Heavy Metal: Bands, History and Lyrics

The style of heavy metal became widespread in the early 80-s; it was based on the hard rock bands of the mid 70-s (they were the first to introduce metal into music) such as Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Judas Priest and other legendary bands, who served as an example to beginners.

Heavy Metal took over the majority of lyrics’ themes from his predecessor, while music and sound became much “heavier”, and most importantly, the electric guitar began to play the leading role. Since then it was the electric guitar that symbolized “metal” music. The main topic of heavy metal lyrics has always been the topic of freedom, not only individual, but also freedom of the humanity as a whole. Essentially, this topic is the basic principle of the majority of heavy metal bands; and their ideology is somehow or other connected with it (a striking example of such lyrics is Manowar). The struggle of Good and Evil is not also a very popular theme for heavy metal lyrics; it is analyzed from global and individual point of view. Some heavy metal bands use various occult elements and elements of diabolism in their lyrics; so they try to look at our world from a different angle (Iron Maiden, the band from England, was very good at such lyrics.) In the early 80-s lyrics exploring the topics of sword, magic and other fantasy things became extremely popular (e.g., the main heavy metal story-teller Ronnie James Dio and his group Dio.) Later one more remarkable style power metal adopted this topic for its lyrics.

After the transformation of music that followed in the mid and late 80-s heavy metal played the leading role in developing trash metal, death metal, black metal, power metal and all metal styles that appeared later. That is why heavy metal is undoubtedly the “godfather” for heavy music.