Sound of the beast The complete headbanging history of heavy metal

Review by Booklist Review

Christie is damn sure that without the original Black Sabbath, heavy metal either wouldn't have endured or would sound a lot different, and the first part of this book is a paean to Ozzy, Geezer, and the lads. Eventually, he reins in the adoration to deliver an insightful history of this music that critics and parents love to hate. If he has a simplistic view of heavy metal's genesis, he compensates for it with his wide-ranging, subgenre-by-subgenre discussion. The rhythmic ghouls and Odin worshipers in the Scandinavian black metal movement (see also Moynihan and Soderlind's Lords of Chaos, 1998) are well covered, and so is Metallica (natch). Conservative media watchdog and nihilistic teen faves Celtic Frost, Dokken, Motley Crue, and Megadeth are all evaluated and placed. There is even a 25-best albums list, so's to provoke heated discussion (no Led Zep seems counterintuitive). For the possible hole in your collection that AC/DC, Slayer, and Bathory ought to fill, this is a dandy plug. And if there is no such hole, add it anyway. --Mike Tribby

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Few books on heavy metal music can compare to Christie's thoughtful and passionate history of the music of the beast. There is little argument that heavy metal began in earnest with Black Sabbath (though the Beatles' "Helter Skelter" is considered by some to be the first heavy metal song), and Christie holds to convention and begins his metal timeline in early 1970. Following in the jamming, bluesy tradition of the Yard Birds and Cream, Sabbath (then called Earth) wrote "Black Sabbath"-a song that changed not only the band's name, but the face of rock and roll. Black Sabbath set the pace, but bands like Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple "fleshed out the edges and gave it sex appeal." The next wave, the new wave of British heavy metal, saw the emergence of Motorhead, Saxon and Iron Maiden among many others. The movement then spread through America and found most bands cropping up out of L.A. (although many migrated from the Midwest). Van Halen, Ratt and Mtley Cre grew out of the then underground club scene. Christie doesn't get bogged down in anecdotes about bands and their groupies, but instead documents the music and its different genres. Each chapter contains helpful "genre boxes" giving a brief description of the style (e.g., Power Metal, Death Metal and Nu Metal). If Christie is to be faulted, it is on the grounds of hero worship: he's a metal fan, scribe (a music writer living in Brooklyn) and practitioner (in a digital metal band called Black Noerd), and readers might wish for more critical analysis about the culture of fans. But this is a minor point in a book otherwise worthy of having its dog-eared and beer-stained pages passed among friends and placed in motel-room bedside drawers. 94 b&w photos, and 16-page color insert not seen by PW. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

A freelance journalist who has written extensively on technology and music, Christe might as well drop the "e" from his name because he has just delivered the gospel of heavy metal. Starting with its British roots, he draws on his expert background and numerous interviews with the likes of Black Sabbath to trace heavy metal's journey through 30-plus years of long hair, loud sounds, and lawsuits. While other histories have dwelled on the scene's decadence (e.g., David Konow's recent Bang Your Head), Christe's concentrates on the cultural and social significance of trends like the underground tape-traders who spread the metal message and extreme metal subgenres that became an outlet for young subversives spurning the 1990s mainstream. And though this encyclopedic take on metal's growth is pleasantly conversational, its hallmark is that Christe ignores critical convention to acknowledge finally that 1980s hair bands like Poison and Warrant were not heavy metal practitioners. Instead, definitive thrash metal masters like Megadeth and Metallica and underground legends like Saxon and Venom are given ample treatment. Not just an expert's guide, this book includes explanations of metal's subgenres, lists of pertinent bands, and the 25 "best" heavy metal albums of all time that should enlighten metal newcomers. Essential for all performing arts collections. [Stay tuned for a "Behind the Book" on Christe in LJ 3/1/03.-Ed.]-Robert Morast, "Argus Leader," Sioux Falls, SD (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by School Library Journal Review

Adult/High School-MTV's Headbanger's Ball, which debuted in 1987, was canceled in 1995-metal was officially "over." But it has returned to the schedule, and metal is making a comeback. In Christe's exhaustive history, readers watch metal rise, fall, change, and splinter into a massive number of genres (death metal, black metal, thrash metal, and more). As in David Konow's Bang Your Head (Three Rivers, 2002), the story begins with Black Sabbath (as if there would be any other choice); but while Konow kept to the well known, Christe gives just as much attention to the fringes. Also unlike Konow, he eschews gossip for almost scholarly explanations of the musicians' creative process and their works. Through it all, he shows the impact of competing forces (like punk, grunge, and rap). Chapters are arranged chronologically but also by genre, and each one is packed with black-and-white photographs and "genre boxes" that list the definitive recordings, ending with the author's choice for the 25 best metal albums of all time. The book is well indexed. New metal fans will run to the music store not only because of the knowledge gained from this volume, but also because of the enthusiastic (though sometimes a little overwrought) way the author shares it.-Jamie Watson, Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Fevered history of the underdog genre that has sold 75 million records in the US alone. In the decades since Black Sabbath's 1970 debut launched heavy metal, says freelance journalist Christe, "100 million listeners sought refuge in the resounding cultural boom, finding a purity unmitigated by doubts or distractions." By the late '70s, critical disdain was countered by the rising commercial presence of "protometal" bands like AC/DC, Kiss, and Led Zeppelin. During the '80s, the popularity of the New Wave of British heavy metal (Motorhead, Def Leppard, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden) inspired a frantic tape-trading network in the US, from which arose numerous thrash and power metal bands, including Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, and Anthrax. While these bands stealthily developed large fan bases in Middle America without radio play, Los Angeles "glam metal" generated chart-toppers for image-obsessed bands like Motley CrÜe and Poison. Christe also delves into the fresher territory of black and death metal--hyperfast, youthful music obsessed with perverse decay, supported by worldwide underground networks--and other regional phenomena that defy the stereotypes, such as the grass-roots "nu metal" of Slipknot and "digital metal" like the author's own project, Dark Noerd. Christe discusses nearly all of it with a sense of uncritical wonder, mostly ignoring the seamy side of a genre notorious for misogyny and substance abuse, yet finds little positive to say about arguably more important forms like punk, funk, and rap except when they intersect with his beloved metal. David Konow's greatly superior Bang Your Head (2002) approaches metal from a nuanced, humanized perspective; Christe, by comparison, offers a streamlined, unquestioning fan's overview. Still, his command of the genre's many detours and obscurities is admirable, and he sneaks in some shrewd analysis between hormonal commentary, e.g., his comparison of classic Gibson guitars to "magic wands for unlocking the power of a mighty wall of Marshall amps." Some pages are occupied by Spin-style charts and Top-10 lists. More for headbangers than outsiders. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Sound of the Beast The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal Chapter One The 1970s: Prelude to Heaviness February 13, 1970: Black Sabbath debut released June 4, 1971: Black Sabbath gold in America December 1975: Judas Priest records Sad Wings of Destiny October 28, 1978: Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park airs on NBC December 11, 1978: last date of Ozzy Osbourne's final tour with Black Sabbath Heavy metal came into being just as the previous generation's salvation, rock and roll, was in the midst of horrific disintegration. Four deaths at a free Rolling Stones concert at Altamont Raceway in December 1969 had shaken the rock community and left the youth culture disillusioned with pacifist ideals. Then, while Black Sabbath was marking the pop charts in April 1970, Paul McCartney effectively announced the breakup of the Beatles. Instead of comforting their audience in an uncertain world, rock giants Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and Jim Morrison of the Doors all were dead of drug overdoses within a year. Shortly after JFK, RFK, and MLK fell to the bullets of assassins, so, too, were the originators of rock and roll falling to naïve excess. Jaded and frustrated, the Love Generation that created counterculture left the cities in droves, returning to their homelands, heading to the hills -- anything to exorcise the communal nightmares of utopia gone awry. It was the end of the 1960s and of all they represented. As the nonviolent flower children gave way to the militant Black Panther party, Kent State campus massacres, and increasingly violent street revolts by frustrated students in Paris, Berlin, and Italy, it was out with the old hopes everywhere and in with the new pragmatism. Black Sabbath seemed to thrive on such adversity, never pretending to offer answers beyond the occasional exhortation to love thy neighbor. Though legend likes to portray the band as scraggly underdogs, the band's debut soon took to the British Top 10 and stayed there for months. The band's maiden American tour, planned for summer 1970, was canceled in light of the Manson Family murder trial. There was an extremely inhospitable climate in the United States toward dangerous hippies. Still, the record charted high in America and sold over a half million copies within its first year. Vertigo Records scrambled to get more material from its dire and mysterious conscripts, interrupting Sabbath's nonstop touring for another recording session in September 1970. Hotly rehearsed as ever, and with intensified creative purpose, the band emerged after two days with the mighty Paranoid, its bestselling album and home of classic Sabbath songs "War Pigs," "Paranoid," and "Iron Man." While Paranoid retained the haunting spirit of Black Sabbath, the themes of the second album were less mystical and more tangible. Obsessed with damage and loss of control, Ozzy Osbourne in plaintive voice bemoaned the ills of drug addiction in "Hand of Doom," nuclear war in "Electric Funeral," and battle shock in "Iron Man." Like the mesmerizing title track of Black Sabbath, the soul of Paranoid still grew from an occult-oriented number, "Walpurgis," whose imagery powerfully summoned "witches at black masses" and "sorcerers of death's construction." When recorded for Paranoid, the song was slightly rewritten as "War Pigs," a cataclysmic antiwar anthem indicting politicians for sending young and poor men off to do the bloody work of banks and nations. Now Sabbath was becoming experienced not just as musicians but as generational spokesmen. If change was to be brought by music, Sabbath lyricist Geezer Butler saw that he would have to fight ugliness on the front lines. The new Black Sabbath songs sought peace and love -- not in the flower patches of Donovan and Jefferson Airplane but in the grim reality of battlefields and human ovens. Ozzy Osbourne delivered these lyrics as if in a trance, reading messages of truth written in the sky. Billboard magazine blithely wrote that Paranoid "promises to be as big as their first," and indeed the songs "Paranoid" and "Iron Man" both came close to cracking the U.S. Top 40 singles chart. It seemed that the music of the 1960s had existed just to ease audiences into Sabbath's hard prophecies. Written allegedly in less time than it takes to play, the frantic three-minute single "Paranoid" sent Sabbath's second album to number one on the British charts and number eight in America. While the hierarchy of rock and roll collapsed around them, spectators were overwhelmed by the intuition that Black Sabbath was beginning an entirely new musical era. "Paranoid is just like an anchor," says Rob Halford, singer of Judas Priest, a local Birmingham band. "It really secures everything about the metal movement in one record. It's all there: the riffs, the vocal performance of Ozzy, the song titles, what the lyrics are about. It's just a classic defining moment." Sabbath soon found squatters in their huge sonic space. Inspired acolytes, signed to one-off record deals while playing the university student-union circuit, brought early and short-lived aftershocks. Japan's outlandish Flower Travelin' Band and South Africa's clumsy Suck went so far as to record Black Sabbath cover songs as early as 1970, when the vinyl on the original records was barely dry. Others were motivated to mimic Sabbath by the prospect of a quick buck. A 1970 album by Attila presented young Long Island crooner Billy Joel (then a rock critic and sometime psychiatric patient) dressed in warrior garb, playing loud Hammond B3 organ to a hard rock beat, damaging ears with the songs "Amplifier Fire" and "Tear This Castle Down." Before Black Sabbath, "heavy" had referred more to a feeling than a particular musical style, as in hippiespeak it described anything with potent mood. Jimi Hendrix and the Beatles often wrote songs that pointed toward a heavy break, a bridge between melodies that tried to resolve conflicting emotions and ideas. The "metal" in heavy metal put a steely resilience to that struggle, an unbreakable thematic strength that secured the tension and uninhibited emotion. As ordained by Black Sabbath, heavy metal was a complex maelstrom of neurosis and desire formed into an unbending force of deceptive simplicity. It had omnivorous appetite for life. Sound of the Beast The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal . Copyright © by Ian Christe. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal by Ian Christe All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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