Heavy Metal
Heavy Metal · 20/12/2023
Seriously, 2023 has flown by. Two years ago, I started this project and it is still on. I didn't post as regularly as I would have liked, but let's take a look at my metal year 2023 anyhow. What was going on?
Spotify Wrapped was a bit of a mystery again when it came to my top genres. Alas, Metal in first place, Rock in second (a lot of Pentagram and 69 Eyes), Black Metal in fourth. That sounds about right. Top artist was no surprise as well. To be honest, anything else would have outraged me.
Heavy Metal · 03/01/2023
211 days till W:O:A 2023. I am sure everybody knows Doro. Even I knew her before starting my metal blog project and that says something. For 40 years Doro has provided the world with the radio-friendly traditional heavy metal with admirable consistency. I got to be honest, after listening to so much black metal and death metal the last couple of months, switching to Doro the other day took some getting used to again. However, seek and ye shall find - I found something to like with each band I...
Heavy Metal · 04/12/2022
My first blog anniversary! It was December 4th last year when I'd written my very first blog entry, venturing into the world of heavy metal. What a good opportunity to look back on this last year - where did my journey take me? Well, obviously it led me closer to metal music. While I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of metal subgenres and not very hopeful to ever get my head wrapped around anything at first, it became very clear very soon that metal had a lot to offer. Wherever I was...
Heavy Metal · 31/10/2022
275 days till W:O:A 2023. #womenofmetal! I already noticed that W:O:A 2023 will host a number of all-female metal bands and I am excited to introduce the Burning Witches today. I've had a lot of fun listening to them so far. Burning Witches are a Swiss metal band founded in 2016 by guitarist Romana Kalkuhl. Kalkuhl, also guitarist with ATLAS & AXIS, wanted to form an all-female metal band for some time and in 2016 she had found a matching cast. Burning Witches play oldschool heavy metal,...
Heavy Metal · 17/12/2021
I am almost scared to write this next article because I am pretty sure I cannot do justice to this extraordinary musician I picked as my next subject: Ronnie James Dio. Up till last week I had not heard of Dio (or the band Rainbow for that matter) before in my life. When watching Metal Evolution by Sam Dunn I noticed that his name got dropped quite frequently and this peaked my interest, so I started to read up. And gosh was I surprised. So, obviously, Dio is considered one of the greatest...
Heavy Metal · 12/12/2021
Although the album Black Sabbath is now in hindsight considered the first heavy metal album, Black Sabbath themselves never identified as heavy metal band. Neither did Led Zeppelin or Deep Purple. All of those bands did identify as hard rock bands. The first band to really call themself a heavy metal band was Judas Priest. Judas Priest was formed in 1969 in Birmingham and the band is still playing today. With over 50 years of metal performance, more than 50 million sold records so far and 18...
Heavy Metal · 07/12/2021
I've started my heavy metal research by listening to one of the first official heavy metal bands: Black Sabbath. Today I picked the first three albums released 1970 and 1971: Black Sabbath (1970), Paranoid (1970), Master of Reality (1971). Again to my surprise I knew some songs from each album. Black Sabbath was formed in 1968 around notorious lead vocalist Ozzy Osbourne (SHARON!). What I did not know is that Ozzy Osbourne was fired from Black Sabbath already in 1979 (rather early) due to drug...
Heavy Metal · 06/12/2021
[...] heavy metal concerts [...] "the sensory equivalent of war". Arnett(1996), Metalheads, page 14 All my reservations about heavy metal nicely summed up in this excerpt. Nevertheless, my sunday morning began nicely with an animated conversation about heavy metal during breakfast with my husband. The previous evening I had started my research with reading the general Wikipedia entry about heavy metal, providing myself with a rough overview of the subject. What I found interesting and what I...
Heavy Metal · 04/12/2021
Well, this may come as a surprise to some who know me. I decided to start a metal blog. Me of all people. The reasons are obvious really. My husband listens to heavy metal. His best friends listen to heavy metal. They know people from heavy metal bands. Whilst I am attending James Blunt concerts or merrily singing along to various pop or rock songs. I never got the hang of it. I think heavy metal is cool. I like the fans, I like the lifestyle that comes with it. Denim, leather and long hair....