HEAVY METAL
 Characteristics include loud volume, distortion, sreeching vocals, emphatic
beats, extended guitar solos, technical skills on instruments, and provides an ideal
outlet for frustrastion.
 Themes include Social Chaos, good vs. evil, the afterlife, dark/morbid issues,
and the supernatural
HEAVY METAL
 visual imagery plays a large role in heavy metal
 heavy metal band's "image" is expressed in album sleeve art, logos,
stage sets, clothing, and music videos
 Some known for outrageous and wild performance personas
PROTOTYPICAL HEAVY
METAL BANDS
 Led Zeppelin
 Black Sabbath
 Deep Purple
 (Blue Cheer’s Summertime Blues often cited as first heavy metal
song)
WORKING CLASS VALUES
 Heavy Metal rose out of distrust of American Government
“Nixon Scandal,” Anti-War sentiments, high unemployment,
increasingly more depressed society, wanting to explore issues such as
drugs, mythology, and the afterlife
Ter m “Heavy Metal”
 First appeared in a few William Burroughs books The Soft Machine
and Nova Express. “Heavy Metal Kid.” (Heavy Metal Kid was
refferred to as someone with drug addictions).
 Steppenwolf ’s Born to Wild “Heavy Metal Thunder”
L e d Z e p p e l i n a n d “ S t a i r way t o
H e ave n ” f r o m L e d Z e p p e l i n I V
Led Zeppelin formed in 1968 in London.
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Jimmie Page, guitar
John Bonham, drums
John Paul Jones, electric bass and organ
Robert Plant, vocals
Guitarist Jimmy Page and vocalist Robert Plant were
fascinated by mythology, Middle Earth fantasy, and the
occult.
They became one of the most enduring bands in rock
history, selling over 50 million records.
Influences drew from various sources: urban blues,
San Francisco psychedelia, the virtuoso guitar playing of
Jimi Hendrix
“Stairway to Heaven”
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Anthem of heavy metal music
Thunderous volume
The eight-minute track was never released as a
single. You had to purchase the album to own
a copy of the song.
The album cover did not bear the name of the
album, band, or record company.
Led Zeppelin IV eventually sold fourteen million
copies and reached Number Two on the Billboard
Top 10 LP charts; it stayed on the charts for five
years.
“Stairway to Heaven”
 Text composed by Robert Plant
• References to mythological beings
• The May Queen and the Piper
• Rural images
• Paths and roads, rings of smoke through the forest, a songbird by a
brook, the whispering wind
• Helped create a cumulative mood of mystery and enchantment
 Structure of the song
• Basic building blocks are straightforward four- and eight-measure
phrases
• Three main sections
• The arrangement is constructed to create continual escalation in
density, volume, and speed.
BLACK SABBATH
 British Band
 Formed in 1968 by Ozzy Osbourne(vocals), Tony Lommi(guitar,
Geezer Butler(bass), and Bill Ward(drums).
 Originally formed as heavy blues band named Earth covering
Muddy Waters and Howlin Wolf songs
DEEP PURPLE
 English Rock Band formed in 1968
 Once listed in Guiness Book of World Records as “loudest pop
group.”