There’s no definitive beginning to any style of music, it’s a group evolutionary process of inspirations and fucking things up in the right direction, and I don’t like the idea of crediting anyone as the first person to write a/an [insert genre here] song. That being said the amount of heavy music that inspired metal and proto metal that existed long before The Beatles, very much including classical music for many but not all genres of metal, makes me feel that giving them credit for writing the first heavy metal song just feels like more of the usual overzealous Beatles fans crap of acting like they created music as a concept. Hell, MC5 were kicking out far heavier jams than The Beatles ever did and they were doing their thing for five years before Helter Skelter happened. It just feels like a very myopic take on musical evolution and genres, it’s a lot of little things building up and coalescing in different ways and people finding and sharing new techniques until something new and distinct has formed, but it doesn’t happen at once or by the hands of one person or band.
Sorry, I had never heard this theory before now and apparently I have a lot to say about it.
Exactly, you’re right. Because it’s all about influence and inspiration, that’s exactly why the Beatles are considered so important and mc5 less so.
Because Helter skelter came out in 68 and tons of people listened to it. MC5 were obviously important but their first concert outside of Michigan was also in 68 and their first album wasn’t out until 1970. Only a live album and some singles before that. So they’re a lot less influential no matter how you look at it. The first metal song could’ve actually been written in 1961 but if it’s some demo that only 5 people have ever listened to, it doesn’t really matter, does it? (Unless one of those 5 people was Tony Iommi or something xD)
I’m not a Beatles fan, but too many musicians credit them as inspirations so they were obviously important.
Not saying they aren’t important, but they are very overstated and over-credited. They popularized a lot of things, but they didn’t innovate and influence every piece of music that came after them.
There’s no definitive beginning to any style of music, it’s a group evolutionary process of inspirations and fucking things up in the right direction, and I don’t like the idea of crediting anyone as the first person to write a/an [insert genre here] song. That being said the amount of heavy music that inspired metal and proto metal that existed long before The Beatles, very much including classical music for many but not all genres of metal, makes me feel that giving them credit for writing the first heavy metal song just feels like more of the usual overzealous Beatles fans crap of acting like they created music as a concept. Hell, MC5 were kicking out far heavier jams than The Beatles ever did and they were doing their thing for five years before Helter Skelter happened. It just feels like a very myopic take on musical evolution and genres, it’s a lot of little things building up and coalescing in different ways and people finding and sharing new techniques until something new and distinct has formed, but it doesn’t happen at once or by the hands of one person or band.
Sorry, I had never heard this theory before now and apparently I have a lot to say about it.
Deep Purple fucking rips.
Exactly, you’re right. Because it’s all about influence and inspiration, that’s exactly why the Beatles are considered so important and mc5 less so. Because Helter skelter came out in 68 and tons of people listened to it. MC5 were obviously important but their first concert outside of Michigan was also in 68 and their first album wasn’t out until 1970. Only a live album and some singles before that. So they’re a lot less influential no matter how you look at it. The first metal song could’ve actually been written in 1961 but if it’s some demo that only 5 people have ever listened to, it doesn’t really matter, does it? (Unless one of those 5 people was Tony Iommi or something xD)
I’m not a Beatles fan, but too many musicians credit them as inspirations so they were obviously important.
Not saying they aren’t important, but they are very overstated and over-credited. They popularized a lot of things, but they didn’t innovate and influence every piece of music that came after them.