What Is Heavy Metal?

“Teaching Rock’s Evolution,” Richard Linklater, School of Rock, 2003

Heavy metal is the child of rock ‘n’ roll and blues, born 1960s and 1970s, first with British bands Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, soon followed by American bands like Kiss, Alice Cooper, and Aerosmith. Metal was “genre-lized” and named as such in 1970 by Metal Mike Saunders in his Rolling Stone review of Humble Pie’s song “As Safe As Yesterday Is.”

The first thing you’ll notice about the genre of metal is that it is loud: it generally features loud and distorted guitars and pounding (sometimes thunderous—lookin’ at you, Lars and John) rhythms. There are numerous subgenres of varying popularity, from the classics like glam metal, thrash metal, and death metal to the more obscure goldmines of pirate metal, Kawaii metal, and funeral doom metal.

Metal has been a somewhat polarizing genre from the get-go. Those of us who love the genre have come into it in our own ways: I, myself, got into it as a natural progression of my music tastes evolution from grunge and alternative to punk-rock (thanks, Mom!), and it just got heavier. However, detractors and haters of the genre tend to assume that it’s “just noise,” argue that it encourages and promotes suicide, and encourages Satan worship.

Firstly, heavy metal is not “just noise.” Not only is it the child of rock and blues, it also owes its complex chord progressions to classical music as several early metal guitarists knew several different classical techniques, so why wouldn’t they use that knowledge to their advantage? Do people consider classical music “just noise?” Would you call Robert Johnson’s music “just noise?” Well, you might. I don’t know you, but I’m unseriously judging you.

Secondly, despite accussations of heavy metal inspiring some people to commit suicide, there is no study that supports that metal actually makes anybody make that choice. Though (now 30-year-old) studies have shown that metalheads may indulge in higher-risk lifestyles and may be less religious, may be more accepting of suicide among other factors, but, as the Centre for Suicide Prevention states, “social factors alone will not induce suicidal behaviour.”

As for encouraging Satan worship, numerous metal bands (particularly in the 1980s) were massively inspired by the occult and horror, which happens to include the things we’d generally associate with Satan worship, like upside-down crosses, pentagrams, and one of my favourites, “The Number of the Beast.” It’s tempting to equate inspiration to promotion, but bands drawing inspiration from Satan and the occult is not the same thing as promoting it. Game of Thrones drew a bit of inspiration from Nazi propaganda. Still, Game of Thrones isn’t being accused of encouraging people to go out and join the Aryan Brotherhood or anything. Furthermore, Christian metal exists in the metalsphere (Stryper, anyone?); Slayer’s music is about as far away from Satan-worshipping as you can get.

Behind the corpse paint, screaming guitars, pounding drums, and an absolute plethora of vocal talent, heavy metal is not the aural boogeyman, Hitler, or Devil it’s painted as. Instead, it turned out to be the aural equivalent of one of the most prodigal people you’ve ever met, even if that person isn’t really your cup of tea.