Ah, the back! Because Ozzy Osbourne still hasn’t recovered from his quad-bike crash four years ago, he has to cancel his European tour at short notice. At 74, the British shock rocker is no spring chicken – time to put his feet up. He may rest on his laurels, too: the rock world is largely convinced that his band Black Sabbath invented heavy metal.
With his previous band, Earth, he was still devoted to blues rock in the late 1960s; the change of name brought a change of style. Legend has it that guitarist Tony Iommi tuned his guitar lower – suddenly producing melodies darker and harder than anything heard before. And so the 1970 album «Black Sabbath» is regarded as the birth of heavy metal. The term itself appeared as early as 1968, in Steppenwolf’s «Born To Be Wild»: «I like smoke and lightning, heavy metal thunder». Is there a connection? Nobody knows.
More than 50 years have passed since the beginnings, and the style has branched out over the decades: the 1980s brought speed, thrash, power metal and grindcore, later glam, death, black and pagan metal, and the 1990s industrial metal, metalcore and nu metal. There are now around 15 kinds of metal – hard to tell apart even for die-hard fans. But metal isn’t a musical style, it’s a way of life: if you’re a fan, you’re family; friendship and helpfulness go without saying. Hard shell, soft core – the cliché of the long-haired metalhead seems to hold true.
The Veterans’ Comeback
Many veterans are doing their fans a big favour by playing the stadiums this year. The community has to do without Ozzy – but with Iron Maiden and the double act Mötley Crüe and Def Leppard, three giants are paying their respects. The Scorpions have also signed up for comeback concerts – though opinions differ on whether the Hanover band counts as heavy metal: records like «Virgin Killer» (1976) yes, songs like «Wind of Change» rather not.
Still Going Strong
The original heroes are unquestionably Iron Maiden. Formed in 1975, the band forged a style of its own that took hold as the New Wave of British Heavy Metal; legendary track: «The Number of the Beast» from 1982. Fun fact for anyone still asking «Iron Maiden, who?»: singer Bruce Dickinson holds a pilot’s licence and flies the whole crew around the world in a Boeing 747. Almost 40 years on, the rocking gentlemen are aged between 64 and 70 – and still here.
Anyone who experiences a stadium concert notices it: the metalheads have aged well, the energy is still palpable. Dickinson and his men tear around like young wild things. You can hear it on the current album «Senjutsu», too – no tired rehash, but demanding: the shortest song runs five minutes, the longest nearly thirteen. The younger competition has yet to match that.
New Limits
As a double act, Mötley Crüe and Def Leppard celebrate their stage comeback. The former are also known thanks to scandal drummer Tommy Lee (Pamela Anderson, remember?) or the Netflix hit «The Dirt». The race for the title of wildest collective was won by the four bad boys from Los Angeles by a wide margin – neither in interviews nor in lyrics did they ever mince their words. And that’s why we love them.
For 42 years, Mötley Crüe have ruled the rock Olympus, over 100 million albums sold, heavy anthems like «Kickstart My Heart» or «Girls, Girls, Girls». The problem: they’ve been more convincing live. The 62-year-old singer Vince Neil is reaching his vocal limits, and the flashy glam-metal outfit used to fit better. At least a few pole dancers provide some distraction – and a new album, which the band will unveil for the first time on the summer tour.
From Heavy Hits to Run-of-the-Mill Hard Rock
«Hysteria», «Photograph», «Pour Some Sugar on Me» – we’re talking about Def Leppard. Christened in the 1970s, grown up in the ’80s, in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame since 2019, 110 million albums sold. But the last really good record, «Euphoria», is 24 years old; the current «Diamond Star Halos» is, once again, run-of-the-mill hard rock. The days of catchy heavy-metal songs are over.
All the greater the anticipation for the stadium concert: Def Leppard, with their spectacular shows, were not for nothing considered one of the best live bands in the world. And today? Joe Elliott and company have set up a giant screen on which a light-and-video show run wild rampages – the effects overshadow the musicians. But the idea is to dive into the songs, not to watch sixty-somethings do gymnastics. The glamorous outfit of yesteryear stays in the wardrobe.
NWOTHM – New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal
Why are the big names returning right now? Probably to mark their territory – because a new generation is celebrating the genre’s original form. The buzzword of the moment: NWOTHM, New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal. A prominent example: Night Demon from California – high vocals, passages that recall Iron Maiden and the early days of Kiss. Cauldron from Toronto, meanwhile, stand with both feet in the ’80s – back then serious rivals to Def Leppard, today more of a pale imitation.
And even Black Sabbath are enjoying a rebirth – at least vocally: Phil Swanson, singer of the Philadelphia band Summerlands, sounds suspiciously like Ozzy Osbourne. So should the shock rocker never return to the stage, a stand-in is ready. One question remains: you metal hounds, how much longer do you want to keep rocking?
This article appeared in MEN issue 1/23 (June 2023).
