the.com/heavy metal
Classical music's volume knob broken off by blacksmiths who found Jesus angry.
means A loud, distortion-heavy genre of rock music built on thick guitar riffs, pounding drums, and often dark or aggressive themes.
from The phrase 'heavy metal' existed earlier in chemistry (for dense elements like lead) and even in Beat-era slang, but its musical sense is usually traced to the late 1960s/early 1970s, with the term appearing in rock criticism to describe the crushing, distorted sound of bands like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. Some point to William Burroughs' novels or Steppenwolf's 'Born to Be Wild' lyric 'heavy metal thunder' as early sightings, but it was music journalists who bolted the term permanently onto the genre.
- origin term
- borrowed from William Burroughs novel, not Black Sabbath
- first riff
- Black Sabbath wrote title track in one afternoon, 1970
- unlikely fans
- Finland has most metal bands per capita worldwide
- classical roots
- shares harmonic DNA with Wagner and Baroque composers