>> On Fri, Feb 19, 2016 at 9:51 AM, Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Interesting blog post from the WSJ yesterday:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2016/02/18/sample-five-heavy-metal-bands-from-around-the-world/
>>>>
>>>> Here is the related article:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-weird-global-appeal-of-heavy-metal-1455819419?tesla=y
>>>>
>>>> I don't find it "weird" that heavy metal music, attitude and culture
>>>> have
>>>> a global appeal today. Metal is related to punk, but probably more
>>>> widely
>>>> acceptable because it is less overtly political. Both deal with rage,
>>>> alienation, injustice, the same theme of fighting a perceived "machine"
>>>> that goes back to Bartleby the Scrivener and back. There are many
>>>> millions,
>>>> perhaps billions, of people in this world who feel alienated,
>>>> disempowered
>>>> to varying degrees and chaffed if not enraged by it. Some music soothes
>>>> the
>>>> soul, some stokes the fires. Metal is more the latter.
>>>>
>>>> -- Tom Fine
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Adam Jazairi
>>> Digital Collections & Preservation Librarian
>>> Boston College University Libraries
>>> (617) 552-1404
>>> [log in to unmask]
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
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