The Origin of Heavy Metal
There isn’t a definitive starting point for heavy metal music. Like many subgenres, it emerged from a blend of external influences and creative elements, but that doesn’t mean we can’t trace its origins to some extent. It’s important to understand the term “heavy metal” in the way it was originally used – to describe bands like Led Zeppelin, rather than the gothic-inclined bands that tend to use the term today.
Pinpointing the exact origins of the term is challenging. “Heavy metal” has been a phrase for a long time, with roots in chemistry principles and science fiction writing. However, identifying when it was first applied to music in our time is difficult. Jimi Hendrix’s manager claims it came from a journalist describing his artist’s performance as sounding like heavy metal falling from the sky. Others suggest it originated from beat poets, with “heavy” as an emotional word that was already applied to music in the 1960s, and “metal” as another slang term used by the hippie counterculture to describe something gritty or dangerous.
Regardless of its origin, “heavy metal” became the primary way to describe 1970s rock music from bands like Led Zeppelin and Grand Funk … ...Read the rest.
“The Origin of Heavy Metal”
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