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Art Innovation

Slow Development of Heavy Metal

It is not the case that innovations get developed over night. Most of the goods and services that we currently see have – of course – been innovations once. And these innovations do not fall like manna from heaven. Most innovations have multiple parents.

Polyphonic explores those multiple parents for a music genre innovation in the early 1970s: heavy metal.

The 11-minute video uses sound bits to convincingly highlight the influence of blues, The Beatles, The Who, and naturally the first metal bands such as Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Deep Purple.

Yle’s Genealogy of Metal poster illustrates the sub-genres of metal and list even Johann Sebastian Bach as pre-metal influences, which would be supported by Vince Neilstein:

Bach … is the quintessential forefather of metal. His shit is just so raw, evil-sounding and full of emotion…

Vince Neilstein

However, I would lean more towards Nicolas Ellis’s assessment that Beethoven was the heavy metal of the early 19th century.