Here's a map of rock bands in the metal genre per capita:
We come from the land of the ice and snow,
From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow.
The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands,
To fight the horde, singing and crying: Valhalla, I am coming!
And I recall as an eleven-year-old, thinking that, boy, they were on to something by combining heavy metal with Viking imagery. Apparently, a lot of lads in the North countries felt that fit even more strongly.
This sounds obvious today, but in 1970, heavy metal was all about riffing off Mississippi Delta Blues, so that its fate would end up at the polar opposite culture was quite startling.
Does it have some connection to mountains, ice and snow? Why else would the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan stand out as a tiny spot of red in a sea of green?
ReplyDeleteYou have to meet most ardent Norwegian fans of the death metal. Some of the meekest people I've met in my life, that's for sure.
ReplyDeleteBut true, hard rock/heavy metal is distinctly white phenomenon. Here is Sepultura, a famous Brazilian band, for example.
Hey, neat! You discovered metal. It's a neat thing. Some of it's pretty dumb, to be fair - lyrics screamed or growled rather than sung because, frankly, the artists aren't very good vocalists. However, some bands don't go in for that, and there is certainly an above-average amount of instrumental virtuosity evidenced in a lot of bands.
ReplyDeleteAnd the subgenres...symphonic metal can be very operatic. Neat stuff.
Not to mention Stonehenge!
ReplyDeletebut in 1970, heavy metal was all about riffing off Mississippi Delta Blues
ReplyDeleteApocryphal nonsense. Tell me five Led Zeppelin songs that "riff off" Mississippi Delta Blues.
Show me three Mississippi Delta Blues songs that sound like Led Zeppelin or Rolling Stones songs.
Bhutan is grey meaning presumably no data.
ReplyDelete"Apocryphal nonsense."
ReplyDeletehttp://www.whosampled.com/artist/Led%20Zeppelin/
Looks like it is grey for Bhutan. Why no data though? I found pictures of these guys within seconds.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds obvious today, but in 1970, heavy metal was all about riffing off Mississippi Delta Blues, so that its fate would end up at the polar opposite culture was quite startling.
ReplyDeleteOne of the defining elements of metal is that it gradually divorced itself from blues influences. Zeppelin had big blues influences and Black Sabbath retained some of it.
But by the time you get to the New Wave of British Heavy Metal in the late 70s with bands like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, there's hardly any blues influence at all. After the thrash bands came out of the Bay Area in the early 80's, it was gone for good. With the addition of some classical elements, it started to sound particularly European.
Heavier bands like AC/DC that retained a blues influence aren't really considered metal, but hard rock.
There's a documentary called "Metal: A Headbanger's Journey" that goes through this, and gets into the Scandinavian death/black metal bands at length. The music's not to my taste, but the documentary details how some of those guys just went off the rails in the early 90s with church burnings, murder, and wanting to drive Christianity out of their country (which they're likely rethinking given subsequent demographic changes). Interesting.
Actually, classical music is equally responsible for much of European heavy metal. Guitarists like Yngwie Malmsteen (Sweden) were progenitors of the modern heavy sound way back in the early 80's. Yngwie didn't listen to Led Zeppelin, he listened to Vivaldi.
ReplyDeleteRandy Rhoads really did neoclassical better than the current bunch...especially Yngwie.
ReplyDeleteBlackmoore dabbled in it as well.
Actually, classical music is equally responsible for much of European heavy metal. Guitarists like Yngwie Malmsteen (Sweden) were progenitors of the modern heavy sound way back in the early 80's. Yngwie didn't listen to Led Zeppelin, he listened to Vivaldi.
ReplyDeleteThat's just something metal geeks say to make their tastes seem more sophisticated than they are.
the blues influence might still be found in rock but in metal it's been processed and modified quite a lot so it's several steps removed.
ReplyDeleteExtreme metal is what I know ( can't say much about hard rock and regular heavy metal) and it's a very very white genre in its themes and in its fandom. The viking/nordic theme is so strong that you have metal bands from tropical countries that sing about winters and snowstorms and nordic folklore etc. Extreme metal has had a fair amount of success in places like South-America and Indonesia out of all places. The black world is totally, totally resistant except for one miraculous place : Botswana! For some reason, a lot of botswanans, who are black africans, have no problem listening to music made by and for white men. There's not only a real metal scene there but they also like country and western!
Metal is relatively HUGE in places like Mexico. I mean, you have norwegian black metallers doing tours of El Salvador. I think it's because in those countries it's still normal to look for Europe and not black america for cultural guidance.
Jody's attention is needed at this thread...
ReplyDeleteI'll never forget his magnum opus. My husband is too Aspergery to ever get into this blog or any part of the Steveosphere, but he appreciated Jody's work. These days, at age 33, he isn't into heavy metal, nearly as much as he used to be.
Steve, you're a redditor. I guess that ought surprise me less than it does.
ReplyDeleteI love Zep...except for their blues songs, which I find incredibly boring.
ReplyDeletePapua New Guinea is really not pulling its weight in metal.
ReplyDeleteI like the story of Gallows Pole -- which is an old Northern European folk song, brought to England, then the US, then recorded by Leadbelly, then his version brought back to England by Led Zeppelin.
ReplyDeleteDespite all that, I still prefer Dread Zeppelin to the original.
"Metal: A Headbanger's Journey" is pretty good.
ReplyDeleteIf you really want to learn about Scandinavia and heavy metal, watch the documentary "Until The Light Takes Us." It focuses just on black metal, which, kind of like punk rock, has an ideology behind the music. Instead of anarchy it is basically rejecting the Christian invasion and embracing the Norse roots.
Saxon's Crusader is one of those metal songs that couldn't be made today. It would be accused of being "White Nationalist islamophobe", but it sold millions of copies in the 1980s.
ReplyDeleteIf one excludes East Asia, which has its own music, the more heavy metal bands a nation has, the higher the level of educational achievement. We must alert our education establishment: heavy metal music clearly causes improvement in learning! Every high school student must be required to participate in a metal band; the grades will rise in no time. Think we can get federal funding for this?
ReplyDeletevBut true, hard rock/heavy metal is distinctly white phenomenon.
ReplyDeleteWell, you know the saying, many bands make white lurk.
I've noticed that if you're white you're left with European trance, country music, and Scandinavian heavy metal (and their various derivatives). Everything else is either some flavor of polka or an R&B mess.
ReplyDelete"That's just something metal geeks say to make their tastes seem more sophisticated than they are."
ReplyDeleteIt's adorable that you don't know a single thing about Yngwie. And yet you can still post comments! What a world.
Finland is probably the country in which extreme metal is the most mainstream.
ReplyDeleteHere is something off youtube :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCjfElgxwFU
Highlights : heavy metal church, the finnish prime minister singing metal, string quartet covers of metal songs and more.
Let's not forget the all important Norwegian "bubblegum" pop death-metal genre.
ReplyDeleteIt's a classic.
In England, most of the metal bands(and fans) came from The Midlands, which was more middle class than other areas. I'm wondering if someone could do a similar map of the Art Rock bands, whether it would match up with the Metal bands.
ReplyDelete@Evil Sandmich:
ReplyDeleteYou forgot Indie/Hipster music, which is overwhelmingly white.
However your bias seems to be towards popular music.
There's an unbelievable amount of relatively unpopular but excellent music out there to listen to for anyone who bothers to look.
For example, there's amazing Classical music to listen to, and that doesn't just mean dead guys. Check out Arvo Part or Ludovico Einauldi, for example.
Artists like Brian Eno have been producing experimental and ambient music for decades. There's an incredible variety in so-called Ambient music, from no-vocal acoustics to near-silence, to synthesized soundscapes. Even ostensibly metal bands such as Ulver have been moving towards this, as they mature.
@Evil Sandmich:
ReplyDeleteYou forgot Indie/Hipster music, which is overwhelmingly white.
However your bias seems to be towards popular music.
There's an unbelievable amount of relatively unpopular but excellent music out there to listen to for anyone who bothers to look.
For example, there's amazing Classical music to listen to, and that doesn't just mean dead guys. Check out Arvo Part or Ludovico Einauldi, for example.
Artists like Brian Eno have been producing experimental and ambient music for decades. There's an incredible variety in so-called Ambient music, from no-vocal acoustics to near-silence, to synthesized soundscapes. Even ostensibly metal bands such as Ulver have been moving towards this, as they mature.
Apocryphal nonsense. Tell me five Led Zeppelin songs that "riff off" Mississippi Delta Blues.
ReplyDeleteTravelling Riverside Blues
How Many More Times
I Can't Quit You Baby
Bring It On Home
Since I've Been Loving You
Besides the obvious association with European populations, there seems to be a correlation with the degree of female dominance of a society, with areas of higher relative female power having more metal bands.
ReplyDeleteHeavy metal is an overwhelmingly young male music genre. Perhaps there is some overcompensation going on for the young men in these countries.
Steve:
ReplyDeleteThank you for directing us to the audio comparisons of Led Zeppelin songs with those of other musicians. There has been a persistent narrative pushed in our culture that insinuates that the work of legendary white bands like Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones was not their own, that it was stolen from black bluesmen. Until today, I had not heard the evidence.
I've now listened to all of the songs that were aggregated by the website you linked. Of the seven Zeppelin songs that the website compares to songs of black musicians, only three or four could be said to present significant influence from black blues musicians. And mostly, that influence appears in the resemblance of lyrics. The "riffs" are almost entirely those of Jimmy Page. Mind you, I take it this is the sum total from Led Zeppelin's entire oeuvre.
Even if you meant "riffed off" in the narrow sense of picking up the odd lyric or guitar riff here or there, I don't think it is fair to say Led Zeppelin was all about this in 1970 or ever. American blues was clearly one of their influences, but only a handful of their song could be said to be specific recordings of, covers of, ripped off from, or sampled from, black works. But that is in fact the insinuation. It feeds the anti-White narrative that white people have no merit and have stolen everything they have from blacks and browns.
And, while I realize that taste in music is somewhat subjective, it is fair to say that every Led Zeppelin song below is better than its match. (Except perhaps the Ray Charles song, but that isn't a true match.)
Here are my findings:
(1) You're Time Is Gonna Come. One sentence in the lyrics partially overlaps with Ray Charles. The two tracks are otherwise dissimilar. Not significant. This song doesn't bear mention.
(2) How Many More Times. Notable influence from Howlin' Wolf's No Place to Go.
(3) Bring it on Home. Intro appears to be in part a recording of Sonny Boy Williamson. The heart of the Zeppelin song, however, is totally different, however. Only a tiny part was taken from Williamson.
(4) Moby Dick. Opening riff has some resemblance to Bobby Parker song, but chord progression is actually different. Not significant.
(5) The Lemon Song. The "squeeze my lemon until the juice runs down my leg" refrain is from Robert Johnson (who may have taken it from someone else). Significant influence from Howlin' Wolf's Killing Floor. Very nice little song, but Zeppelin's is much better.
(6) Whole Lotta Love. Some lyrics taken from Muddy Waters/Dixon. Somewhat significant influence of lyrics, but Page's famous guitar riff is all Page.
(7) Custard Pie. Some lyrics from Sleepy John Estes. Page's great riffs appear to be his own.
We women simply don't understand heavy metal. Nope.
ReplyDeleteI've noticed that if you're white you're left with European trance, country music, and Scandinavian heavy metal
ReplyDeleteMost of the pop/hip-hop/R&B music you hear on the radio in the US or Europe was written by white Europeans, often by Scandinavians.
What, you thought that Rihanna wrote her own music?
Her hit song "Only Girl" was written by Crystal Johnson, Mikkel S. Eriksen, Tor Erik Hermansen, and Sandy Wilhelm. And that's not an aberration. Start looking up the writers of the songs you hear and you'll find that Scandinavian guys are strangely overrepresented.
I've noticed that if you're white you're left with European trance, country music, and Scandinavian heavy metal (and their various derivatives). Everything else is either some flavor of polka or an R&B mess.
ReplyDeleteTrance music is a reviled genre (and definitely not my favorite kind of music), but has been feeding back into the new music being made by American Blacks for the last half decade (all the pop music made by Rihanna and Beyonce and the cute little Black singer girls and even into hiphop). It's funny, from a Euro perspective, listening to a lot of the stuff Black RNB stars keep doing, even as far back as 2005, and thinking "Hold on, isn't this just rehashed Euro house and trance (David Guetta and Daft Punk)". It definitely seems to be driven by changes within the genre and by Black interest, rather than by trying to sell to Whites.
I don't really like the trend, but the difference in treatment by music critics is startling, to say the least. I think some critics try to claim it more as a house or techno influence (genres with more solid Black pedigrees) but I don't think this really stands up without collapsing the already tenuous boundaries between these dance musics. The current Black singers whose producers (often White) incorporate trance aesthetics get told that their stuff is "infectious", while those trance producers who don't enlist Blacks (or rnb singers) got and get contempt.
Blacks seem to have majorly lost any musical creativity edge they had around 1990, in the sense of having unique genres in which they are clearly superior and that aren't just some little teenage boys shouting at one another (e.g. grime, which is the last "new" black artform I can think of that remains substantially not replaced by whites).
Also, not sure why Scando heavy metal is something White people are left with while British heavy metal isn't, or why heavy metal goes to Whites while punk rock doesn't (given that they're about as derived from Black roots). Very confusing.
Basically, Heavy Metal was a British invention, with its genesis (no, not THAT band), in the musical tumult of England in the late 1960s early 1970s, with bands such as Deep Purple and Black Sabbath.
ReplyDeletePerhaps it was a revolt against the hippy ethic of that era, but the meme of 'dark' imagery (ie hark backs to the dark ages and occultism), seemed to have struck a chord, some hidden atavism in callow British youth - it was something about King Arthur (there was popular TV series of the time), battle axes, swords, armour that seemed to resonate with ancient 'blood memories' - perhaps the secret of the genre was that it stripped away layers of apparent civilty and socialization to reveal the true, core folkish spirit - hence the appeal to adolescent males.
Concerning the 'occult' connotations of meatl - which have been played down recently - it is uncertain whether some of the early bands were poseurs and fakers or were they actually practitioners of it. Apparently ozzy Osbourne had dark robed figures intoning solemn chants around magic circles and performing actual cabbalistic rituals before the band came on stage. He stopped doing this after he received some 'stern warnings' from 'those in the know'.
To Ben Tillman Re Led Zeppelin:
ReplyDeleteTravelling Riverside Blues
This song is not part of the Led Zeppelin canon. In any case, it was more a tribute than a cover.
How Many More Times
Already conceded. See above post. Notable influence from Howlin' Wolf. (See below.)
I Can't Quit You Baby
About as close to a cover (of Otis Rush) as they have done. But they added their own innovations. And let's not forget that Otis Rush took the song from someone else.
Bring It On Home
See above post. Only a tiny part in the intro and outro borrowed from a pre-existing blues song (Williamson). The heart of the track is Page/Plant. The borrowed portion was more a tribute, packaging for meat of the Zeppelin song. As with Rush above, Williamson himself didn't write the pre-existing blues song.
Since I've Been Loving You
From whom? Moby Grape was a white American band. In any event, their song does not have enough of a resemblance to Zep's to call Zep's a cover. Mainly just a few lyrics are similar. Find Page's epic riffs anywhere else.
Led Zeppelin may have borrowed a few things here and there in their songs (what musician didn't? See the bluesmen noted above), but they were still authentic geniuses.
More of "Whole Lotta Love" seems borrowed from a 1966 song "You Need Loving" by Small Faces than from the Willie Dixon song that Zeppelin settled a lawsuit over. At the time, Page was in his mid-20s creative prime, while Plant was very young.
ReplyDeleteThe opening of Louis Jordan's 1946 jazz song "Ain't that Just Like a Woman" appears to have originated with a telephone call from a time-traveling Michael J. Fox:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkQWv18Trw0
"Most of the pop/hip-hop/R&B music you hear on the radio in the US or Europe was written by white Europeans, often by Scandinavians."
ReplyDeleteI have seen or listened to a documentary about some of these songwriters, and they have among other things, a closed website where artists can listen to the songs the songwriters upload, and buy/reserve the songs they want to record.
Scandinavia being so small, probably makes it easier for them to get know somebody who could help them get a leg inside the industry.
"In England, most of the metal bands(and fans) came from The Midlands, which was more middle class than other areas."
ReplyDeleteThe Midlands was neither then nor now 'more middle class than other areas'. Metal probably tended slightly more to the working class than the middle class, and more significantly it had its greatest popularity among youths in small towns or towns based around a single industry, and in rural areas. White youths in big cities were drawn more to other youth cults, of which there were then (unlike today) plenty to choose from.
Let me see if I can draw a bigger theory out of the lone factoid that Plant was drawing more on Steve Marriott of Small Faces drawing on American bluesmen than drawing directly on the originals: Led Zeppelin was a second generation English rock band, emerging an intensive half decade after the Beatles / Stones first generation that had drawn so heavily on American blacks like Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters.
ReplyDeleteRobert Plant was 14 when "Love Me Do" hit the charts in England. By 1969, it was cooler to say that you were copying off some old guy from Mississippi than that you got that cool "Woman ... You neeedddddd ... love" thing in Whole Lotta Love from a Small Faces song you heard on Top of the Pops in 1966.
But, that was also why Led Zeppelin was able to push forward so far -- they'd heard all the first generation stuff, and Page had played on a fair amount of it. They were ready to take a big leap in the seemingly very weird direction that was implicit in the music.
Saxon's Crusader is one of those metal songs that couldn't be made today. It would be accused of being "White Nationalist islamophobe", but it sold millions of copies in the 1980s."
ReplyDeleteIndeed, Saxon was barred from Dubais Desert Rock Festival in 2006 for this very reason.
http://www.metalunderground.com/news/details.cfm?newsid=18347
That is surprising. When I think of musical groups from Sweden and scandinavia overall, I think of the pop dance bands of ABBA, Ah-Ah, Ace of Base ~ the A bands.
ReplyDeleteMusic is a direct expression of the Will. It speaks to the instincts of a people.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Saxon, they put out, possibly, the only trainspotter-metal crossover song, "Princess of the Night," a poignant lament about the demise of an overnight English mail train ("If I ever had my way, I'd bring the Princess back some day!"). An excellent Uriah Heep-ish/Deep Purplish NWOBHM classic.
ReplyDeleteHeavy Metal is one of the few places a Nordic male can go berserk and be a bloke. That's the appeal. Most of the time Nordic males live a very constrained and feminized existence.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.rockklassiker.se/?loc=sthlm
Some of the meekest people I've met in my life, that's for sure.
ReplyDeleteBetween this and the gender insantiy of Sweden I'm begining to think that the Vikings were a myth.
Oh, man. I've been waiting for a post like this for a long time.
ReplyDelete1. "And I recall as an eleven-year-old, thinking that, boy, they were on to something by combining heavy metal with Viking imagery."
This is an extremely common sentiment and metal bands have been circling the drain for decades trying to perfect the formula. I don't know if this has something to to with Jungian archetypes, resurgent atavism or simply being in the right place at the right time, but it's undeniable. As a boy, I remember being compelled to pick up a Molly Hatchet album simply for the Frank Frazetta painting of a Viking warlord on the cover. I was sorely disappointed when the music didn't match the intensity of the imagery. Now, I can confidently pick up any High on Fire, Amon Amarth, Enslaved or Ensiferum CD and rest easy knowing that the quantum Viking badassery of the cover will be not only matched, but surpassed by the music. It's amazing how much great metal is being made currently, and I've never seen, in any genre (with the possible exception of Psychobilly) such a high percentage of lazer-focused, coceptually perfect bands making conceptually perfect albums.
2. Someone mentioned "Metal: A Headbangers Journey". This is an outstanding documentary made by Banger Films, a Canadian outfit. Sam Dunn, the brains of the operation has a degree in anthropology and approaches Metal and it's subgenres from the perspective of an anthropologist, not as a musician. They did a series of documentaries titled "Metal Evolution" which expands on the premise and further analyses the subgenres. They start with Vivaldi, Wagner, Paganini. Some eye-opening moments are when Geezer Butler waxes nostalgic about how he appropriated the riff to "Black Sabbath" by playing Holst's "Mars, Bringer of War" at half speed. Blackmore and John Lord from Deep Purple were also very influenced by classical music. Episodes of "Metal Evolution" are in constant rotation on VH1 Classics, I'd recommend these to any fan of music. They're incredibly well done.
3. "Metal is relatively HUGE in places like Mexico." This is absolutely true for most of South America. Another great documentary by Banger Films is "Iron Maiden: Flight 666", which follows the boys on their 2009 world tour. They still sell out soccer stadiums in South America. It's really amazing and kind of hilarious. The best interview is when they talk to "Father Iron Maiden", a Catholic priest in Venezuela (IIRC) who has dozens of Iron Maiden tattoos and works their lyrics into his sermons. There's also a strong "Spinal Tap" vibe to this since they're Brits, and Bruce Dickenson, the lead singer, pilots their plane. Yeah, stranger than fiction.
4. As far as the context of Metal as it pertains to all things HBD. American Renaissance did a fantastic article on Black Metal, Viking Metal and Folk Metal a few years back with some teriffic analysis and insight. Check it out. (Slightly off topic, they had a great article on European Synth-Pop in a similar vein.)
5. Note to self: Check out "Until The Light Takes Us."
6. Someone brought up the irony of all of this extreme music coming out socialist/feminized nations. This makes sense when viewed in the proper context. The important thing to keep in mind when discussing the significance of Black Metal is that it is NOT a nihilistic form of music. It is a reaction to and against nihilism.
7. Steve, if you're thinking about dippin' your toe in the current Metal waters, I strongly suggest you check out Baroness "Blue Record". Geez, just listen to the track "A Horse Called Golgotha" on YouTube. If you don't like it, you probably won't like the rest. It's not "viking", as they're from Georgia, but it's extremely well written, played and produced. There are no cookie-monster vocals, either.
This was fun!
Darwin's Sh*tlist is absolutely right: metal is rock purged of the blues. That's why Maiden and Priest are metal and AC/DC is hard rock.
ReplyDeleteI can't speak for metal being big in Mexico, but when I went to a Maiden show in Texas in '08 or '09, the audience demographics struck me as being like a science fiction convention (mostly white males), but with a lot more Mexican-Americans.
It differs by subgenre...America produced a lot of thrash and death metal, but not as much of the others. Scandinavia is home to large amounts of low-rent black metal bands, one or two guys in their basement uploading to youtube or something. Very little of it really has anything to do with a viking motif, but where that is present it is usually comically exaggerated. Sweden also has Gothenburg. Germany had a significant thrash and death scene, but Southern Europe, on the other hand, tends toward power metal.
ReplyDeleteThe most credible claims are not that Led Zep ripped off black bluesmen, though the vibe is detectable on some of the earlier stuff, but that Jimmy Page straight up ripped off material that was created by other white players (particularly unproduced Yard Birds stuff)
ReplyDeleteMore of "Whole Lotta Love" seems borrowed from a 1966 song "You Need Loving" by Small Faces than from the Willie Dixon song that Zeppelin settled a lawsuit over.
ReplyDeleteThat's right, but Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" is still a much different animal than the (white band) Small Faces' "You Need Loving."
Of the songs that you and Ben Tillman have cited as "drawn from" black artists, only "I can't quit you baby" and "How many more times" bear any substantial similarity to black blues songs. Maybe you could throw the Lemon Song in there, too. It's more plausible to say that Steve Jobs stole the iPhone from Palm than to say that Led Zeppelin stole its music from blacks.
The frank evidence contradicts the claim that Led Zeppelin stole its genius from blacks and the insinuation that Led Zeppelin were really just lame white boys, copiers playing covers of Mississippi bluesman. The music just doesn't bear out the narrative.
Let's put this anti-White canard to rest shall we?
See and hear a 14-year-old Jimmy ("Jim") Page playing in a bluegrass band with friends (and being interviewed) on BBC television in 1957.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfZ1AEdfd1o
Per the BBC interview, the 14-year-old Page was just learning the guitar and aspired to be a biologist doing cancer research.
ReplyDeleteWe women simply don't understand heavy metal. Nope.
ReplyDeleteMetal is definitely a male phenomenon. David Fincher placed a Trent Reznor version of "Immigrant Song" at the beginning of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." Fincher is drawn to making movies about hyper-masculine characters and cultures that reject feminine values ("The Social Network", "Fight Club"). I guess Scandinavia falls into that category. Certainly the main character, a cold-blooded, boyish-looking
girl who likes to dominate men, does.
Zeppelin rises above the other groups classified as metal because there is more of a masculine/feminine balance to their music. The key point to "Immigrant Song" is that the Vikings are leaving for the western shore. Looking to west is recurring theme in Zeppelin's music. And what are they looking for out west? "Made up my mind to make a new start, Going To California with an aching in my heart. Someone told me there's a girl out there with love in her eyes and flowers in her hair."
How about the themes? Norse mythology is dark--the gods will all be killed and the world destroyed--and that fits pretty well with metal.
ReplyDelete"We women simply don't understand heavy metal. Nope."
ReplyDeleteSpeak for yourself, sister. I don't enjoy death growl style heavy metal but symphonic metal is quite melodious and pleasing to the ear, with a lot of influence from classical and opera music. I think if more women were exposed to it they would enjoy it too.
The idea that blues was invented by African-Americans is mostly false. It is a falsehood promoted by the media to make it look like blacks invented most modern American music.
ReplyDeleteThe truth is that what we call "blues" and "country" ultimately share the same origins. Go listen to some Jimmy Rodgers(1897-1933). Is that "blues" or "country"? You will see my point after a listen.
While talented black performers took this music in a more "bluesy" direction after the 1920s, it appears that it was whites, playing music that was largely an import from the British Isles, that got the whole thing started. The whiter version of this early blues/country music was called "hillbilly" music, but was renamed "country" mid-century.
The reason why rock and blues music flourished in the British Isles in the 1960s and was reinvented by the them(especially heavy metal) was due to its similarity to the British folk music they had been playing all along.
In the U.S, as the white influence on black musical culture decreased, they reverted to the African norm - music that is very rhythmic and little else. It roughly parallels how African-American families started to mirror the norm in Africa(men with children from multiple women), as the white-influenced norm collapsed in the 60s and 70s.
Hey people, don't forget that Tolkein was a huge influence on 1960's British hippie cultcha. Surely Plant was inspired by The Hobbit when he wrote Ramble On.
ReplyDeleteMy theory is that the fascination with Nordic mythology comes from Tolkein.
-THRIPSHAW
"Hey people, don't forget that Tolkein was a huge influence on 1960's British hippie cultcha. Surely Plant was inspired by The Hobbit when he wrote Ramble On.
ReplyDeleteMy theory is that the fascination with Nordic mythology comes from Tolkein."
It is not strange that the English see themselves as part Scandinavian, since it is in fact true. The only stuff left discussing, is how deep the impact were.
When it comes to migrating between the British Isles and Scandinavia, it also has a long and constant history until the present.
Scandinavians and the British have not only shared ancestry, but the climate, the technological level and religion, have been fairly similar for most of their history, so if you are a believer in HBD, the ones most similar to the British (English and Scots at least), are probably found in countries surrounding the North Sea.
We even suffer from the same anti-white political correctness tyranny, where the natives are forced to take in large numbers of people from other races, mainly because their ancestors were much better ship-builders than the rest of the world, and thus guilty of discovering "everything", and indirectly make the others look bad.
That they should appreciate much of the same culture, is thus to be expected.
How about a muslim heavy metal band? Might lighten the mood in the mideast?
ReplyDelete"When the Levee Breaks"is still recognisably based on the Memphis Minnie original but the sheer sledge-hammer intensity of Zep's version takes it into another world. All those "ripped-off-the-blues-originals" critics fail to appreciate that electrifying a song is more than a matter of amplification, the approach and attack is a significant creative contribution as well.
ReplyDeleteTo Anon@10.55am
ReplyDelete"The idea that blues was invented by African-Americans is mostly false. It is a falsehood promoted by the media to make it look like blacks invented most modern American music."
Right. I've posted this before but it bears repeating. Guitar playing in late 19th century US was heavily influenced by the parlour guitar repertoire (considered a genteel choice for well-born ladies). Two of the most popular hits were composed by Liverpool-born Henry Worrall: "Spanish Fandango" in open-G tuning and "Sebastopol" in open-D. These tunings, and the slinky open-chord voicings they enabled, were incorporated into the nascent Mississippi Delta blues that was emerging at roughly the same period. (You can hear the young Muddy Waters run through an open-G strung guitar and pronounce it a Spanish tuning on the Plantation recordings, similarly open-D tuning is referred to as a Vestapol tuning by the early bluesmen). Bottleneck slide guitar was also inspired by Hawaiian guitar music which was hugely popular in the early 20th century.
I really love the Delta blues (and Zep by the way) and it doesn't bother me at all that they should draw on many influences, even completely unexpected ones. One would have to be totally ideologically-addled to allow something like this to get in the way of musical appreciation.
Folk Metal is an organic expression of European culture. It's just filled with implicit whiteness from its use of old instruments as well as modern ones to its drawing on European mythology for many of its lyrics and themes. It's certainly more culturally healthy and positive than rap or hip-hop or a lot of the other stuff on the radio these days.
ReplyDeletehttp://faithandheritage.com/2011/05/folk-metal/
All those "ripped-off-the-blues-originals" critics fail to appreciate that electrifying a song is more than a matter of amplification, the approach and attack is a significant creative contribution as well.
ReplyDeleteZeppelin's supposed nicked songs usually included different riffs, different melody, wholly different rhythm, and often different lyrics than the alleged original. I wasn't sure if you meant to include those important elements of musicality in "approach and attack."
There are plenty of women who enjoy metal music, but damn few who make metal music. I suspect that metal's female fans tend to find metal musicians attractive, or to share the generalized anxieties which motivate metal music.
ReplyDeletehmm. Does Hagalaz count? It sounds sort of metalic, yet folksy in an Edgar Allen Poe way.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pak0Z78_dvI
I first heard this music while looking at youtube videos about Afghanistan, of all things.
This is very good:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0TQ1gj8GQo
"I'm too old to know anything about what's going on now, but I can recall when Led Zeppelin's Icelandic-flavored "Immigrant Song" about the Viking exploration of the North Atlantic was on the Top 40 charts in 1970...
ReplyDelete...And I recall as an eleven-year-old..."
Eleven? You were eleven in 1970?
btw, Hagalaz is Norwegian, I think
ReplyDelete"There are plenty of women who enjoy metal music, but damn few who make metal music. I suspect that metal's female fans tend to find metal musicians attractive, or to share the generalized anxieties which motivate metal music."
ReplyDeleteWhat kind of girl do you think we are? We only like musicians as friends.
@Anon: Indie/Hipster music
ReplyDeleteTrue that, and I do listen to that as well (Death Cab For Cutie, et. al). Too much of that devolves into whiney white boy rock, which I guess makes it quite white now that you mention it.
The frank evidence contradicts the claim that Led Zeppelin stole its genius from blacks and the insinuation that Led Zeppelin were really just lame white boys, copiers playing covers of Mississippi bluesman. The music just doesn't bear out the narrative.
ReplyDeleteLet's put this anti-White canard to rest shall we?
That's a hell of a straw man you're engaging. Who in this thread has said anything about Led Zeppelin stealing anything from blacks? If they stole anything,it was from Randy Wolfe of Spirit (aka Randy California).
"Anonymous Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteThat is surprising. When I think of musical groups from Sweden and scandinavia overall, I think of the pop dance bands of ABBA, Ah-Ah, Ace of Base ~ the A bands."
I used to think the same thing. Now I think of these guys:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9JFZUo7ZiI
The idea that blues was invented by African-Americans is mostly false. It is a falsehood promoted by the media to make it look like blacks invented most modern American music...While talented black performers took this music in a more "bluesy" direction after the 1920s, it appears that it was whites, playing music that was largely an import from the British Isles, that got the whole thing started.
ReplyDeleteSo in other words, blacks didn't invent the blues, they just put the blues in the blues.
"Zeppelin's supposed nicked songs usually included different riffs, different melody, wholly different rhythm, and often different lyrics than the alleged original. I wasn't sure if you meant to include those important elements of musicality in "approach and attack."
ReplyDeleteI meant in reference to something like "Levee" which, rare for the Zep canon, is still quite faithful to the original but is transmuted into something novel purely from the cranked-up intensity and the way they, from lack of a better word (or my inadequate vocabulary), leant into the song.
Another interesting example is the sound-check of "We're Gonna Groove" from CODA. The Ben E. King original "Groovin'" and the 1964 Manfred Mann cover sort of just amble along but the Zep version just blows everything away, it just gets turned into something else. This is why I treat most claims of Zep being rip-offs as plain dumb ignorance.
PS: I'd recommend a listen of the Manfred Mann version, the xylophone (!) solo begins with the riff to Whole Lotta Love, heck Page or Jones probably sat n on the sessions.
On the other hand, Australian Aborigines have a taste for metal: http://www.vice.com/read/aboriginal-headbanging-167-v15n8
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/the_heavy_metal_cowboys_of_botswana/
ReplyDeletegreat photos of metal heads in Botswana
Zeppelin talked about they wanted their music to recreate the monotonous drone of the factory. New Zeppelin?
ReplyDeleteThe Black Angels - Young Men Dead
Fire for the hills pick up your feet and lets go.
Head for the hills pick up steel on your way.
And when you find a piece of them in your site,
fire at will, dont you waste no time.
Another thought of the unaware,
addiction in disguise.
With a drop of blood,
you will take them out, for me.
Fire from the hills pick up speed and lets go.
Fire for real, yeah shoot to kill with no aim.
Head for the hills yes eyes on the camp fire glow.
Creep up there like a white mink hiding n snow.
And outta black a figure forms a soldier in the sky.
With a drop of love,trying to set you free.
Run for the hills, pick up your feet and lets go.
We did our jobs, pick up speed now lets move.
The trees cant grow without the sun in their eyes.
And we can't live if we're too afriad to die.
Hold on tight, yes hold on tight you're too slow.
Fire at the breeze that blows these thoughts through our mind.
Hire only thieves to steal the thoughts from our heads.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nm9LEFETNOo
The first rock movement to break out of the blues cul-de-sac was progressive rock - starting with King Crimson in 1969. Prog rock was explicitly middle class, English and Anglican with its churchy hammond organs.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly middle class prog and working class heavy metal seem to be cross fertilising a lot these days with bands like Dream Theater, Porcupine Tree and Opeth.
Of course both prog rock and prog metal are detested by SWPL hipsters.
"Actually, classical music is equally responsible for much of European heavy metal. Guitarists like Yngwie Malmsteen (Sweden) were progenitors of the modern heavy sound way back in the early 80's. Yngwie didn't listen to Led Zeppelin, he listened to Vivaldi.
That's just something metal geeks say to make their tastes seem more sophisticated than they are."
Anybody seem the Youtube video of Yngwie Malmsteen playing with the Japanese Philharmonic Orchestra-comedy gold.