Metal in the Mainstream (Part 1 of 6)
Plugged In Online's in-depth series on heavy metal music examines its history, subgenres, performers, fans, messages and influence on us all.
The summer of 1986 was a pivotal one for me.
Several years earlier I'd discovered what was then considered "heavy metal." In '83, I'd been one of 10 million people who purchased Def Leppard's Pyromania. And as I entered the awkward awfulness of what was to be my adolescence, other metal albums soon followed, such as the Scorpions' Love at First Sting and Van Halen's 1984. My first concert: Quiet Riot. I'm still not sure what my parents were thinking dropping me and my best friend off at the show—unsupervised—and barely 14.
But in August 1986, Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet hit the airwaves and MTV—and went supernova. I still remember the first time I saw the video for "You Give Love a Bad Name." For a 16-year-old who'd already spent a few too many years pining for unavailable (and often mean) popular girls, it was like a new national anthem. Yeah, I thought. They are to blame. They do give love a bad name. Soon after came the desperate tale of Tommy and Gina "Livin' on a Prayer," with Richie Sambora's famous talk-box guitar rhythm paving the way for Jon's storytelling. I was well and truly hooked.
I share that history to let you know that I know something of the appeal of screaming guitars, black leather and long hair. I spent many hours of my adolescence secluded in my bedroom, wailing these songs. I understand how music provides what seems like a tonic for tumultuous emotions. And before I surrendered my life to Christ later in my teens, those songs expressed my deepest feelings.
In some ways, little has changed since then. The genre's most recognizable element—driving, distorted guitars—still attracts new fans (and still prompts parents everywhere to yell, "Turn it down!"). In other ways, however, things have changed. Anger and aggression are longstanding metal themes; but many of today's acts also proffer an increasingly nihilistic message—a worldview bereft of hope and meaning. In such an existential vacuum, alienation reigns.
Occasionally, a socially conscious song or band veers from this trajectory. But too often, metal's main message is a bleak one. And since, clearly, music shapes our identities, especially in our formative years, it's important to pay attention to the messages certain songs or styles send. And if sales figures are any indicator, the styles and songs of heavy metal are connecting with a mainstream audience every bit as much and more than they connected with me 20 years ago.
The Molten River of Metal—A Brief History
The term heavy metal entered the vernacular in the early '70s as journalists and musicians appropriated it to describe the brooding sounds of seminal rock bands such as Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Iron Butterfly, Deep Purple and Blue Öyster Cult. These bands (and later followers, such as Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and Van Halen) blended blues-based rock with classical music influences—all amplified and distorted, of course.
By the early '80s, heavy metal began to fragment into subgenres. The variety that dominated the airwaves from the mid-'80s through the end of that decade would eventually be known as glam or pop metal. And the summer of '83 marked the beginning of its ascendancy. Driven by the single "Cum on Feel the Noize," Quiet Riot's Metal Health bumped The Police's Synchronicity out of the top spot on Billboard's mainstream album chart—the first metal album ever to hit No. 1. And in the years that followed, Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, Poison, Whitesnake, Ratt, Dokken and Mötley Crüe led a brigade of spandex-clad bands whose pretty-boy singers lamented lost love and celebrated hard livin'.
It's almost impossible to overstate these bands' cultural saturation. Def Leppard's 1987 album, Hysteria, is one of only a handful of albums ever to spawn seven Hot 100 singles; Hysteria anchored itself on the album chart for three years and moved 12 million copies in the United States alone. Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet also sold 12 million copies. Guns 'N Roses' harder-edged offering, Appetite for Destruction, topped them both, moving an astounding 15 million units. To put those figures in perspective, only one album in 2005, Mariah Carey's The Emancipation of Mimi, sold even 5 million units.
While glam ruled, however, an underground metal scene dominated by heavier, darker, faster bands also took root. Thrash metal's frenetic rhythms separated it from the more melodic and accessible stylings of glam. None of the "Big Four" among '80s thrash pioneers—Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax—initially enjoyed the mainstream success of their metal brothers. But thrash, arguably more than glam, paved the way for bands that would emerge in the 1990s and 2000s.
Winds of Change
Given pop-metal's prominence, few would have predicted its dramatic implosion. But with the emergence of Nirvana and Pearl Jam in the early '90s, fishnet stockings, Aquanet and self-indulgent guitar solos suddenly seemed, well, ridiculous. The good times of the '80s gave way to the angst-drenched '90s. The culture embraced the anxious, questioning and cynical attitudes supplied by Nirvana's Kurt Cobain and Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder. Cobain's desperate anthems skewered '80s superficiality, and those messages resonated with fans hungry for the substantive—if depressing—societal critique he provided. Overnight, grunge displaced glam. Goodbye leather, hello flannel.
That transition broke the big-hair stranglehold on rock radio. It also coincided with the emergence of a wider variety of metal practitioners, as grunge gave way to nu metal acts Korn, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park and Slipknot later in the '90s. Simultaneously, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails marched at the vanguard of the industrial metal battalion, followed by Rob Zombie and theatrical shock rocker Marilyn Manson. Meanwhile, thrash finally began to thrive as Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer—now joined by Pantera—powered on.
Today, it could be said that thrash has given way to the metal's latest permutation: hardcore. Melding thrash with screamed—and grunted, growled and gargled—lyrics, metalcore bands such as In Flames, Underoath, Trivium, Killswitch Engage and Lamb of God are crawling out of what had been a niche market and onto the charts.
Metal's New Missionaries
Heavy metal, then, once a phrase describing a handful of groups, has morphed into an umbrella term that encompasses a huge spectrum of very popular subgenres. Power metal, hardcore, thrash, nu metal, black and death metal—even Viking metal—all vie for attention. As of this posting, the Web site Encyclopaedia Metallum identifies a staggering 39,811 metal bands worldwide.
In the last month alone, Slayer's latest, Christ Illusion, landed at No. 5 (in contrast, their 1986 album Reign in Blood peaked at No. 96). Breaking Benjamin came in at No. 2 and Stone Sour at No. 4. In the last two years, 10 other metal albums from bands such as Tool, Godsmack, Disturbed, Underoath and Mudvayne have debuted in the Top 10.
In Part 2 Adam peels back the first layer of the metal onion: alienation. He asks the question, "Why do so many loners have so much in common?"
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6
