25-12-2013, 04:03
SteveO Wrote:It is still a loose term! Christgau is off the mark IMHO calling Cheap Trick and others Heavy Metal. I use metal and drop the heavy. It is difficult at times to distinguish between
metal and hard rock...Led Zeppelin! Even today several bands are so versatile that they delve in and out of heavy rock and metal!
All I know is Black Sabbath released their eponymous album on February 13, 1970...and all hell broke loose..the birth of heavy metal!
That was the birth of metal as a genre. Heavy metal was already going on although it wasn't being called that yet. Mountain's "Mississippi Queen" came out that same year and it was certainly something close to metal.
What set Sabbath apart was simply this: all the Satanic trappings. That's it. Musically, they were no more innovative than any other loud band of that time--less so, really, than most. It was that Satanic angle that did it. Satan got Sabbath attention the way makeup did for Kiss.