Progressive Metal Pioneers?

 

I think you mean Bach, though most metal was in the pipes of his organ, Beethoven started Symphonic rock for all I know.

 

But I agree the main influence for progressive metal lies mostly in metal bands.

 

Ignoring completely the Metallica aspect - and overlooking the fact that KEA predates Queensryche's debut and contains progressive elements, and RTL kicks it's ass, progressively speaking, and is on at least a par with Dream Theater's debut... oh, I was going to ignore that

 

The "progressive semi-classical" elements may easily be found in the Scorp's and Priest's early music - both bands were into complex structures, but the Scorps focussed on the technical elements far more heavily than Priest, who focussed more on structuring.

 

They may also be found in Deep Purple and early Rainbow - who are more deserving of the "Prog Metal Pioneer" badge than Maiden.

 

Some of the complex structuring and twin-guitar work can also be traced directly back from Maiden to Thin Lizzy - whose "Johnny The Fox" album is a must-have.

 

I really don't think that Maiden deserve as many plaudits as they get in the Prog Metal development arena.

 

I'm not denying that there are aspects of Prog Metal in their music - but the facts as I see them are that Maiden are no more important in the development of Prog Metal than Metallica or Priest.

 

Come to think of it, Randy Rhoades was putting a whole load of amazing classical work into the music he was helping to write for Ozzy - and, with a significant chunk of Uriah Heep featuring on his early albums, Ozzy is a strong contender too.

 

 

...sits back and watches blue touch paper burn...

 

While certainly Scorpian, Deep Purple and Rainbow were instrumental in the development of heavy metal, the fact remains Fates Warning and Queensryche, two bands considered to be real pioneers of prog metal , were influenced largely by Iron Maiden, while Michael WIlton of Queensryche cites Maiden, Priest, UFO as big influences. Perhaps you may be right in that Maiden takes too much credit, take into account Fates Warning, Queensryche released their first albums prior to the release of Master Of Puppets (of course before that, Metallica had Kill 'Em All and RTL, none of which quite had the progressiveness of MoP) and Dream Theater were already jamming and doing covers of Iron Maiden in Berklee College of music suggest that Maiden must have been pretty damn influential, more than you give them credit for. At this stage, Voivod was only really in their thrash metal phase, so while somewhat pioneering, perhaps not to the same extent as the others.

Of course later in the decade, after Master of Puppets and various other thrash metal bands starting to play around with greater technicality and progressiveness in their song structures, we began to really see the formation of a somewhat more modern prog metal, such as the somewhat thrash metal influenced Dream Theater.

Ozzy Osbourne, while largely known for being on the more commericial side of metal (same say he isn't even metal), during the Randy Rhoads period we had some songs that really began to step outside the usual song structures and of Randys grounding in classical music theory allowed him to move outside pentatonicism and incorporate the Aeolian and Harmonic minor scales and various arppegios into rock/metal.

While hardly a prog artist overall, during the Randy Rhoads period there is always one song that has stuck out at me that really suggests prog metal, and that is Diary Of A Madman. It has a fairly complex structure, moves through various time signatures and some very unusual chords not commonly used in heavy metal at the time, certainly far beyond the usual root 5 voicingscommonly used in Iron Maiden records at the time. Arguably, this one song (released on the 1981 album Diary Of a Madman) was more progressive than anything Iron Maiden had done up to that point in time (by 1981 had released two albums, just some info for those not in the know).

 

Actually, some cro-magnon men are said to have created the first prog-metal song... it was mostly a hunting chant but with interesting elements with helped prog-metal true founder, Robert Fripp, to create his outrageous prog-metal anthems.... Later Metallica, Maiden, and especially DT, well, they're just ripping off good old cro-magnon man and good old fripp....