"The Roots of Metal" Project
After thinking about it over the last few days, I don't think tagging a release with a broad, all-encompassing up-stream genre like "Metal" really accomplishes anything though to be honest. Genre-tags are really about drawing an appropriate audience to a release so they need to provide a broad overview of what people can expect to hear. Therefore, I've always thought that I should choose a tag that encompasses as much of the release as possible. If you ask yourself the question "Who will be more likely to enjoy this release?", is it ANY fan of metal or is it stoner metal fans? I would have thought that stoner fans are likely to enjoy the vast majority of this material, even if some of it sits outside of the metal spectrum. This concept is only made more relevant by our clan configuration & I'd suggest that The Fallen members are more in tune with this sound than The Guardians members are so the tag should reside in the group of genres attached to The Fallen in my opinion.
I would make the point that Black Sabbath is the kind of band most metalheads enjoy regardless of what genre they are. You could probably say the same about Metallica too, at least the thrash metal years.
Anyway, Fairies gets a hard rock/heavy metal vote from me.
Here's how I would genre-tag the 8 tracks in the album:
1. War Pigs - Hard rock/heavy metal/doom metal/progressive rock
2. Paranoid - Heavy metal
3. Planet Caravan - Psychedelia
4. Iron Man - Heavy metal
5. Electric Funeral - Stoner metal/hard rock/heavy metal/progressive rock
6. Hand of Doom - Hard rock/heavy metal/progressive rock/psychedelic rock
7. Rat Salad - Blues rock/hard rock/heavy metal
8. Fairies Wear Boots - Blues rock/hard rock
Primary genres: Heavy metal, hard rock
Secondary genres: Progressive rock, blues rock
You guys have fun with this project, but I'm gonna head out of this thread. As much fun as I had exploring the earlier metal releases, I want to get my mind back into the present. There are a few newer releases from other bands of different genres that I plan to review. Will I continue my time in this Roots project someday? I don't know. But I'm done here for now.
Love that you do this, makes it simple. But here are my changes.
1. War Pigs - Hard rock/heavy metal
2. Paranoid - Heavy metal
3. Planet Caravan - Psychedelia
4. Iron Man - Heavy metal
5. Electric Funeral - Stoner metal/hard rock
6. Hand of Doom - Hard rock/progressive metal/psychedelic rock
7. Rat Salad - Blues rock/hard rock/
8. Fairies Wear Boots - Blues rock/hard rock/
So really only the big hits in War Pigs, Paranoid, and Iron Man I actually consider heavy metal here. Though I would put Hand of Doom leaning into prog metal.
It would seem that everyone is comfortable that more than 40% of "Paranoid" is genuine metal thus far so I think we're fairly safe to pencil it into the chronological list of the earliest metal releases.
Ok, let's kick off our investigation of Sir Lord Baltimore's 1970 debut album "Kingdom Come" with the opening track "Master Hearrtache" then. Metal or not? What subgenre?
It's a hard rock track as far as I can see. No metal to speak of here.
I think this track is at least hard rock heavy metal for its edge, but most of the songs on the album really aren't QUITE as heavy so it might require a second listen.
I'm not sure what to describe it beyond not primarily metal. It dances around so much in ways I don't really know of as a style. I hear bits I would describe as metal but few and far between. I guess heavy psych primary, hard rock, blues rock secondary.
How about "Hard Rain Fallin"? Metal or not? What subgenre is it?
There's no metal here as far as I'm concerned. It's pure hard rock.
Less heavy than before. Hard rock.
While we explore "Kingdom Come", I'd also like to seek nominations for the 1971 records we'll be investigating. Black Sabbath's "Master of Reality" is a given & I feel that we probably should do Budgie's self-titled debut as well given the general feeling around that record. These are the other potential candidates:
Sir Lord Baltimore - "Sir Lord Baltimore"
Flower Travellin' Band - "Satori"
Thin Lizzy - "Thin Lizzy"
Deep Purple - "Fireball"
Anyone see anything they think is definitely metal & feel strongly about there?
Budgie debut maybe?
Yeah, despite my own feelings on Budgie's metal credentials, I feel that their debut is talked about as being a metal release often enough to qualify for investigation in this thread. I recall it being the heaviest of their 1970's releases too.
Hard rock.
While we explore "Kingdom Come", I'd also like to seek nominations for the 1971 records we'll be investigating. Black Sabbath's "Master of Reality" is a given & I feel that we probably should do Budgie's self-titled debut as well given the general feeling around that record. These are the other potential candidates:
Sir Lord Baltimore - "Sir Lord Baltimore"
Flower Travellin' Band - "Satori"
Thin Lizzy - "Thin Lizzy"
Deep Purple - "Fireball"
Anyone see anything they think is definitely metal & feel strongly about there?
The argument you're making for Budgie is the same argument you rejected for Lucifer's Friend.
That said, I see merit to the other Sir Lord Baltimore album, I distinctly remember one of these albums sounding metal and if it isn't this one, it has to be that one. Otherwise I don't think any of those are metal, Thin Lizzy is soft IIRC, and reading up on Fireball it's definitely hard rock.
I didn’t reject any argument for Lucifer’s Friend Morpheus. You said it wasn’t a metal release & I took your word for it as I haven’t heard it. I was also conscious that RYM has a largely negative vote tally for "Lucifer's Friend" which isn't the case for "Budgie" so was looking for some sort of justification. I’m perfectly happy to include it if you think it’s justified.
What do we think about "Lady of Fire"? Metal or not? What specific subgenre?
It's basically Jimi Hendrix style psychedelic rock that's been pumped up to eleven with some psychotic lead guitar work. I'll go with heavy psych on this one. Does anyone else hear the chorus of Deep Purple's "Woman From Tokyo" in the guitar melody that comes in directly after the chorus?
I don't remember Woman from Tokyo very well, but I'm more or less going with Daniel's description on this one.
Heavy psych. Kind of sounds of like an amped up version of School's Out.
I didn’t reject any argument for Lucifer’s Friend Morpheus. You said it wasn’t a metal release & I took your word for it as I haven’t heard it. I was also conscious that RYM has a largely negative vote tally for "Lucifer's Friend" which isn't the case for "Budgie" so was looking for some sort of justification. I’m perfectly happy to include it if you think it’s justified.
I was kind of throwing it over to everyone else's judgment as considerable debate amount it and it might be interesting to discuss.
I'm not sure anyone else has heard it Morpheus but if it's been such a divisive release at Metal Archives then let's include it as our next record to investigate.
How about " Lake Isle of Innersfree" then? Metal or not? What subgenre?
It's certainly not metal & I'd also suggest that it's not a pop song of any description. I'm gonna go for chamber folk.
I don't care what folk we put it under as long as it's not metal.
If chamber folk describes a modern band playing a harpsicord, so it is chamber folk.
How about "Pumped Up" then? Metal or not? What subgenre?
It's certainly got a lot of rock 'n' roll electricity about it & I'd imagine that some of that intensity has fooled a few punters into thinking it's a metal song in a similar way to Deep Purple's "Speed King". "Pumped Up" is just hard rock on steroids though in my opinion. It sounds very much like the more potent Led Zeppelin moments with the lead guitar work being centred around Jimi Hendrix.
I think I'm gonna go hard rock heavy metal on this one because it's got a lot of energy that makes me want to bang my head despite its obvious blues rock elements.
There's metal there, but I'm not so sure there's enough metal there to earn it a hard rock/heavy metal rating, it's just between having it as a primary and having it as a secondary.