You hear a lot of people talking these days about their nostalgia for the 1980s or the decade following. It always provokes a couple blinks, and then we — we are the silent witnesses, who saw it all — shrug and walk on. It is easy enough to understand.
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From a recent publication of Perfect Sound Forever, some information echoing our FAQ about the origin of heavy metal:
Leaving out the blues element in the late ’70s, metal pioneers Judas Priest and Mötörhead had used their heaviness while keeping in line with the attitude of punk to create a sound that was heavy rock n’ roll punk filled with economic guitar solos, much like those heard in the Ramones and Sex Pistols. In fact, Mötörhead’s 1977 self-titled debut, which had included the element of speed, had often mixed the sound of classic rock with punk and the ’70’s glam rock of Bowie and Slade. This would soon would be followed by ’80’s metal pioneers Saxon, Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, Diamond Head and Girlschool who had added a great amount of guitar dexterity to the mix becoming a prime characteristic of ’80s metal music from the beginning.
In addition, the article addresses some of the concerns with commercialization and assimilation that came straight out of the 1980s:
When considering ’80s metal, one has to recognize that although the spirit of punk from which it came had mainly focused on anarchy, anti-consumerism, anti-corporate control, much of it, particularly glam, had taken on a strong commercial aspect in the rise of a particularly increasingly commercial period. Mixed with a sporty look and big hair when an enormous mix of different music and styles had existed, after following on from punk and much that was derived from classic rock, metal music in the ’80s had flourished as corporate rock in a period when the commercialization of music saw the rise of an unstoppable corporatization on a wide international scale- indeed, major U.S. record companies were selling themselves to media moguls in Japan and Europe. In fact, metal was a music engulfed by a “give me the money decade” full of excess – drink, women, hair, drugs in a period which saw the beginning of fragmentation in music when the rebelliousness that once seemed to possess more innovativeness and originality from which it had originally stemmed from became swallowed up by commercialism.
In fact, one of the original ANUS articles, now lost to time, was about the difference between commercialism of a non-commercial genre and being within a commercial genre like Queensrÿche or Iron Maiden, who did their best despite coming from the aboveground.
4 CommentsTags: 1980s, assimilation, commercialism, Heavy Metal, underground
Avast young heshling! It is time to rise up, rise again! Take hold of the flame, the crown and the ring!
To guide the way and aid thee in thy quest, a powerful playlist of true heavy metal has been curated for thine journey.
19 CommentsTags: 1980s, 1990s, 2000's, Ambient, Austria, cloven hoof, Crimson Glory, epic, fates warning, Heavy Metal, lord wind, Lost Horizon, manilla road, manowar, playlist, poland, power metal, queensrÿche, Summoning, UK, USA, USPM, virgin steele
One genre which often attracts the admiration of Metal musicians is Electronica. When musicians from Germany, France and elsewhere began experimenting in the third quarter of the 20th century with various newfound technologies in order to create monumental landscapes of synthetic psychedelia with cosmic scope, the uncanny wave of influence unexpectedly resulted in the arising of everything from the modern club scene to many of your favourite Black Metal bands.
Tags: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, Ambient, ash ra tempel, ashra, brian eno, canada, cinema, classical music, conrad schnitzler, Cosmic, drugs, edgar froese, electronic, electronic music, electronica, film, film score, france, futuristic, germany, greece, jean-michel jarre, keyboards, Klaus Schulze, kraftwerk, krautrock, manuel gottsching, michael hoeing, michael stearns, progressive rock, Romanticism, science fiction, sinoia caves, Soundtracks, space, steve roach, surrealism, synth, synthesizers, synthpop, tangerine dream, terry riley, UK, USA
For Generation X, droning sounds were good sounds. The train passing at night meant that order was restored, the Hoover vacuum passing the doorway meant that a parent was home and somewhat engaged, and the relentless churn of machinery meant that the order that was would not collapse quite yet.
25 CommentsTags: 1980s, 1990, 1990s, pop music, punk, review, sonic youth, tedium
Article by David Rosales
The eighties, as any other decade, had its own particular flavor, and popular culture had turned to fantasy and horror as a sort of addictive drug. The most grueling slasher films with fake yet more tangible appearances than the digitized reproductions directed at desensitized audiences that we have today. It may be guessed that a lot of this was an outlet for repressed feelings of hopelessness towards the end of the Cold War, in the midst of death squad strikes and political assassinations throughout the world by the very pseudo protectors of liberty.
The menace of a nuclear holocaust made the idea of a post-apocalyptic scenario not so much the stuff of dreams but a possible (and plausible) future not more than a few decades ahead. There was terror in the air, as desperation and fear had already become the habit of a whole generation raised in the shadow of the fairy tales of the great wars and disarmed through the enhancing of shadows on the wall as their very protectors backstabbed them.
The kids born of this former failed generation of proper workmen and citizens grew to distrust all the bullshit thrown at them. Growing up in this era of tension and constant threats outside a bubble of hypocrisy and bigotry made young men of a more realist mentality long for the collapse of the system of lies built by the ‘mature and responsible’. This is the world that gave us death metal as Slayer’s lessons were ran through hardcore punk and then grindcore.
1. Cro-Mags – Age of Quarrel (1986)
Expressing the most bare-bones discontent with society with a sincerity that only the punk spirit can deliver, Cro-Mags adopt metal riff phrasing techniques to give further elaboration to paint pictures of collapse and humanity’s demise that are more grim and nihilistic than the lyrics themselves.
2. Repulsion – Horrified (1989)
While Age of Quarrel is the image of a decadent civilization malfunctioning its way to its own zombification, Repulsion shows us the explosion and its aftermath. The first is fear of impending doom, this latter is terror, desperation and psychotic breakdown in the face of monstrous reality.
3. Carnage – Dark Recollections (1990)
Beneath the blatant visions of disaster and discomfort, the reveling in what is seen as an unavoidable outcome, or perhaps an already present state, is laughed at with the humor of a cancerous patient that knows no clean escape from his own impossible situation. It takes death metal to come out as the triumphant anti-hero, shotgun in hand, ready to do away with the weakness of modern man.
14 CommentsTags: 1980s, carnage, clickbait, cro-mags, Horror, playlist, repulsion
