Animal Magnetism (album)Animal Magnetism is a 1980 album by German heavy metal band Scorpions.
Tracklist
# "Make It Real"
# "Don't Make No Promises (Your Body Can't Keep)"
# "Hold Me Tight"
# "Twentieth Century Man"
# "Lady Starlight"
# "Falling in Love"
# "Only a Man"
# "The Zoo"
# "Animal Magnetism"
# "Hey You" (bonus track, not on all versions)
Personnel
- Klaus Meine - Vocals
- Rudolf Schenker - Guitars
- Matthias Jabs - Guitars
- Herman Rarebell - Drums
- Francis Buchholz - Bass
Category:1980 albums
Category:Scorpions albums
1980
1980 (MCMLXXX) was a leap year starting on Tuesday. It is equivalent to 2733 a.U.c., and to 1359 AH.
Events
January-February
- January 1–April 1 - National steel strike in the United Kingdom.
- January 1 - Changes to the Swedish Act of Succession creates Victoria of Sweden, Crown Princess over her younger brother.
- January 4 - American president Jimmy Carter proclaims a grain embargo against the USSR with the support of the European Commission.
- January 5 - Hewlett-Packard announces release of its first personal computer.
- January 7 - President Jimmy Carter authorizes legislation giving $1.5 billion in loans to bail out Chrysler Corporation.
- January 9 - In Saudi Arabia, sixty three Muslim fanatics are beheaded for their part in the siege of the Great Mosque in Mecca in November, 1979.
- January 11 - Nigel Short, fourteen years old, is the youngest chess player to be awarded the degree of International Master.
- January 22 - Andrei Sakharov, a Russian scientist and human right activist, is arrested in Moscow.
- January 26 - Israel and Egypt establish diplomatic relations.
- February 2 - Abscam: Reports surface that FBI personnel were targeting members of the U.S. Congress in a sting operation.
- February 4 - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini names Abolhassan Banisadr as president of Iran.
- February 15 - In Vanuatu, followers of John Frum's cargo cult on the island of Tanna declare secession as the nation of Tafea.
- February 23 - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini states that Iran's parliament would decide the fate of the American embassy hostages.
- February 25 - Coup in Surinam ousts government of Henck Arron. Leaders Desi Bouterse and Rou Horb replace it with National Military Council.
- February 27 - M-19 guerrillas begin the Dominican embassy siege in Colombia, holding sixty people hostage, including fourteen ambassadors.
March
- March 1 - Voyager 1 probe confirms the existence of Janus, a moon of Saturn.
- March 3 - Pierre Trudeau returns to office as Prime Minister of Canada.
- March 4 - Robert Mugabe is elected Prime Minister of Zimbabwe.
- March 10 - Jean Harris shoots doctor Herman Tarnower, the inventor of the Scarsdale diet.
- March 14 - In Poland, a plane crashes during an emergency landing near Warsaw, killing a 14-man American boxing team and 73 others.
- March 18 - Fifty people are killed at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia when a Vostok-2M rocket explodes on its launch pad during a fueling operation.
- March 20 - The pirate radio station Radio Caroline sinks.
- March 21 - President Jimmy Carter announces that the United States will boycott the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.
- March 21 - Mafioso Angelo Bruno assassinated in Atlantic City.
- March 24 - Australia Olympic Committee announces it will send an Olympic delegation to Moscow, despite objections by Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser.
- March 24 - Archbishop Óscar Romero is killed by gunmen while celebrating Mass in San Salvador.
- March 26 - A mine lift cage at the Vaal Reef gold mine in South Africa falls 1.2 miles, killing twenty-three.
- March 27 - The Norwegian oil platform Alexander Kielland collapses in the North Sea, killing 123 of its crew of 212.
April
- April 1 - The Mariel boatlift begins.
- April 7 - The United States severs diplomatic relations with Iran and imposes economic sanctions following the taking of American hostages on Sunday, November 4, 1979.
- April 10 - Spain and United Kingdom agree to reopen the border between Gibraltar and Spain, closed since 1969.
- April 18 - Zimbabwe's formal independence from the United Kingdom. Robert Mugabe takes his post as a Prime Minister.
- April 21 - Rosie Ruiz wins the Boston Marathon, but is later exposed as a fraud and stripped of her award.
- April 24–April 25 - Operation Eagle Claw, a commando mission in Iran to rescue American embassy hostages, is aborted after mechanical problems ground the rescue helicopters. Eight United States troops are killed in a mid-air collision during the failed operation.
- April 27 - The Dominican embassy siege ends with all hostages released and the guerrillas flying to Cuba.
- April 30
- Iranian Embassy Siege - Six Iranian-born terrorists take over Iranian embassy in London, UK. SAS retakes the Embassy on May 5 — one terrorist survives.
- Luis Muñoz Marín, first democratically elected Governor of Puerto Rico, dies at the age of 82.
- Queen Juliana of the Netherlands abdicates, and her daughter Beatrix ascends to the throne.
May
- May 7 - Paul Geidel, convicted of second-degree murder in 1911, is released from prison in Beacon, New York, after 68 years and 245 days - the longest-ever time served by an inmate
- May 9 - In Florida, a Liberian freighter named the Summit Venture hits the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay sending 35 people (most of whom were in a bus) to a watery death as a 1,400-foot section of the bridge collapsed
- May 17 - Florida court acquits 4 police officers of killing Arthur McDuffie. Three days of race riots follow
- May 18 - Mount St. Helens erupts in Washington killing 57 and causing US$3 billion in damage
- May 18 - Gwangju Massacre: Students in Gwangju, South Korea begin demonstrations, calling for democratic reforms.
- May 20 - Referendum in Quebec where the population rejects by a vote of 60% the proposal from its government to move towards independence from Canada.
- May 24 - The International Court of Justice calls for the release of U.S. embassy hostages in Tehran.
- May 26 - John Frum supporters in Vanuatu storm government offices in the island of Tanna. Vanuatu government troops land the next day and drive them away
- May 26 - In South Korea, military government forces and pro-democracy protesters clash - 2000 protesters die
June
- June 1 - Comedian Richard Pryor is badly burned trying to freebase cocaine.
- June 3 - A series of deadly tornadoes strikes Grand Island, Nebraska, causing over $300m in damage, killing five people and injuring over 250.
- June 10 - Apartheid: The African National Congress in South Africa publishes a statement by their imprisoned leader Nelson Mandela which says in part 'UNITE! MOBILISE! FIGHT ON! BETWEEN THE ANVIL OF UNITED MASS ACTION AND THE HAMMER OF THE ARMED STRUGGLE WE SHALL CRUSH APARTHEID!'[http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/mandela/64-90/anvil.html]
- June 10 - Unabomber bomb injures Percy Wood, president of the United Airlines in Lake Forest, Illinois
- June 19 - Iraqi security forces shoot dead three gunmen who attacked the British embassy in Baghdad. The unknown attackers were killed in the embassy gardens by Iraqi security men, sent at the urgent request of the British ambassador, Alex Stirling.
- June 22 - West Germany beat Belgium 2-1 to win Euro 80
- June 23 - Sanjay Gandhi, son of Indira Gandhi, dies in an air crash
- June 23–September 6 - Heat Wave of 1980
- June 25 - Muslim Brotherhood assassination attempt against Syrian president Hafez al-Assad fails. Assad retaliates by sending the army against them
- June 26 - A DC-9 belonging to the Italian Airline Itavia crashes into the sea near Naples after an explosion occurs in the air - 81 people dead - a bomb or a missile is suspected to be the cause of the accident but no culprits will ever be found
- June 29 - Vigdis Finnbogadottir becomes the president of Iceland
July-August
- July 9 - Pope John Paul II visits Brazil. Seven people crush to death in a crowd meeting him
- July 15 - A severe and destructive thunderstorm strikes four counties in western Wisconsin, including the city of Eau Claire. It caused over $250m in damage, and one person was killed.
- July 19 - Former Turkish Prime Minister Nihat Erim is killed by two gunmen in Istanbul, Turkey.
- July 19–August 3 - Summer Olympic Games in Moscow, USSR.
- July 30 - Vanuatu gains independence
- August 2 - A terrorist bombing at the railway station in Bologna, Italy kills 85 people and wounds more than 200.
- August 2 - Hurricane Allen hits landfall on Haiti and Jamaica in a Category 5, it reached Category 3 on Southern Texas on August 9 causing $2.6 billion on damage.
- August 14 - Lech Wałęsa leads the first of many strikes at the Gdańsk shipyard
- August 17 - In Australia, baby Azaria Chamberlain disappears from a campsite at Ayers Rock (Uluru), reportedly taken by a dingo
September-October
- September 5 - The St. Gothard Tunnel opens in Switzerland as the world's longest highway tunnel at 10.14 miles (16.32 km) stretching from Goschenen to Airolo.
- September 12 - Military coup in Turkey lead by Kenan Evren. It stopped political violence among gangs, but was the beginning of stronger state violence which lead to the execution of many young activists.
- September 17 - After weeks of strikes at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk, Poland nationwide independent trade union Solidarity is established.
- September 17 - Former Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza Debayle is killed in Asuncion, Paraguay
- September 22 - The command council of Iraq ordered its army to "deliver its fatal blow on Iranian military targets," initiating the Iran-Iraq War.
- September 26 - The Mariel Boatlift officially ends.
- September 29 - Washington Post publishes Janet Cooke's story of Jimmy, an 8-year-old heroin addict (later proven to be fabricated)
- September 30 - Digital Equipment Corporation, Intel and Xerox introduce the DIX standard for Ethernet, which was the first implementation outside of Xerox, and the first to support 10 Mbit/s speeds.
- October 14 - The Staggers Rail Act is enacted, deregulating American railroads.
- October 18 - Fraser Government re-elected for a third consecutive term in Australia
- October 27 - Six IRA prisoners in Maze prison refuse food and demand status as political prisoners - hunger strike lasts until December
- October 30 - El Salvador and Honduras sign a peace treaty to put the border dispute fought over in 1969's Football War before the International Court of Justice.
- October 31 - Polish government recognizes Solidarity.
- October 31 - Mohammad Reza Shah, eldest son of the late shah of Iran, proclaimed himself the rightful successor to the Peacock Throne.
November-December
- November 4 - U.S. presidential election, 1980: Republican challenger Ronald Reagan defeats incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter by a wide margin.
- November 12 - Voyager program: The NASA space probe Voyager I makes its closest approach to Saturn when it flies within 77,000 miles of the planet's cloud-tops and sends the first high resolution images of the world back to scientists on Earth
- November 20 - The trial of the Gang of Four begins in China.
- November 21 - A fire at the MGM Grand Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada kills 87 people.
- November 21 - Millions of viewers tune into the TV soap opera Dallas to learn who shot lead character J.R. Ewing. The event is an international obsession.
- November 23 - A series of earthquakes in southern Italy kills approximately 4,800 people.
- December 8 - John Lennon is shot outside his New York apartment, by Mark Chapman.
- December 16 - During a summit on the island of Bali, the OPEC decides to raise the price of petroleum by 10%.
- December 26 - Richard Chase, the "Vampire of Sacramento", kills himself by overdose on San Quentin prison death row
Unknown dates
- Lawrence Klein is awarded the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.
- Hassan Fathy and Plenty International / Stephen Gaskin are awarded the Right Livelihood Award.
- Victoria, Australia, decriminilises homosexual acts between consenting adults.
Births
January-February
- January 1 - Elin Nordegren, Swedish model
- January 2 - Rebekah Teasdale, British model and journalist
- January 7 - Gabriela Bazan, Peruvian activist
- January 8 - Rachel Nichols, American actress
- January 9 - Sergio García, Spanish golfer
- January 11 - Mike Williams, American football player
- January 14 - Cory Gibbs, American soccer player
- January 16 - Albert Pujols, Dominican Major League Baseball player
- January 16 - Michelle Wild, Hungarian actress
- January 22 - Christopher Masterson, American actor
- January 25 - Christian Olsson, Swedish athlete
- January 25 - Michelle McCool-Alexander, American professional wrestler
- January 27 - Marat Safin, Russian tennis player
- January 30 - Wilmer Valderrama, Venezuelan/Colombian-American comedian
- February 10 - César Izturis, Venezuelan Major League Baseball player
- February 11 - Natasha Bobo, American actress
- February 11 - Matthew Lawrence, American actor
- February 12 - Juan Carlos Ferrero, Spanish tennis player
- February 12 - Christina Ricci, American actress
- February 16 - Ashley Lelie, American football player
- February 20 - Imanol Harinordoquy, French rugby player
March-June
- March 13 - Molly Stanton, American actress
- March 16 - Todd Heap, American football player
- March 18 - Alexei Yagudin, Russian figure skater
- March 21 - Ronaldinho, Brazilian football player
- March 21 - Marit Bjørgen, Norwegian cross-country skier
- March 31 - Chien-Ming Wang, Taiwanese Major League Baseball player
- April 1 - Randy Orton, American professional wrestler
- April 1 - Takeuchi Yuko, Japanese actress
- April 17 - Brenda Villa, American water polo player
- April 20 - Jasmin Wagner, German singer
- April 20 - Channing Tatum, American actor and model
- April 21 - Vincent Lecavalier, Canadian hockey player
- May 7 - Johan Kenkhuis, Dutch swimmer
- May 9 - Grant Hackett, Australian swimmer
- May 18 - Matt Long, American actor
- May 24 - Cecilia Cheung, Hong Kong actress
- May 30- Steven Gerrard, English footballer
- June 1 - Oliver James, British actor
- June 13 - Sarah Connor, German singer
- June 16 - Joey Yung, Hong Kong singer
- June 17 - Venus Williams, American tennis player
- June 19 - Jason White, American football player
- June 22 - Jade Marcela, American actress
- June 23 - Ramnaresh Sarwan, West Indian cricketer
- June 26 - Jason Schwartzman, American actor
- June 26 - Michael Vick, American football player
- June 29 - Katherine Jenkins, Welsh soprano
July-August
- July 3 - Roland Mark Schoeman, South African swimmer
- July 6 - Pau Gasol, Catalan basketball player
- July 7 - Michelle Kwan, American figure skater
- July 8 - Robbie Keane, Irish footballer
- July 10 - Adam Petty, American race car driver (d. 2000)
- July 10 - Jessica Simpson, American singer
- July 18 - Kristen Bell, American actress
- July 22 - Kate Ryan, Belgian singer
- July 24 - Gauge, American actress
- August 11 - Lee Suggs, American football player
- August 16 - Vanessa Carlton, American singer
- August 26 - Macaulay Culkin, American actor
- August 28 - Debra Lafave, American teacher
- August 29 - Nicholas Tse, Hong Kong singer
September-October
- September 3 - Jennie Finch, American softball player
- September 7 - Mark Prior, baseball player
- September 10 - Mikey Way, American bassist (My Chemical Romance)
- September 12 - Sean Burroughs, baseball player
- September 12 - Yao Ming, Chinese basketball player
- September 21 - Kareena Kapoor, Indian actress
- September 30 - Martina Hingis, Swiss tennis player
- October 4 - Me'Lisa Barber, American athlete
- October 13 - Ashanti, American musician
- October 14 - Terrence McGee, American football player
- October 16 - Sue Bird, American basketball player
- October 17 - Ekaterina Gamova, Russian volleyball player
- October 28 - Alan Smith, English footballer
- October 28 - Christy Hemme, American Professional Wrestler
November-December
- November 12 - Ryan Gosling, Canadian actor
- November 16 - Kayte Christensen, American Basketball Player
- November 17 - Isaac Hanson, American musician
- November 21 - Hank Blalock, baseball player
- December 6 - Steve Lovell, English footballer
- December 7 - John Terry, English footballer
- December 10 - Sarah Chang, American violinist
- December 10 - Alexa Rae, American (pornographic film) actress
- December 18 - Christina Aguilera, American singer
- December 19 - Jake Gyllenhaal, American actor
- December 19 - Marla Sokoloff, American actress
- December 30 - Eliza Dushku, American actress
Deaths
January-April
- January 3 - Joy Adamson, Austrian-born conservationist and author (murdered) (b. 1910)
- January 8 - John Mauchly, American physicist and inventor (b. 1907)
- January 10 - George Meany, American labor leader (b. 1894)
- January 18 - Sir Cecil Beaton, English photographer (b. 1904)
- January 29 - Jimmy Durante, American actor, singer, and comedian (b. 1893)
- January 30 - Professor Longhair, American musician (b. 1918)
- February 2 - William Howard Stein, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1911)
- February 7 - Secondo Campini, Italian jet pioneer (b. 1904)
- February 13 - David Janssen, American actor (b. 1931)
- February 19 - Bon Scott, Scottish-born singer (AC/DC) (b. 1946)
- February 20 - J.B. Rhine, parapsychologist (b. 1895)
- March 5 - Jay Silverheels, American actor (b. 1912)
- March 16 - Tamara de Lempicka, Polish-born painter (b. 1898)
- March 25 - Walter Susskind, Czech conductor (b. 1913)
- March 29 - Mantovani, Italian-born conductor and arranger (b. 1905)
- March 31 - Vladimír Holan, Czech poet (b. 1905)
- March 31 - Jesse Owens, American athlete (b. 1913)
- April 12 - Clark McConachy, New Zealand snooker and billiards player (b. 1895)
- April 15 - Jean-Paul Sartre, French philosopher and writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1905)
- April 24 - Alejo Carpentier, Cuban writer (b. 1904)
- April 29 - Alfred Hitchcock, British film director (b. 1899)
May-September
- May 4 - Josip Broz Tito, President of Yugoslavia (b. 1892)
- May 18 - Ian Curtis, British musician and singer (Joy Division) (b. 1956)
- May 28 - Rolf Nevanlinna, Finnish mathematician (b. 1895)
- June 7 - Henry Miller, American writer (b. 1891)
- June 12 - Milburn Stone, American actor (b. 1904)
- June 13 - Walter Rodney, Guyanese historian and political figure (b. 1942)
- June 21 - Bert Kaempfert, German orchestra leader and songwriter (b. 1923)
- June 23 - Clyfford Still, American painter (b. 1904)
- July - Robert Brackman, American painter (b. 1898)
- July 7 - Dore Schary, American film writer, director, and producer (b. 1905)
- July 17 - Boris Delaunay, Russian mathematician (b. 1890)
- July 24 - Peter Sellers, English actor (b. 1925)
- July 26 - Kenneth Tynan, English theatre critic (b. 1927)
- July 27 - Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran (b. 1919)
- August 7 - Jackie Cochran, American pilot (b. 1906)
- August 10 - Yahya Khan, President of Pakistan (b. 1917)
- August 14 - Dorothy Stratten, Canadian model (murdered) (b. 1960)
- August 24 - Yootha Joyce, British actress (b. 1927)
- September 8 - Willard Libby, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1908)
- September 16 - Jean Piaget, Swiss psychologist (b. 1896)
- September 25 - John Bonham, British drummer (Led Zeppelin) (b. 1948)
October-December
- October 25 - Virgil Fox, American organist (b. 1912)
- October 25 - Victor Galindez, Argentine boxer (race car accident) (b. 1948)
- October 27 - John Hasbrouck van Vleck, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1899)
- November 4 - Elsie MacGill, Canadian aeronautical engineer (b. 1904)
- November 7 - Steve McQueen, American actor (b. 1930)
- November 20 - John McEwen, eighteenth Prime Minister of Australia (b. 1900)
- November 22 - Mae West, American actress (b. 1893)
- December 2 - Romain Gary, Lithuanian-born writer (b. 1914)
- December 4 - Francisco Sá Carneiro, Prime Minister of Portugal (b. 1934)
- December 4 - Stanislawa Walasiewicz, Polish-born runner (b. 1911)
- December 7 - Darby Crash, American songwriter, singer for The Germs (heroin overdose) (b. 1958)
- December 8 - John Lennon, British singer, songwriter, and guitarist (The Beatles) (murdered) (b. 1940)
- December 16 - Harland Sanders, American fast food entrepreneur (b. 1890)
- December 16 - Hellmuth Walter, German engineer and inventor (b. 1900)
- December 24 - Karl Dönitz, President of Germany (b. 1891)
- December 29 - Tim Hardin, American musician (b. 1941)
- December 31 - Marshall McLuhan, Canadian author and professor (b. 1911)
Unknown dates
- Clement Martyn Doke, South African linguist
Nobel Prizes
- Physics - James Watson Cronin, Val Logsdon Fitch
- Chemistry - Paul Berg, Walter Gilbert, Frederick Sanger
- Medicine - Baruj Benacerraf, Jean Dausset, George D. Snell
- Literature - Czeslaw Milosz
- Peace - Adolfo Pérez Esquivel
- Prof. Ralph Burhoe
Category:1980
als:1980
ko:1980년
ja:1980年
simple:1980
th:พ.ศ. 2523
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal, often referred to as simply metal, is a form of music characterised 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, rock and prog 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. From the late 1970s on, many bands would fuse this sound with a revival of European classical music. 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 of fans known by terms like metalheads and headbangers.
Characteristics
Heavy metal is characterised by virtuosic instrumentation, especially a guitar, dark themes and lyrics, aggressive, uptempo rhythms and classical or symphonic styles.
Of all rock & roll's myriad forms, heavy metal is the most extreme in terms of volume, machismo, and theatricality. There are numerous stylistic variations on heavy metal's core sound, but they're all tied together by a reliance on loud, distorted guitars (usually playing repeated riffs) and simple, pounding rhythms.
Instrumentation
The most commonly used line-up for metal is a drummer, bass guitarist, rhythm guitarist, lead guitarist (in early metal bands a single guitarist often sufficed — see power trio), singer (who is sometimes also one of the instrumentalists), and occasionally a keyboard player. Guitar playing is very important in heavy metal. Distorted amplification of the guitars, with effects and electronic processing, is used to thicken the sound. The result is simple and powerful, although some of the original heavy metallers joked that their simplified sound was more the result of limited ability than of innovation.
Heavy metal singers have wide variety in sounds among them, from mid-range clean vocals, to high-pitched wails, to deep growls. The black and death metal scene tends to use distorted and guttural death grunts (exemplified by the band Possessed). Generally, it is hard to understand what the singer is "singing". Often, the text is considered to be too crude to be sung clearly (such as in Cannibal Corpse), but there are some bands (such as Eudoxis and Bolt Thrower) that will have more traditional lyrics obscured by the style of the singing.
Intricate solos and riffs are a big part of heavy metal music. Guitarists use sweep-picking, tapping and similar techniques for rapid playing. Heavy metal is not limited, however, to the standard outfit of guitars and drums. The Finnish cello trio Apocalyptica has created its own version of heavy metal, difficult to categorise but leaning towards the darker side.
The American band Grand Funk Railroad was one of the early proto-heavy metal bands (along with The Who, for example) that set new benchmarks for sound volume during shows. The volume of the music was seen as a factor equal in importance to its other qualities. Though this influence is often denigrated as pointless extravagance, it has proven enormously influential, and still dominates many people's perceptions of the genre. Motörhead and Manowar are more recent examples of bands that pride themselves on keeping the volume very high (see Manowar's 1984 song "All Men Play On Ten"). This behavior was mocked in the rockumentary spoof This Is Sp%C4%B1n%CC%88al Tap by guitarist "Nigel Tufnel", who revealed that his Marshall amplifiers had been modified to "go to eleven."
Themes
Heavy metal, as an art form, is more than just music; it is as much visual as it is audible. Album covers and stage shows are almost as important to the presentation of the material as the music itself. Thus, through heavy metal, many artists collaborate to produce a menu of experiences in each piece, offering a wider range of experiences to the audience. In this respect, heavy metal becomes perhaps more of a diverse art form than any single form dominated by one method of expression. Whereas a painting is experienced visually, a symphony experienced audibly, a heavy metal band's "image" and the common theme that binds all their music is expressed in the artwork on the album, the set of the stage, the tone of the lyrics, in addition to the sound of the music.
Marshall amplifiers]]Rock historians tend to find that the influence of Western pop music gives heavy metal its escape-from-reality fantasy side, as an escape from reality through outlandish and fantastic lyrics, while African-American blues gives heavy metal its naked reality side, focusing on loss, depression and loneliness.
If the audio, and thematic components of heavy metal are predominantly blues-influenced reality, then the visual component is predominantly pop-influenced fantasy. The themes of darkness, evil, power, and apocalypse are fantastic language components for addressing the reality of life's problems. Further, in reaction to the "peace and love" hippie culture of the 1960s, heavy metal developed as a counterculture, where light is supplanted by darkness, and the happy ending of pop is replaced by the naked reality that things do not always work out in this world. Whilst fans claim that the medium of darkness is not the message, critics have accused the genre of glorifying the negative aspects of reality.
countercultureHeavy metal themes are typically more grave than the generally airy pop from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, focusing on war, nuclear annihilation, environmental issues, political and religious propaganda. Black Sabbath's "War Pigs", Ozzy Osbourne's "Killer of Giants" and Metallica's "...And Justice for All" are examples of serious contributions to the discussion of the state of affairs. The commentary on reality sometimes tends to become over-simplified because the fantastic poetic vocabulary of heavy metal deals primarily with very clear dichotomies of light and dark, hope and despair, good and evil, which do not make much room for complex shades of grey.
Some might differentiate by observing that pure heavy metal does not generally sing about love, while many hair metal songs are focused on love. In some respects, one might argue that the hair metal scene of the 1980s was the logical endpoint of the glitter or glam rock movement of the 1970s; the visual similarities between the two, with the make-up and fanciful costumes, makes the argument more compelling. Glitter rock, however, was lyrically focused on sexual ambiguity, free expression and individuality, while hair metal was unambiguously macho and heterosexual, with little room for diversity of political or social opinions. Ultimately, "pure" heavy metal would position itself at the periphery of pop culture, never quite at centre, and metal denizens contend that the move towards the centre was a commercialism that compromised both the artistic integrity of the form and the opportunity for messages to be taken seriously.
Classical influence
MetallicaThe appropriation of classical music by heavy metal typically includes the influence of Bach and Paganini rather than Mozart or Franz Liszt. Though Deep Purple/Rainbow guitarist Ritchie Blackmore had been experimenting with musical figurations borrowed from classical music since the early 1970s, Edward Van Halen's solo cadenza "Eruption" (released on Van Halen's first album in 1978) marks an important moment in the development of virtuosity in metal. Following Van Halen, the "classical" influence in metal guitar during the 1980s actually looked to the early eigtheenth century for its model of speed and technique. Indeed, the late Baroque era of western art music was also frequently interpreted through a gothic lens. For example, "Mr. Crowley," (1981) by Ozzy Osbourne and guitarist Randy Rhoads, uses both a pipe organ and Baroque-inspired guitar solos to create a particular mood for Osbourne's lyrics on the legendary occultist Aleister Crowley. Like many other metal guitarists in the 1980s, Rhoads quite earnestly took up the "learned" study of musical theory and helped to solidify the minor industry of guitar pedagogy magazines (such as Guitar for the Practicing Musician) that grew up during the decade. In most instances, however, metal musicians who borrowed the technique and rhetoric of art music were not attempting to be classical musicians. (An exception can arguably be found in Yngwie Malmsteen, though many argue that his music relies more on virtuosity and the use of classical-sounding elements such as the harmonic minor scale to appear classical without actually being classical).
Yngwie Malmsteen The Encarta encyclopedia claims that "when a text was associated with the music, Bach could write musical equivalents of verbal ideas". Progressive rock bands such as Emerson, Lake, and Palmer and Yes had already explored this relationship before heavy metal evolved. As heavy metal uses apocalyptic themes and images of power and darkness, the ability to translate verbal ideas into musical ideas that successfully convey the ideas of the words is critical to heavy metal authenticity and credibility. An excellent example of this is the theme album Powerslave, by Iron Maiden. The cover is of a dramatic Egyptian pyramid scene, and many of the songs on the album have subject matter that requires a sound suggestive of life and death, including a song entitled "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", based on the poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. However, the 1977 Rush album A Farewell to Kings features the twelve-minute "Xanadu," also inspired by Coleridge and predating the Iron Maiden composition by several years. Bassist Steve Harris (musician) has also cited progressive rock bands such as Rush and Yes as influences on his own considerable talents.
History
The term "heavy metal"
Yes The origin of the term heavy metal is uncertain. An early use of the term was by counter-culture writer William S. Burroughs. In his 1962 novel The Soft Machine, he introduces the character "Uranian Willy, the Heavy Metal Kid". His next novel in 1964 Nova Express, develops this theme further, heavy metal being a metaphor for addictive drugs.
"With their diseases and orgasm drugs and their sexless parasite life forms - Heavy Metal People of Uranus wrapped in cool blue mist of vaporized bank notes - And the Insect People of Minraud with metal music"
:Burroughs, William S, (1964). Nova Express. New York: Grove Press. p. 112
Given the publication dates of these works it is unlikely that Burroughs had any intent to relate the term to rock music; however Burroughs' writing may have influenced later usage of the term.
The first use of the term "heavy metal" in a song lyric is the words "heavy metal thunder" in the 1968 Steppenwolf song "Born to be Wild" (Walser 1993, p. 8):
"I like smoke and lightning
Heavy metal thunder
Racin' with the wind
And the feelin' that I'm under"
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 first started playing Los Angeles in 1967, their name explained on an album cover, "Iron- symbolic of something heavy as in sound, Butterfly- light, appealing and versatile...an object that can be used freely in the imagination" 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 down like a lead balloon") incorporated a heavy metal into its name may have sealed the usage of the term.
In the late 1960s, Birmingham, England was still a centre of industry and (given the many rock bands that evolved in and around the city, such as Led Zeppelin, The Move, and Black Sabbath) some people suggest that the term Heavy Metal may have some relation to such activity. Biographies of The Move have claimed that the sound came from their 'heavy' guitar riffs that were popular amongst the 'metal midlands'.
Sandy Pearlman, original producer, manager and songwriter for Blue Öyster Cult, claims to have been the first person to apply the term "heavy metal" to rock music in 1970.
A widespread but disputed hypothesis about the origin of the genre was brought forth by "Chas" Chandler, who was a manager of the Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1969, in an interview on the PBS TV programme "Rock and Roll" in 1995. He states that "...it [heavy metal] was a term originated in a New York Times article reviewing a Jimi Hendrix performance", and claims the author described the Jimi Hendrix Experience "...like listening to heavy metal falling from the sky". The precise source of this claim, however, has not been found and its accuracy is disputed.
The first well-documented usage of the term "heavy metal" referring to a style of music, appears to be the May 1971 issue of Creem, in a review of Sir Lord Baltimore's Kingdom Come. In this review we are told that "Sir Lord Baltimore seems to have down pat most all the best heavy metal tricks in the book".
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.
Origins (1960s and early 1970s)
American blues music was highly popular and influential among the early British rockers; bands like the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds had recorded covers of many classic blues songs, sometimes speeding up the tempo and using electric guitar where the original used acoustic. (Similar adaptations of blues and other race music had formed the basis of the earliest rock and roll, notably that of Elvis Presley).
Such powered-up blues music was encouraged by the intellectual and artistic experimentation that arose when musicians started to exploit the opportunities of the electrically amplified guitar to produce a louder, more discordant sound. Where blues-rock drumming styles had been largely simple shuffle beats on small drum kits, drummers began using a more muscular, complex, and amplified approach to match and be heard with the increasingly loud guitar sounds; similarly vocalists modified their technique and increased their reliance on amplification, often becoming more stylised and dramatic in the process. Simultaneous advances in amplification and recording technology made it possible to successfully capture the power of this heavier approach on record.
shuffle beat The earliest music commonly identified as heavy metal came out of the Birmingham area of the United Kingdom in the late 1960s when bands such as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath applied an overtly non-traditional approach to blues standards and created new music often based on blues scales and arrangements. These bands were highly influenced by American psychedelic rock musicians including Jimi Hendrix, who had pioneered amplified and processed blues-rock guitar and acted as a bridge between black American music and white European rockers.
Other oft-cited influences include Vanilla Fudge, who had slowed down and psychedelicised pop tunes, as well as earlier British rockers such as The Who and The Kinks, who had paved the way for heavy metal styles by introducing power chords and more aggressive percussion to the rock genre. Another key influence was Cream, who exemplified the power trio format that would become a staple of heavy metal. Some also cite The Beatles as a key influence; they had increasingly used distortion and heavier arrangements as early as 1967's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Perhaps the earliest song that is clearly identifiable as prototype heavy metal is "You Really Got Me" by The Kinks (1965). By late 1968 heavy blues sounds were becoming common: many fans and scholars point to Blue Cheer's 1968 cover of Eddie Cochran's hit "Summertime Blues" as the first true heavy-metal song; Beatles scholars cite in particular the song "Helter Skelter" from The White Album (1968), which set new standards for distortion and aggressive sound on a pop album. Dave Edmunds' band Love Sculpture released an aggressive heavy guitar version of Khachaturian's Sabre Dance in November 1968. The Jeff Beck Group's album Truth (late 1968) was an important and influential rock album released just before Led Zeppelin's first album, leading some (especially British blues fans) to argue that Truth was the first heavy metal album. The Yardbirds' 1968 single "Think About It" should also be mentioned, as that employed a similar sound to that which Jimmy Page would employ with Led Zeppelin. Also, progressive rock band King Crimson's "21st Century Schizoid Man" from their debut album, In The Court Of The Crimson King, featured most of the thematic, compositional and musical characteristics of heavy metal: a very heavily distorted guitar tone and discordant soloing by Robert Fripp, lyrics that focused on what is wrong about what the 21st century human would be, a dark mood and even Greg Lake's vocals were passed through a distortion box. However, it was the release of Led Zeppelin in 1969 that brought worldwide notice of the formation of a new genre.
The early heavy metal bands, like Led Zeppelin, Uriah Heep, UFO and Black Sabbath are often called hard rock bands rather than heavy metal, especially those bands whose sound was more similar to traditional rock music. In general, the terms heavy metal and hard rock are often used interchangeably, in particular when discussing the 1970s. Indeed, many such bands are not categorised as "heavy metal bands" per se, but rather as having contributed individual songs or works that contributed to the genre; few would consider Jethro Tull a heavy metal band in any real sense, for example, but few would dispute that their song Aqualung was a quintessential early Heavy Metal song.
The New Wave of British Heavy Metal (Late 1970s and early 1980s)
Aqualung The 1970s history of heavy metal music is highly debated among music historians. Some would call the period an era of "selling-out", in which bands like Blue Öyster Cult achieved moderate mainstream success and the Los Angeles hair metal scene began finding pop audiences, especially in the 1980s. Others ignore or downplay the importance of these bands, instead focusing on the arrival of classical influences, which can be heard in the work of Eddie Van Halen and Randy Rhoads and such like. Others still highlight the late-70s cross-fertilization of heavy metal with fast-paced, youthful punk rock (e.g. Sex Pistols), culminating in the New Wave of British Heavy Metal around the year 1980, led by bands like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden.
Many people, including Heavy Metal musicians of prominent groups, believe that the foundations of the definite style and sound of pure heavy metal were laid down by Judas Priest (another Birmingham band) with three of their early albums: "Sad Wings Of Destiny" (1976), "Sin After Sin" (1977) and "Stained Class" (1978).
(Although Rainbow are also sometimes cited as pioneering the pure heavy metal genre, although one could also make this claim about the later albums of Deep Purple such as Burn and Stormbringer, these bands are generally considered to be hard rock bands).
The explosion of guitar virtuosity (pioneered by Jimi Hendrix a musical generation earlier) was brought to the fore by Eddie Van Halen, and many consider his 1978 solo "Eruption" (Van Halen, 1978) a milestone. Ritchie Blackmore (formerly of Deep Purple), Randy Rhoads (with pioneers Ozzy Osbourne and Quiet Riot) and Yngwie Malmsteen went on to solidify this explosion of virtuoso guitar work, and in some cases, classical guitars and nylon-stringed guitars were played at heavy metal concerts. Classical icons such as Liona Boyd also became associated with the heavy metal stars as peers in a newly diverse guitar fraternity where conservative and aggressive guitarists could come together to "trade licks".
This explosion would cool down in the music of Ronnie James Dio (who himself had a tenure at lead vocals with the legendary Black Sabbath) and continue to settle towards Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, who may be the final and complete consummation of "pure" heavy metal in the lineage of the "grandfathers" - Hendrix, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple.
Metal Goes Mainstream (1980s)
Iron Maiden In a related development, taking place mostly in the U.S., heavy metal would return full circle through the pop vanity of the L.A. scene, led by Mötley Crüe. In the beginning, this form was led by legends like Judas Priest, Dio, Dokken and Twisted Sister. During the 1980s, a pop-based form of hard rock, with a party-hearty spirit and a glam-influenced visual aesthetic (sometimes referred to as "hair metal" due to the long and painstakingly-styled hair of band members) dominated the music charts in some parts of the world, and superstars like Def Leppard, Poison, Bon Jovi, Mötley Crüe, and Ratt helped lead the way. While their music has endured as representative of a particular view, time and place, this form is not always seen by metal purists as a particularly pure or well-executed form of metal. The 1987 debut of Guns N' Roses, a hard rock band with its Aerosmith influences worn prominently on its sleeve, and whose image reflected the grittier underbelly of the Sunset Strip, was at least in part a reaction against the overly-polished image of hair metal, but that band's wild success was in many ways the last gasp of the L.A. hard-rock and metal scene.
Underground Metal (1980s, 1990s, and 2000s)
Guns N' Roses By the mid-1980s, as the term "heavy metal" became the subject of much contestation, heavy metal had branched out in so many different directions that new sub-classifications were created by fans, record companies, and fanzines, although sometimes the differences between various sub-genres were unclear, even to the artists purportedly belonging to a given style (see List of heavy metal genres).
Notable early 80s sub-genres include the faster thrash metal, pioneered by the 'Big Four Of Thrash' (including Anthrax, Megadeth, Metallica and Slayer, with San Francisco quintet Testament sometimes being included in this group). Following the emergence of these bands, metal continued to push the limits of aggressive loudness in other sub-genres such as speed metal, black metal, death metal, doom metal, and stoner metal. These sub-genres, still active today, generally have little or no appeal to mainstream audiences, although Metallica did go on to win over legions of new fans with a more mainstream sound, a move that greatly upset some of their original fan base.
Another sub-genre that emerged at this time was grindcore. Grindcore is an extreme form of hardcore punk and heavy metal, related to death metal, but historically formed by combining elements of Hardcore Punk and early thrash metal (which predated the advent of death metal). The genre was pioneered during the early 1980s in the United Kingdom and Netherlands by bands such as Sore Throat, Napalm Death and Larm; and in the United States by proto-grindcore and hardcore punk bands such as Siege, DRI, Deep Wound and Repulsion.
Alternative Metal and Nu Metal (1990s and 2000s)
The era of mainstream metal, or "Hair Metal," came to an end with the emergence of Nirvana and other bands that were labeled "grunge" by the record industry. These later styles of heavy rock music in the 1990s show influences of heavy metal but are typically not labelled sub-genres of heavy metal, as opposed to thrash metal and hair metal. The general absence of virtuosic guitar solos is perhaps one reason grunge bands have not been considered heavy metal bands.
Nirvana After the death of Kurt Cobain in 1994, a distinctly metal sound began to re-emerge in mainstream rock through bands such as Marilyn Manson and White Zombie, who were clearly influenced by heavy metal of the past. This music is sometimes referred to as alternative metal."
The first decade of the 21st century saw the emergence of so-called "Nu Metal" (occasionally called "nü-metal," using the traditional heavy metal umlaut). Nu metal (or aggro metal) fuses heavy metal music, hip hop and alternative rock. It sometimes bears some influence to hip-hop, because rhythmic innovation and syncopation are primary. Nu metal bands also feature aggressive vocals (either rapped, shouted, or sung), drop-tuned guitars that are clean or distorted, (with riffing similiar to the Seattle scene of the early 1990's) a funk-based rhythm section, and occassional DJ techniques such as turntables and sampling. Generally speaking, the emphasis is on either communicating feelings of angst and hostility, or motivating a crowd to move with the beat -- ideally, both at once. The popularity of such music in the late 1990s led to widespread negative associations with the phrase "nu metal", particularly due to commercialisation, and many nu-metal fans and artists reject the term, which has become almost an all-purpose musical insult. A related term, mallcore, is used similarly to dismiss aggressive music that is seemingly calculated to appeal to angst-filled young teenagers.
Some heavy metal fans do not consider nu metal a form of heavy metal music at all, arguing the genre is too diluted from what they consider "true" heavy metal. Nu metal guitarists, for example, typically forgo traditional metal guitar technique, such as soloing and often use riffs quite different from those most commonly associated with traditional metal. It is also not liked because of the lyrics that usually deal with what teenagers face and many metal fans feel that metal is about strength, not weakness. Other heavy metal fans, however, reject these arguments, citing rock music's long history of incorporating disparate elements--including jazz, experimental music and world music--out of curiosity or genuine appreciation for other musical genres.
While Deftones and Korn are typically cited as the genre's instigators, diverse alternative metal bands like Fishbone, Body Count, Urban Dance Squad, Faith No More, Suicidal Tendencies, Jane's Addiction, Helmet, Soundgarden, Rage Against The Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tool and others are also proclaimed as progenitors. However, some Metalheads who despise the genre accuse Helmet for creating Nu Metal.
Cultural impact
The loud, confrontational aspects of heavy metal have led to friction between fans and mainstream society in many countries. Due to the hedonistic nature promoted by the music and its occasional anti-religious sentiments heavy metal as a sub-culture has come under attack in many Islamic countries where even wearing a black T-shirt can be an arrestable offence. In Europe and America, the fan base for heavy metal consists primarily of white males in their teens and 20's, many of whom are attracted to heavy metal's overtly anti-social yet fantastical lyrics and extreme volume and tempos. Hence, the stereotype of the spotty-faced, adolescent headbanger venting his rebellious urges by listening to presposterously loud, morbid music. This image has been highlighted in popular culture with such television shows and movies as "Beavis and Butt-head"" and "Airheads". Heavy metal's bombastic excesses, exemplified by hair metal, have often been parodied, most famously in the film This Is Spinal Tap (see also the phenomenon of the heavy metal umlaut). Douglas Adams neatly satirised the propensity for excessive volume in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy with the fictional rock band Disaster Area — creators of the loudest sound in the known universe. It should be noted, however, that Adams was satirising Pink Floyd stage shows specifically, rather than heavy metal in general.
Many heavy metal stylings have made their way into everyday (albeit ironic) use; for instance, the "devil horns" hand sign first popularised by Ronnie James Dio has become a common sight at many rock concerts. During the 1970s and 1980s, flirtation with occult themes by artists such as Ozzy Osbourne, W.A.S.P. and Iron Maiden led to accusations of "Satanic" influences in heavy metal by fundamentalist Christians. One popular contention during that period was that heavy metal albums featured hidden messages urging listeners to worship the Devil or to commit suicide (see Judas Priest and backward message and Allegations of Satanism in popular culture).
Subgenres and related styles
Main article: List of heavy metal genres
Heavy Metal has proven somewhat difficult to categorise. Some fans and musicians have a firm concept of genre and subgenre, but others reject such categorisation as limiting or useless.
Heavy metal is the progenitor of the "metal-family" of genres including black metal, death metal, thrash metal, hair metal and others. Most metal derives directly from blues and rock, while some sub-genres include an evident influence of Western classical music. Thus, even if classical heavy metal and avant-garde black metal belong to the same family, there are important differences between them. Pure heavy metal is mainly blues-based, with pentatonic scales and a blues-like song structure; black metal and related forms often draw on classical music, even if at a first glance it seems to be only distorted guitars playing a very fast repeating melody.
pentatonic scales Glam rock, a short-lived era in the mid-1970s, is the extreme exploration of the fantasy-side of the reality-fantasy parents of heavy metal. T. Rex, David Bowie and Alice Cooper are among the more popular standard examples of this sub-genre.
Hard rock, mentioned earlier, is also closely related to heavy metal, but does not consistently match the description of what purists consider the definition heavy metal. While still guitar-driven in nature and sometimes deriving off of riffs, its themes and execution differ from that of the major heavy metal bands listed earlier in the article. This is perhaps best examplified by The Who in the late-1960s and early-1970s, as well as other 1970s and 1980s bands like KISS, Queen, Aerosmith, Thin Lizzy, AC/DC and Scorpions.
In the early 1980s the New Wave of British Heavy Metal made metal music very popular (especially in Europe) with bands like Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, and Saxon.
However, the purest form of Heavy Metal was evident in the early 1980s, in the form of Classic metal, which included of such true metal artistes as Judas Priest, Dio, Dokken, Iron Maiden, W.A.S.P., Scorpions and Motörhead (although Motörhead often straddled the hard rock category due to having more of a blues influence than the other bands cited here). These bands played traditional metal, but there was a youthful vibe and an air punching dynamo confluenced intricately with melody. This genre was characterised by thumping fast basslines, extended lead guitar solos, high pitched vocals and pounding drums. Classic metal should not be confused with the Traditional metal or the Roots Of Metal genre which was evident in the 1970s with pioneering artistes like Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and Alice Cooper.
A good deal of cross-influence has occured between punk rock and heavy metal. Motörhead, for example, was an influence on many punk bands. Some hardcore punk bands such as DRI and Suicidal Tendencies began playing more metal-like music as they progressed. Punk has also had a large influence on metal, particularly with relation to grindcore. Thrashcore, crust punk and grindcore all have notable influence from both punk and metal. Also, Grunge is frequently described as Heavy Metal fused with punk's DIY ethic.
As for metal's relationship with art rock, heavy metal and progressive rock developed in and around the same scenes, particularly in Great Britain, and as a result many metal bands worked progressive elements into their sound throughout the genre. After the punk boom of the late 1970s, heavy metal and art rock again intersected, as a few post-punk bands, most notably Bauhaus and Joy Division incorporated metal's (more specifically Black Sabbath's) minor key melodies, emphasis on low end tones, and darker lyrical content into their arty approach to punk rock.
Heavy metal (along with progressive rock) has also been cited as (ironically) an influence on the "easy-listening" Adult Oriented Rock genre of the 1980s. Toto guitarist Steve Lukather has cited early hard rock and heavy metal music as a profound influence on his playing, and is notably evident on the track "Hold The Line" which shares some common traits with traditional metal. Other AOR bands such as Journey and supergroup Asia often incorporated power chord riffs into their music. Ironically, some metal bands such as Def Leppard, Scorpions, Europe and Van Halen started moving into a "softer" and more commercial musical direction in the late 1980s, which resulted in the term "Soft Metal" being used during that period.
Metal's profound influence on contemporary popular music is again seen in its effect on several bands in the garage rock revival set of the early 21st century. The White Stripes, one of the most popular of these bands, often draw on the nascent metal of Cream, Led Zeppelin, and Black Sabbath.
Heavy metal dance
Although most heavy metal fans would disagree with the term "dance," there are certain body movements that are nearly universal in the metal world, including headbanging, moshing, and various hand gestures such as devil horns. Stage diving, air guitar and crowd surfing are also practiced.
Sources
- Christe, Ian (2003). Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal. HarperCollins. ISBN 0380811278.
- Walser, Robert (1993). Running with the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music. Wesleyan University Press. ISBN 0819562602.
- Weinstein, Deena (1991). Heavy Metal: A Cultural Sociology. Lexington. ISBN 0669218375. Revised edition: (2000) Heavy Metal: The Music and its Culture. DaCapo. ISBN 0306809702.
External links
- [http://www.metal-archives.com Encyclopaedia Metallum: The Metal Archives] Encyclopedia of metal bands from all around the world
- [http://www.metal-rules.com/ Metal-Rules!] Heavy metal webzine
- [http://www.metalsludge.tv/ Metal Sludge] Politically incorrect news and views from the world of hard rock and heavy metal
- [http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/ Blabbermouth] Heavy metal news
- [http://www.metalstorm.ee/ Metal Storm] International webzine dedicated to all things metal
- [http://www.darklyrics.com/ Dark Lyrics] The internet's largest archive for heavy metal song lyrics
- [http://www.bnrmetal.com/ BNR Metal] Fairly comprehensive index of metal bands and styles, focusing especially on European metal
Category:Heavy metal
Category:Musical movements
Category:Musical genres
als:Heavy Metal
ja:ヘヴィメタル
Scorpions (band):For other uses, see Scorpion
Scorpion
Scorpions are a hard rock band from Hanover, Germany, best known for their 80's heavy metal anthem, Rock You Like A Hurricane.
Contrary to common usage, the band's name is "Scorpions" and not "The Scorpions".
History
Rudolf Schenker, the bands rhythm guitarist, set out to found a band in 1965. Things began to come together in 1969 when Schenker's younger brother Michael and vocalist Klaus Meine joined the band. After Rudolf and Klaus split with Michael and their bass-player and drummer, they joined a band called Dawn Road, which consisted of Francis Buchholz (bass), Uli Roth (guitar) and Juergen Rosenthal (drums). Together they decided to call this new band "Scorpions", a name that people would easily remember and understand not only in Germany.
They released their first studio album, Lonesome Crow, in 1972. It was during the tour that followed when Michael Schenker decided to leave Scorpions in favour of another band, UFO. After the unification with Dawn Road, they produced "Fly To The Rainbow". The album had a few classics such as Speedy's coming, and the title track itself. Their 3rd album, In Trance, was the first real highlight of their career. Songs such as the title track itself, Dark Lady, Robot Man still remained as classics enjoyed by fans. Having built the momentum, Scorpions released Vigin Killer, an album appraised by critics and fans alike. However the obscene album cover brought the same amount of criticism. Virgin Killer was an album regarded as true metal classics. Their following release, "Taken By Force", was the first record to be aggresively promoted in the United States. The band's label, RCA, instituted numerous attempts to promote the album in stores and push for radio airplay. The album's single, "Steamrock Fever" was added to some of RCA's radio promotional discs. RCA also supervised the album cover design avoiding any controversy by including introduction type photographs which included the names of each member under individual photos. Ulrich Roth was not happy with the deicided commercial attempts and the commercial direction the band was taking. Although Roth supported the band's Japan tour, he left the band prior to the release of "Tokyo Tapes," a double live recording from the recent tour. "Tokyo Tapes" was first released in Japan but was unavailable in either Europe or USA for another six months. By that time Roth had departed and the band had added a new lead guitar.
The departure of guitar virtuoso Roth saw the intake of Matthias Jabs. Though not as technically good as Ulrich, it was with him the band found true success.
Following the intake of Jabs, Scorpions released Lovedrive. The album had many fans favourites, however, a provocative cover saw many countries refusing to take the album. Nevetherless, it brought about great success. Michael Schenker contributed to three cuts on the "Lovedrive" album.
In 1980, the band released Animal Magnetism, again with a provocative cover. However, it was rightly remembered for songs such as "The Zoo", and "Make It Real". It was around this time too that a tragedy struck Scorpions. Their golden voice, Klaus Meine, suffered throat problems and was forced to go through 'rehab'. It was without a doubt their worst moment in a decorated 40 year history of the band.
However, their next release, Blackout brought the band their greatest success at that time. Hits such as No One Like You, Dynamite, and Blackout propelled the album up the charts.
It was not until the 1984 release, Love At First Sting, did the band finally cement their superstars status. However, typical of the band, they stirred up controversies by the cover of their album. Some shops even refused to sell the album, mimicking a gag from the satire movie This Is Spinal Tap that came out that same year. The album had many classics such as Bad Boys Running Wild, Rock You Like A Hurricane, and their ballad Still Loving You. MTV played their musics frequently, making them famous worldwide.
The band toured extensively, and decided to record and release it in their 2nd live album, World Wide Live. The album was the 2nd best selling live album in America.
The band enjoyed a high degree of success through the early 1990s thanks to the release of the Crazy World album in 1990 and the single "Wind of Change". The song muses on the socio-political changes occurring in Eastern Europe and in other parts of the world at the end of the Cold War. They were the first western group to play in the former Soviet Union. On July 21, 1990 they joined many other guests for Roger Waters' massive performance of The Wall in Berlin. Scorpions performed both versions of "In the Flesh" from The Wall.
Around that time, their long-serving bassist, Francis Buccholz left the group. There were rumours that Scorpions were upset by heavy taxes needed to be paid for the album, Crazy world. As a result, they fired their manager feeling that they might have been cheated. Suprisingly, Francis decided to stick with the manager and subsequently left the band. Ralph Rieckermann took over the bass for Scorpions for their album Face the Heat, and stayed till 2002.
In 1993 the album Face the Heat was published. The album opened with the heavy metal song "Alien Nation", considered by many headbangers to be the Scorpions' best work. The Scorpions also composed a new ballad, "Under The Same Sun" in attempt to match "Wind Of Change". Although not as succesful, the ballad is still brilliant and enjoyed moderate success.
Around 1995, a new live album, "Live Bites" was produced. The album recorded their on-stage performance from rythm of love tour all the way to face the heat tour. Though this album had a much cleaner sound with comparison to best-selling live album, "World Wide Live", it was not as successful.
For their 13th studio album, "Pure Instinct", Herman Rarebell left the band to setup a recording company. Curt Cress took charge of the drumstick for the album before James Kottak took over permanantly. The album had many harmonious ballad, but was criticised by some sections of fans for being too soft(there were only 2 rockers in the album). Still, the album enjoyed considerable success with rocker "Wild Child"and soothing ballad "You and I".
Following the release of "Pure Instinct", the Scorpions did some tour before finally returning to studio to record their 14th studio album, "Eye to Eye". The band tried to use pop-techno sound in order to keep up with trend, but it turned out to be disastrous. Many fans regarded the album as their worst. The band, however, claimed that the album was important for their development.
In the year 2000, Scorpions had a fairly-successful collobaration with Berlin Philharmonic. The result was a 10 song album. The album went a long way in building back the band's reputation after the insurmountable amount of critics brought towards the album "Eye to Eye". Still critics accused them of following the tail- coat of Metallica, as the latter had done a similar collobaration in 1999. However, it should be taken into consideration that the orchestra h |
