Mid-1960s - Bands such as The Rolling Stones create blues rock by covering songs by American blues artists and speeding up the tempo. This genre would have a major influence on early heavy metal artists.
1968 - The first heavy metal bands to attract large amounts of attention are formed. These are Black Sabbath, Led Zepplin and Deep Purple. All of them are British
1970's - On the other side of the Atlantic the first successful American metal band, Grand Funk Railroad, start to set the trend as many other American bands start to follow suit over the following years. These include Dust (1971), Blue Öyster Cult (1972), and Kiss (1974). Although formed around the same time as the other major British bands in the mid-1970's Judas Preist drop the genre's blues influences and modernized the 'twin-guitar' sound giving the genre a sound closer to that of present day heavy metal.
Late 1970's to 1980's - With the emergence of Punk Rock in the mid-1970's heavy metal record sales began to drop. Many act's decided to adapt the genre's aggressive, high energy sound. One such band formed in 1975 was Motörhead. This lead to the 'New Wave Of British Heavy Metal' or NWOBHM for short. Other such bands involved in this movement were the likes of Iron Maiden, Saxon and Def Leppard and in 1980 it broke into the mainstream charts.
1980's - Many sub genres of metal started to develop outside of the commercial heavy metal movement. The main five of these were trash metal, death metal, black metal, power metal, and the related subgenres of doom and Gothic metal. The trash metal movement was popularised by the 'Big Four Of Thrash': Metallica, Anthrax, Megadeth and Slayer. The lyrics of thrash often express nihilistic views or deal with social issues using visceral, gory language whilst the instruments tend to be played faster and more aggressive than the original metal acts.
Death metal utilizes the speed and aggression of both thrash and hardcore, fused with lyrics preoccupied with Z-grade slasher movie violence and Satanism. Death metal vocals are typically bleak, involving guttural 'death growls', high-pitched screaming, the 'death rasp', and other uncommon techniques. Complementing the deep, aggressive vocal style are down tuned, highly distorted guitars and extremely fast percussion, often with rapid double bass drumming and 'wall of sound'–style blast beats. Frequent tempo and time signature changes and syncopation are also typical.
Unlike both thrash and death metal which were developed in the US, black metal developed in Europe mainly in areas such as Sweden. Black metal varies considerably in style and production quality, although most bands emphasize shrieked and growled vocals, highly distorted guitars frequently played with rapid tremolo picking, a 'dark' atmosphere. Satanic themes are common in black metal, though many bands take inspiration from ancient paganism, promoting a return to pre-Christian values.
Power Metal remains an underground genre in North America however it does have a high level of popularity in Europe, Japan and South America. Power metal came about largely in reaction to the harshness of death and black metal. It is characterized through the use of power riffs, a melodic approach and high-pitched 'clean' vocals similar to that of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest with thrash's speed and energy mixed in.
1990's - With the emergence of grunge bands like Nirvana metals mainstream dominance came to an end. The post-thrash groove metal genre starts to appear with bands such as Pantera and White Zombie becoming very popular. Many of the metal bands form in the early 90's become known under the umbrella term 'alternative metal'. Bands central to this movement are those such as Soundgarden and Alice in Chains. In the mid to late 90's a new wave of U.S. metal groups started to emerge influenced by alternative metal bands and their mix of genres. Dubbed 'nu metal' bands such as Linkin Park, Papa Roach and Korn incorporated elements ranging from death metal to hip-hop often including DJs and rap-style vocals. Nu metal gained popularity thanks to heavy rotation on MTV and the introduction of Ozzy Osbourne's Ozzfest in 1996. However nu metal wasn't widely embraced by all of the metal community and by 2003 few nu metal bands such as System of a Down still retained substantial followings.
2000's - Metalcore starts to emerge in the US combing elements from both thrash metal and hardcore punk and becomes a commercial force in the mid 2000's. The genre became mainstream when Killswitch Engage's album 'End of Heartache' and Shadows Fall's album 'The War Within' debuted at 21 and 20 respectively on the Billboard album chart whilst in the UK Bullet For My Valentine reached mainstream success in 2008 with the album 'Scream Aim Fire'. At the same time 'retro-metal' starts to emerge with English band The Darkness and Australian bands Wolfmother and Airbourne. These are bands which are seen to have and 80's sound such as Airbourne having a similar sound to AC/DC.
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