Heavy metal
Métal Hurlant Numéro 26 (01/02/1978)
image sourced here.
Heavy metal (music)
Heavy metal is a form of music characterized by aggressive, driving rhythms and highly amplified distorted guitars, generally with grandiose lyrics and virtuosic instrumentation.
Heavy metal is a development of blues, blues rock and rock. Its origins lie in the hard rock bands who between 1967 and 1974 took blues and rock and created a hybrid with a heavy, guitar and drums centered sound. Heavy metal had its peak popularity in the 1980s, during which many of the now existing subgenres first evolved. Although not as commercially successful as it was then, heavy metal still has a large world-wide following. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_metal_music [May 2005]
Hard rock
Hard rock is a form of rock and roll music which finds its closest roots in early 1960s garage rock. Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Queen, Uriah Heep, Led Zeppelin, Stone Temple Pilots, Van Halen, The Stooges, MC5, AC/DC, Guns N' Roses, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Thin Lizzy, Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Cream, and Scorpions are renowned examples of hard rock bands. Hard rock achieved maximum popularity between 1969 and 1985. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardcore [Jun 2004]
Heavy metal (magazine)
Heavy Metal is an American science fiction and fantasy comics magazine started in 1977.
Initially, most of its material was translated comics from the French magazine Métal Hurlant (started in December 1974), including pieces by Enki Bilal, Jean Giraud (a.k.a. Moebius), and Phillippe Druillet; and long-running serials by Richard Corben and Matt Howarth.
Heavy Metal's high quailty artwork is notable. Work by international fine artists such as H.R. Giger has been featured on their covers. Terrance Lindalls illustrated version of Milton's epic Paradise Lost appeared in the magazine in the late 1970s and is generally considered to be the greatest rendition of the poem done in the 20th century.
Some critics feel Heavy Metal's style and content is too violent and pornographic, and argue for protectively banning its sale to minors. Despite such objections, Heavy Metal's sale is not restricted to adults in the US.
Heavy Metal is currently owned and published by Kevin Eastman, co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Publication of the French magazine ceased in 1987. It resumed in July 2002 under the French name Métal Hurlant, edited by Humanoids Publishing. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Metal_%28magazine%29 [May 2005]
Dave Marsh
Anyway, I [Dave Marsh] only wrote a few record reviews during Marcus's year as editor. When Jon Landau came in in Oct. 1970 as the new review editor, he immediately pegged me as a guy who liked "English pop" (of the Badfinger, Raspberries type) and hard rock/heavy metal. He had a gap in those categories (for reviewers) or something. And actually I'm a little ahead of myself here...it was later in the May 1971 Creem, reviewing the first Sir Lord Baltimore album (released the first week of Feb 1971, just two weeks ahead of Sabbath's Paranoid, so let's figure the review of my promo copy was typed up in Feb. in my Univ of Texas at Austin dorm room), that I threw down the phrase "heavy metal" in its first use in the rock press ever (outside of the Steppenwolf lyric) as a descriptive term. Yep, all blame and shame goes to me. That was also the Creem issue where Dave Marsh coined the phrase "punk rock" in a column about seeing a Question Mark & The Mysterians club gig... something was definitely in American's drinking water that month. taken from http://rockcritics.com/metal_mike_interview.html, an online interview with Mike Saunders by Scott Woods
Origins of "Heavy Metal"
The origin of the term heavy metal is uncertain. According to one version, it was coined by a critic for Rolling Stone Magazine, who in 1967 said that the music of Jimi Hendrix was "like heavy metal falling from the sky". Others references have been the words "heavy metal thunder" in the 1968 Steppenwolf song "Born to be Wild", or the William S. Burroughs story "The Heavy Metal Kid". The word "heavy" (meaning serious or profound) had entered beatnik/counterculture slang some time earlier, and references to "heavy music" -- typically slower, more amplified variations of standard pop fare -- were already common; indeed, Iron Butterfly's 1968 debut album was entitled Heavy. The fact that Led Zeppelin (whose moniker came partly in reference to Keith Moon's jest that they would "go over like a lead balloon) incorporated a heavy metal into its name may have sealed the usage of the term.Regardless of its origin, heavy metal may have been used as a jibe initially but was quickly adopted by its adherents. Other, already-established bands, such as Deep Purple, who had origins in pop or progressive rock, immediately took on the heavy metal mantle, adding distortion and additional amplification in a more aggressive approach. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_metal_music [Jun 2004]