the 70s prog scene's attitude to early metal

This is something I'd like to have cleared up, after having brought it up in my threads about Budgie and Uriah Heep. Even though many early heavy metal groups had one foot in progressive rock, if contemporary interviews and reviews in Denmark and Sweden are any indication a lot of people in the prog-rock movement here looked down upon those bands as an dumbed down meathead version of the style. According to publications cited in Jens Rasmussen's book about Danish heavy metal history that's yet to be translated into other languages, the early-1970s prog rock scene's musicians + fanzine writers + champions among the music press would disparage most early heavy metal groups (with the notable exception of Deep Purple) for their less advanced instrumental interplay and less clear sense of unified philosophical concept behind their music.

What I'm curious to know is whether it was like that outside of Scandinavia. Rick Wakeman playing synthesizers for Black Sabbath gives me the impression it might not, as did Frank Zappa producing one Grand Funk Railroad LP. Then again, they might have been exceptions.

I remember in the 70s, the proggers and the metalers would point fingers at each other, with a kind of "Why you moron?" attitude. No kidding. I am generalising, of course, but I remember the mental warfare.

silverpot wrote: Strange, I don't recall anyone refering to "metal" during the 70s. Hard rock, but not Metal.

Too bad this is not a metal site Silver, we could have a debate thread. In the States, 'heavy metal' and 'hard rock' were interchangeable in the early 70's with the phrase "heavy metal' originating from the song Born To Be Wild by Steppenwolf.  After a while, the phrase was shortened to 'metal'. I recall that the Brits, particularly, Led Zep, objected to the phrase 'metal' and the UK music press followed suite. I'm talking about magazines like the NME, so perhaps that's why you recall the genre as refered to as 'hard rock' in the 70's as you live in Europe.


Edited by SteveG - July 23 2014 at 18:53

'^I'm only going by my  time in jolly ol' England in the 70's and not from  the perspective of a book. I' ll take my 'own take' on this one. Unless someone from the Commonwealth cares to take issue.

Dean wrote: ^ I never said that you did, it was Simon who was referencing a book, not you. But as someone from the 60s I do take issue with notion that the phrase "Heavy Metal" originated in Born To Be Wild  - Steppenwolf used the phrase but it clearly refers to the elemental weather, (lightning, thunder, wind), not music, they certainly didn't invent or originate the term. There is no provable association between Born To Be Wild and the subsequent naming of Heavy Metal as a genre many years later.

I agree, more of a culture myth I think as the phrase first apeared in a 1968 article in Rolling Stone to be exact.


Edited by SteveG - July 23 2014 at 19:15

^ possibly, but it still didn't refer to a genre of music. The phrase goes back to the 19th century and referred to any metal that was heavier than iron. But linking that to Iron Butterfly and Led Zeppelin (or "Lead Balloon" as Keith Moon allegedly described them) would be tenuous. The phrase as applied to the music genre was just as likely to be simple word association following on from Heavy Music to Heavy Rock to Heavy Metal - you cannot make a similar word association derivation from Hard Rock. Since no one ever writes this stuff down the exact moment it happens everything is a guess. This is true of many other genres including Prog, Punk and Gothic Rock - no one knows precisely when and how they got named.

presdoug wrote: I remember in the 70s, the proggers and the metalers would point fingers at each other, with a kind of "Why you moron?" attitude. No kidding. I am generalising, of course, but I remember the mental warfare.

Edited by Svetonio - July 24 2014 at 06:36

I heard somewhere that the first band to be called "heavy metal" in print was a band called Sir Lord Baltimore. Black Sabbath are imo the first true heavy metal band but they didn't embrace the term. Judas Priest are possible the first band to embrace the term.

As for the prog connection to heavy metal. You can hear elements of metal in King Crimson, Uriah Heep and RUSH as well as Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple although none of those bands are what I would call straight heavy metal. They had elements of prog and heavy metal although even Black Sabbath had prog elements at times. King Crimson were actually referred to as "a snob's Black Sabbath" which I find to be rather amusing.   

Edited by Prog_Traveller - July 23 2014 at 19:55

Anyway, as interesting as this is it's all distracting from the OP.

Toaster Mantis wrote: I think the first band to classify their own music as "heavy metal" was either Blue Öyster Cult or Hawkwind, adding to the confusion, (...)

I recall that even Jethro Tull was accepted by many hard rock fans back then as a hard rock band because they did do pretty heavy at the gigs. Not "heavy metal" though.


Edited by Svetonio - July 24 2014 at 04:11