Comment on Drop your unpopular opinions here because c/unpopularopinions is filled with popular opinions
HoneyMustardGas@lemmy.world 7 hours agoThere are al lot of music teachers on YouTube that claim this. I am not agreeing fully; just repeating. It is mentioned in the Heavy Metal encyclopedia. Also, they do mention that classical music had a great influence on Heavy metal and also mention in that book that the ‘founders’ of heavy metal could be Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart. Have you heard their symphonies on guitar? That’s definitely metal. As for the actual first metal band, it is up for debate. Rock blurs into metal. Deep Purple is rock, but I see the influence there to heavy metal too. Yes there were heavier songs before helter skelter, but people, all over have controversy about whether it was or wasn’t the building block for early metal bands to jump off of. If you listen to that song, you can tell there is like a hint of metal in it. But thanks for mentioning Deep Purple. I haven’t listened to them in ages and now I need to again. I need to open up the can of nostalgia.
(BTW, Helter Skelter isn’t my opinion, it is a repeated claim that I agree with a little bit, experts do argue about this but it is commonly quotedas such).
NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
There’s no definitive beginning to any style of music, it’s a group evolutionary process of inspirations and fucking things up in the right direction, and I don’t like the idea of crediting anyone as the first person to write a/an [insert genre here] song. That being said the amount of heavy music that inspired metal and proto metal that existed long before The Beatles, very much including classical music for many but not all genres of metal, makes me feel that giving them credit for writing the first heavy metal song just feels like more of the usual overzealous Beatles fans crap of acting like they created music as a concept. Hell, MC5 were kicking out far heavier jams than The Beatles ever did and they were doing their thing for five years before Helter Skelter happened. It just feels like a very myopic take on musical evolution and genres, it’s a lot of little things building up and coalescing in different ways and people finding and sharing new techniques until something new and distinct has formed, but it doesn’t happen at once or by the hands of one person or band.
Sorry, I had never heard this theory before now and apparently I have a lot to say about it.
Deep Purple fucking rips.
nyctre@piefed.social 6 hours ago
Exactly, you’re right. Because it’s all about influence and inspiration, that’s exactly why the Beatles are considered so important and mc5 less so. Because Helter skelter came out in 68 and tons of people listened to it. MC5 were obviously important but their first concert outside of Michigan was also in 68 and their first album wasn’t out until 1970. Only a live album and some singles before that. So they’re a lot less influential no matter how you look at it. The first metal song could’ve actually been written in 1961 but if it’s some demo that only 5 people have ever listened to, it doesn’t really matter, does it? (Unless one of those 5 people was Tony Iommi or something xD)
I’m not a Beatles fan, but too many musicians credit them as inspirations so they were obviously important.
NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
Not saying they aren’t important, but they are very overstated and over-credited. They popularized a lot of things, but they didn’t innovate and influence every piece of music that came after them.
nyctre@piefed.social 1 hour ago
Oh, for sure, you’re right. But those kinds of claims are to be expected when talking about the biggest band of the 60s. The whole “bigger than Jesus” was a silly thing to say, but he wasn’t too far off with the claim.