Heavy Metal

I logged on to Yahoo this morning to find the question, "What was the first Heavy Metal song?" posted. Being a music lover, I tapped on the tab, only to read several idiotic replies claiming Cream, Hendrix and Steppenwolf tunes as the first Heavy Metal song. Wow, some people should not be allowed to hit a publish button. Heavy Metal starts with the first notes of Black Sabbath, the first cut, from the first album, of the Band of the same name. To say that any music before Sabbath was "Heavy Metal", is tantamount to calling The Who a Punk Rock band, because they smashed their instruments. The gigs that Sabbath played in the late '60s and the two albums released in 1970 created the genre, and define it to this day. Black Sabbath are the progenitors of a bloodline that leads to bands like Judas Priest in the '80s, Pantera in the '90s, and Slayer, who has been carrying the Metal banner since the early '80s. Heavy Metal was bastardized in the early '80 by an army of fems in ratted up hair and spandex, but Sabbath continued to beat their black wings against the fluffy new dawn, until the quiet Riots and Whitesnakes of the world were subdued and their pretty remains consigned to the darkness. Bands like the aforementioned Slayer, Samhain, Motorhead, Metallica and others, opted out of the group jerkoff that was Hair Metal, and embraced the darker, more heavy handed approach that their heroes practiced. The results speak for themselves. You can listen to any old works from theses bands, and it holds up extremely well, against the lame trends that have come and gone in Hard Rock over the past 25 years. If you try to listen to 99% of the Hair stuff that was produced in the '80s, you just want to laugh. If your Metal makes you laugh, you're not playing it in my car!

-Rock