As a self proclaimed "Editorus Magnificus" to the metal masses, I'm always interested in hearing the various viewpoints of the metal fans and readers out there in the world.
I've recently had some correspondence with a very wise-for-her-years and lovely young person who you'll meet below.
I enjoy this forum, which we use too little here, so I'd like to strike it up again with this enlightening and well thought out commentary.
Hopefully, we can get some future contributions from her as well.
Enjoy...
by Sabbath Simpson
“Music these days doesn’t sound anywhere near as good as it did in the (insert past decade here).” How many times is that phrase repeated every day? Many long for music to return to the sounds of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but few understand the evolution of music as a whole and why we can’t have those eras back.
Music must always keep moving forward and evolving. As long as there are different musicians, music will evolve. Even individual artists grow and change. We will never have another big band. We will never have another rockabilly. We will never have another disco. We will never have another hair metal.
John Philip Sousa is often pointed to as the grandfather of jazz music. His piece “The Stars and Stripes Forever” is commonly pointed to as having greatest influence on the beginnings of jazz. In the early 20th century, jazz musician W.C. Handy wrote the first 12-bar blues passage and invented another genre of music. In 1968, guitarist Tony Iommi lost the tips of two of his fingers in an industrial accident. As a result, he had to tune his strings down to play with his prosthesis, creating a darker, doomier sound. His band, Black Sabbath, became famous for their sound and created heavy metal- the genre that brings us to this page today. Heavy metal then split into its various subgenres- “old-school”, thrash, hair, folk, black, death, doom, hardcore, etc.
Considering the age of the human race, it’s amazing to believe that we progressed from marching music in the 19th century to large subgenres of rock & roll in the 21st century. But as our knowledge in science, medicine, and technology has progressed, so has our culture- music included. Music is not exempt to the changes of everyday life.
Just as we changed from kerosene lamps to electric lights after Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, we move on to different forms of music.
This may be a good thing for some- going from the “bluesy” older metal of Black Sabbath to the purer sounds of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest that defined our genre. This may be bad for others- glam rock mixing with metal to become hair metal. Fortunately for those who dislike today’s music (or metal) scene, this phase, too, shall pass. Big band died. Rockabilly died. Disco died (no more KISS disco albums!) Hair metal died (no more obnoxiously bright spandex and cheesy hair ballads!) Music will further change and improve as time wears on.
