When I first ventured into the world of music as a young lad, I first listened to pretty lightweight stuff like The Beatles and Monkees on records, and those same artists plus The Partridge Family and other pop-ish fare on TV. But then one day in the schoolyard, somebody was showing around a Kiss record, raving about this scary-looking bunch of rockers. Little did I know.
I heard Kiss for the first time on a record I bought sight unseen... a complete blind buy. It was the band's debut album, its front cover bearing that high contrast image of their garishly painted faces. Pretty cool, so I figured the music couldn't disappoint. And it did not. Right from opening track Strutter, I was immediately immersed in a new type of music, nothing like the jangly, fun, dancy pop I was familiar with. Kiss sounded loud, raw, heavy, and tough. I was hooked.
Strutter is actually a lighter tune on that album; I'd say Firehouse, Cold Gin, Deuce, and Black Diamond are much meaner and heavier in comparison. And that's where this "heavy" issue gets tricky. It's all relative.
Strutter completely annihilates something like The Monkees' song Sometime in the Morning in the heaviness department, and yet it is kind of breezy and bright in the context of that first Kiss album.
Once I discovered rock radio stations on the family FM stereo, I was introduced to far heavier music by the likes of Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Deep Purple, and Scorpions. These guys made Kiss look like kiddie time.
Now while I didn't measure how much I liked a band based on how heavy they were, it was evident that some form of guitar distortion and aggressive vocals were required to get me pumped. Not everything I liked in my formative years was as loud and harsh as Sabbath and Priest, etcetera, yet some level of volume on the part of the guitar and drums - and vocals - always seemed to be present in the stuff I gravitated toward. Like prog-metal pioneers Rush, heavy rockers Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Aerosmith, Nazareth, and Blue Oyster Cult. All varying degrees of heavy. Each of those artists had at least some music that was noisily wonderful in my books.
And yet fast-forward just a few years, and suddenly that level of heaviness is surpassed by a new generation of rockers who would assume the true "metal" moniker. Certainly Judas Priest was wearing that badge (and leather and studs) proudly already, but they now had serious competition in newcomers such as Iron Maiden, Motorhead, Accept, Venom, and even Ozzy, just beginning his solo career after departing Sabbath. This early 80's rebirth of the genre would come to be known as the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Not strictly all UK artists, but many Europeans and others emerging during that era would ride that wave.
But even those imposing purveyors of metallic music would be supplanted by brand new subgenres sprouting from all corners of the world. The heaviness factor would be cranked up a notch or two as Thrash metal was born out of the complex guitar and drum influences of the NWOBHM, ratcheting up the speed and aggression with a punk attitude. This fusion gave us the heaviest music to date, by the likes of Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax, and Megadeth.
At the time, I was most enamored with the sounds of Metallica, only learning of them through some tape-trading deals, since commercial radio never played such extreme music. Not yet. Slayer was too noisy for my tastes, I didn't know Anthrax well enough to get into them, and Megadeth had yet to really fall on my radar. Just wait.
Oh, and I mustn't forget a little Quebec, Canada act called Voivod, who melded progressive techniques with thrash speed to invent their own unique brand of sci-fi prog-metal. Early Voivod is raw and punk-ish, soon giving way to a more metallic streamlining, jaw-dropping in technical and creative scope, yet never straying far from their discordant and manic roots. And I am a fan, mainly because these guys are imaginative songwriters and proficient musicians. The fact they are pretty damn heavy is just icing on the cake.
The image often, though not always, jived with the sound of a heavy musical artist. Look at 80's Metallica and Slayer. Denim and leather, indeed. Not as polished and preened as Judas Priest or Iron Maiden (spandex and bright colours), but perhaps hungrier and dirtier, more streetwise and ready for action. The ethos of the Thrash movement. The powerful sound and look of metal felt so alive back then. Some say this was the pinnacle of metal history. I'm not sure I am in full agreement, but I can see how the genre's activities in the 1980's extended the life of what the 70's pioneering and refining churned out, allowing it to flourish and expand. Not that it died in the 90's, but to a big extent, metal went underground at that time. And that led to even more subgenres of extreme music. Faster and heavier.
Thrash blossomed throughout the 80's, yet I still clung to my more old-school traditional metal roots. Metallica ascended to world domination at a modest pace, so I had time to enjoy a bit of the glam metal (including the L.A. Sunset Strip) scene's music while it lasted; Def Leppard, Guns'n'Roses, Whitesnake, Ratt, a bit of Motley Crue, Quiet Riot and Twisted Sister crawled out from under the shadow of late 70's/early 80's hard rock/near-metal sensation Van Halen. Few of these artists made a lasting impression, for most felt to me like a passing phase, not quite gifted enough or heavy enough.... in both sound and image. Leppard and GNR enjoyed more success in my CD player than the rest, though I had a personal favourite in Ratt. These groups did have their edgy songs, loud and raucous and party-hearty, just not as earth-shaking as Metallica or even Maiden, who were still chugging along quite nicely with a world-wide following.
While Metallica reigned well into the 90's, I felt they were losing steam after their Enter Sandman days. That's when I gave Megadeth the nod and dove deeper into their catalogue, finally realizing just how superior ex-Metallica guitarist Dave Mustaine was in his very own band. Megadeth wielded instrumental virtuosity with furious speed and aggression, sort of Rush meets Metallica. Sort of.
Around that same time, I found someone even more appropriate for that analogy, and that was Dream Theater, a progressive metal band (plenty heavy, but also adept at lighter fare) that led that genre's charge through the 90's, and inspired others to experiment and follow their own musical dreams. Like Swedish prog-death outfit Opeth, who completely floored me when I first heard their music. One moment sweetly angelic, pristine clean vocals and lush guitar - and the next it's the most blood-curdling screaming/growling and horror movie backdrop of sounds. All performed with an ear for effect, for contrast, and for storytelling. Opeth has recorded a variety of styles in later years, yet I lean toward their more extreme musical message on early albums.
Norwegian metal, more explicitly Black Metal, was largely unknown to me during its heyday, and yet once I did latch onto a bit of it, it was hard work. Challenging, to say the least. This was extreme music from another planet, as far as I was concerned. Two acts who I came to appreciate are Carpathian Forest and Satyricon. This isn't a genre that I love, or can even listen to very often, but I am fascinated by the imagery of the bands' stage appearance, album artwork, and in their very music. This is not only heavy, it is HEAVY... dark, eerie, chilling, even disturbing. Effective, for what it is.
Heavy is heavy, whether in sound, the lyrics, the visual image. There is Kiss heavy and there is Black Sabbath heavy. Sabbath versus Slayer. Slayer versus Opeth. Dare we compare? Why make one artist seem less worthy just because they came before another. Talented musicians are always moving forward, pushing the boundaries of their instruments, their sounds, their songwriting. If heaviness is the only goal, then I think it's rather silly and pointless. Isn't this about creating music... something musically pleasing, no matter how fast or aggressive it is?
I still find Kiss' Destroyer album an electrifying experience, massive guitar chords and stinging solos. It doesn't matter that Sabbath or Slayer or Opeth are louder, more frightening, or more obnoxious. The point is that it's just right for what it is. Detroit Rock City, by Kiss, is still a heavy song, and so is Neon Nights, by Sabbath. I know there are Death Metal, Black Metal, and Grindcore (and genres I've never heard of) songs that'll knock those old classics out of the park in a purely heaviness contest. But is it good heavy? It may be fast and loud and noisy, but is it listenable? Is it a good song?
If it comes right down to it, just gimme some Kiss and I'll be happy.
No comments:
Post a Comment