In popular discussions about hard rock and its musical offshoots––metal and punk––Led Zeppelin reigns supreme. For example, VH1’s Top 100 Greatest Hard Rock Artists list places Led Zeppelin in the first spot with Black Sabbath, Jimi Hendrix, AC/DC and Metallica in the following positions. While I agree that Led Zeppelin is the most influential band across hard rock genres and in its infiltration into popular culture, I posit that Black Sabbath has played the bigger role in metal’s specific history.
The basic characteristics of metal––the dissonant vocals, the infernal riffs, the taboo lyrics––can all be traced back to Black Sabbath. Many a Gentile will find Ozzy Osbourne’s voice, along with his antics, to be crass and distasteful. A real metalhead will appreciate these qualities and the innate malevolence in his voice. The guy was born to be a metal singer.
Guitar-wise, metal can trace its roots directly to the hands and mind of Sabbath’s Tony Iommi. After suffering a brutal accident that damaged his fingertips at the age of 17, Iommi thought he would never be able to play guitar again. When a friend introduced him to the music of the legendary two-fingered jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, Iommi decided to push past his injury. In fact, it resulted in Iommi fretting each note extra hard and detuning his guitar to loosen string tension on his fingers, both of which lent themselves to the heavy sound he developed with Sabbath. Armed with the devil’s interval––the flat fifth––Iommi went forth with Osbourne and bassist Geezer Butler to lay the foundation of the hell where rock ‘n’ roll’s evil cousin reigns.
After Black Sabbath had sufficiently established a new scene, bands classified as classic metal or new wave British heavy metal, such as Iron Maiden, Motorhead, Judas Priest and Def Leppard, placed their mark on the genre with even faster songs, more extreme lyrics and the classic black leather garb many metalheads don today.
In the 1980s, Americans took the reigns and created thrash metal. Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax and Slayer are known as the “big four” who fathered this subgenre, which is characterized by extreme competition between these groups to write the fastest songs and the most demonic lyrics.
The 1990s were a time of strife for the genre; only the biggest metal acts from the 1980s survived while Nirvana and grunge fulfilled the music world’s appetite for something coarse. The one exception to the rule was the grooving, blues-inspired metal put out by Dimebag Darrell and his Pantera. As the millennium neared, Pantera’s influence began to wax, and it became the catalyst for the new wave of American heavy metal. If you look up metal today, you will hear bands from this movement, such as Killswitch Engage, All That Remains or Lamb of God––bands that continue to push the boundaries of metal that Black Sabbath established with their virtuosic technicality, meaningful lyrics and personal visions on the genre.
