First heavy metal song?

Jake T

Running With The Pack
Joined
Apr 22, 2012
Posts
38,464
Reaction score
5,492
Location
a male living in California
The only reason this thread needs to be re-entitled " The Forefathers of Heavy Metal" is because you people are confusing rock songs for Heavy Metal songs.
The first truely Metal song was written and performed by Black Sabbath.
They combined ALL the elements which constitutes a METAL song.
Up until then , there were only some songs, that were louder than most Rock songs ,that from time to time Iincorporated distrotion.
That unto itself does NOT make a song Metal. Nor does simply adding speed to that combo make a song , Metal.

You can continue to declare C&W songs to be Classical Music until Hell freezes over , however, that will not make it so. You can even get a lot of other people who confuse C&W for Classical, to declare it is Classical Music, it does not change the facts, that C&W is not and never will be, Classical.


As Joe , a very intricate-ly, knowledgeable , music enthusiasts, already poetically allured to, the definitive answer, Black Sabbath, has already been declared.
By all means, continue on with misinformed answeres until all of your hearts are content.....lol

I won't borther to waste anymore of my time asserting the obvious.
:)


I agree if you only consider songs with "All the elements", but you can't ignore the influence that Arthur Brown and Vincent Crane had on the genre. Their song "Fire" lacked the heavy guitar, but had the eerie setting (Sabbath), screeching vocals (Gillan, Dio) and hammond organ (Lord, Hensley) that inspired Heavy Metal and shock rock (Alice Cooper).

And this song was there in March 1970 and should also be considered IMO.

Wicked Truth - Bloodrock

 

Vader

Veteran Of A Thousand Psychic Wars
Joined
Jul 3, 2014
Posts
10,723
Reaction score
17,842
Location
Mother Gaia
@Jake T , I'm not denying that these bands had an influence on the genre, only that they are not actually Metal songs.

BTW, I own the first 5 Bloodrock albums on Vinyl. They're not pre 1970 and have nothing do with your ...sorry ...his...erroneous assertions . This time I really am gone....not repeating the same things over and over again.


But I will saw having a Youtube account doesn't qualify anyone as an expert in musicology. ..lol

I agree with you , @Jake, after Sabbath laid the foundation. ..others folowed.
 

Jake T

Running With The Pack
Joined
Apr 22, 2012
Posts
38,464
Reaction score
5,492
Location
a male living in California
Yeah, I'm not claiming that "Fire" was a metal song. You could say that it was pop since it made all the charts, but it had a lot of the elements of a metal song.
 

Black Dahlia

A Seasoned Witch
Joined
Mar 30, 2013
Posts
2,366
Reaction score
348
Location
With lovers, buggers, & thieves.
"Black Sabbath" by Black Sabbath, the band's first original song released as a single.

...and I hesitated before posting this, thinking of "21st Century Schizoid Man" by King Crimson, but even that wasn't heavy metal. That was just one song that was very, very heavy and jazzy.

That and the other songs mentioned definitely had the cues that Sabbath picked up on, but Sabbath turned the corner and ran with it. They created a unique style that, at the time, couldn't even be classified. That's why Philips Records put the band on their new Vertigo label, which was meant for progressive rock and other "non-mainstream musical styles".

They weren't making records for the kids to dance to, like The Kinks, Arthur Brown, and Steppenwolf were... Sabbath had their "lightbulb moment" with a great new idea for a totally new style of music and the rest is history.
 

Vader

Veteran Of A Thousand Psychic Wars
Joined
Jul 3, 2014
Posts
10,723
Reaction score
17,842
Location
Mother Gaia
Yeah, I'm not claiming that "Fire" was a metal song. You could say that it was pop since it made all the charts, but it had a lot of the elements of a metal song.


I would call it Rock & Roll , and I'm not trying to take anything away from these other artists. They did things in rock that was innovative at the time and helped to charge the way rock & roll could be presented .

BTW, I own a copy of The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown on Vinyl.
Original pressing , only played by me . Found it 3 years ago, still sealed in of all places , a used book store, for get this, a dollar. I love that album.
But , as you said, it isn't a Metal album.
 
Joined
Jul 8, 2017
Posts
1,796
Reaction score
246
I would not argue that Black Sabbath was the first, truly Metal band. But as far as particular song goes, The Beatles Helter Skelter fits my requirements as an earlier example
 

Find member

Forum statistics

Threads
30,656
Posts
1,064,823
Members
6,353
Latest member
edmerka

Staff online

Members online

Top