The intent of the thread was to list the heaviest album by each band, not list their 70s catalog.Originally Posted by Johnboy
My pick for Poobah would be Steamroller. That's some good stuff. I have most of the other titles you listed too. Good choices.
Right, but I couldn't pick one as they're all a bit even in the "heavy" stakes.The intent of the thread was to list the heaviest album by each band, not list their 70s catalog.
My pick for Poobah would be Steamroller. That's some good stuff. I have most of the other titles you listed too. Good choices.
Well you could probably subtract points from "Let Me In" for that Donald Duck impersonation.
I think The Move sneak in one with "Looking On".
David
A few i hadn't noticed yet:
Slade/ Play It Loud
Three Man Army / Third of A Lifetime
Skid Row / 34 Hours
David Bowie / Man Who Sold The World (Heavy for D.B. anyway)
Stooges Raw/ Power
Groundhogs/ Split
New Trolls/ UT
Yesterday and Today/ Struck Down
John McLaughlin/ Devotion
Chrome/ Half Machine Lips Moves
Pink Faries/ Never Never Land
Mad River/ Mad River
Guru Guru/ Kang Guru (a few others might qualify just as well)
...Great call to add The Move Looking On!
A bit off subject, but since Poobah was mentioned, there are bunch of post 70s releases that stack 'em up like cord wood. If you liked 'em then, you'll like 'em now. Easily findable, and well worth your hard earned cash.
I thought the same thing. Throw 4 Sticks and When The Levee Breaks in there as well. Zoso was obviously heavier than III and (not so obviously) heavier than Houses. History seems to have forgotten that at one time Led Zeppelin was considered heavy metal. Today they aren't considered that but back then they were just as metal as Sabbath, Purple, and all the others. As the decade wore on there was a new wave of "heavy" rock that was developing.But more importantly, "Black Dog" and "Rock & Roll" not heavy? The mind boggles.
Yup. I posted the previous post before seeing your post. Led Zeppelin were the blueprint of heavy metal in the 70s. The Tarzan wail, the galloping, chugging guitars, etc. It was all there before Iron Maiden and Judas Priest.Just the rhthym section alone makes it a landmark in early heavy metal imo. Then when you put Page and Plant's whailing on top of that watch out.
Okay, I'm not trying to turn this thread into a "heavy metal history" thread, it's just that my mind is boggled by Trane's suggestion that Zoso was not a heavy album. Yeah, it's got 2 acoustic numbers (just 2, not 3). Stairway is a heavy song even if the first few minutes are light and acoustic. But this is why threads veer off course sometimes. The OP asked a specific question. OTOH, how do you define "heavy?" That's why threads go off in different directions sometimes. One man's "heavy" is another's "folk/rock" or something. Like I get tired of seeing Helter Skelter listed as "Heavy Metal Beatles." I can think of a bunch of other Beatles songs that are heavier. To me Helter Skelter is more punk/noise than heavy metal.
Okay, back to whatever we were talking about.
Exactly, well said! What we called heavy rock and heavy metal in the 70s was well, it was what it was. The fact that it is now something very different is not relevant to the discussion, as we are talking about the 70s from a 70s perspective. Some people are clearly having difficulty with that concept. Again, well said.
And just to clarify - back then the "heavy" in "heavy rock" was used to differentiate from mainstream pop like Rolling Stones, The Kinks, Elton John, ELO, Yes, etc. It didn't mean heavy metal it meant rock music played with a hard driving beat with the classic line-up of bass, guitars, drums and could include everything from blues rock (F.Mac, Clapton, Hendrix, Free) to ballad rock to acid and space rock to garage. What it didn't include was pop!
Last edited by PeterG; 03-14-2013 at 05:58 AM.
Yeah, they had a few "heavy" sings, but iveral, their albums are not so heavy IMHO
Hard Rock, yes, Heavy Rock or Heavy Metal, not... IMHO, of course
extremely loud forceful and energetic rock'r roll (I adore both), but IMHO not "heavy"
I always read heavy as the opposite of lightweight in rock as well... I guess it's all about individual perceptions,
OK, I'll give you the flipside is heavy (probably the heaviest ever) but the A-side??
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
Yup, it's fairtly easy to consider Zoso heavier than LZ III, but IMHO, HotH is not any heavier than than Zoso, given these cringey tracks like D'Yer, Crunge, Dancing Days and Ocean >> none are "heavy"... Heavy HotH as an album?? << No Quarter undoubtably heavy, yeah!!... TSRTS yeah, maybe... Rain Song?? Not really... Over The Hill ?? well guess again... with all due respect, of course
Yeah, I agree that when we were kids/teens, Sabs, Purple and Zep were THE HM trilogy (until Judas Priest came along and Zep became rare and Purple disappeared >> wouldn't call Burn SB and CTTB HM albums anyway)... But does that hold with today's views of what heavy is nowadays...
But Zep always had an eclecticism in their albums that made them not as "heavy"... Presence and PG albums are both filled with non-heavy stuff as well. What made most of us think of Zep as a HM band was the myths built ariound Zep, like the movie TSRTS...
Calling the Stones (or to a lesser extentThe Kinks from 69 until 75 (or even until Some Girls and Low Budget even) "pop" is totally unsettling to me: these guys epitomized "rock music" filled with plenty of riffs... Yeah "heavy rock" was indeed "heavier" the Stones to my ears as well.... but certainly "pop" seems derogatory for RS and Kinks (OK, ELO and EJ were certainly "poppier")
don't want to veer this to a Heavy vs HM debate either
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
Ah ha, now I see the problem, and it is semantics; when I was a kid first in Ireland (up to 69) and then England, the term hard rock was not used, the term in use was heavy rock. "Hard rock" and "heavy rock" are the same thing. Hard rock was more of a US term but sometime in the last few decades it has become as common in UK English as the older term "heavy rock" There is no difference, they are synonyms.
hhm....gives me an idea for a thread title: "This is pop...this is rock"
don't want to veer this to a Heavy vs HM debate eitherLets do it!
Yeah, H&H is heavy enough. Also MR and Born Again are heavy albums. After that, since Seventh Star BS turned to conventional hard rock, but even in their last period they recorded some excellent heavy tunes, however.
Lots of great albums mentioned, but I don't think it gets much "heavier" than Master Of Reality.
That's when some of the tracks started to have the C# tuning and there are riffs and grooves on that album that are like twenty ton planets of mud crashing into Earth.
MoR is organic heavy. Not contrived heavy. It's like they new their brand by that point. It's no wonder after that album that they became interested in more and more progressive arrangements, textures, etc.
MoR was it. You can't take "heavy" any further without sounding like you're just trying to take it further.
I hesitated between Master Of Reality and Volume 4. At photo finish I think "4" leaves the impression of a heavier album, probably due to the antithesis of the more subtle psych influenced moments and the slow doomy parts.
But, as we are talking 70s, things hadn't got heavier than Motorhead's second...
Both were used in North Amerca... and I dare think we (edit: at least some of us) made some difference between the two...
For ex, I don't think many ever considered Aerosmith as heavy rock... like the Sabs were never called hard rock... Somehow heavy rock was considred harder and heavier than hard rock.... But yeah, it's all up to local collective (edit: or even individual) perceptions
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
I will grant you that nowadays many UK sources use "hard rock" retrospectively and in a revisionist way though as a term to describe the heavier blues based rock bands - Aersmith, AC/DC, Status Quo, Hendrix, Slade. etc. But like I said, when I was a kid we'd never heard that term, we said heavy rock or space rock or acid rock or art rock, depending of course on the band.
This is how I remember it:
heavy rock or heavy metal - Queen, Slade, Lizzy, Sabbath, Uriah Heep
space rock - Bowie, Hawkwind, Pink Floyd, Gong
acid rock or psych - Hendrix, Jeff Airplane, Joplin, Cream, Arthur Brown, The Byrds
blues rock - Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, John Mayall, Clapton, Colosseum
art rock - Yes, Alan Parsons, Roxy Music, JT, ELP, KC, GG, Oldfield
But like you said, there are myriad regional variations of genres and we could talk about them till the Zog Empire finally colonises Earth
(I first heard the term prog rock in the 80s at the height of Neo, never knew of it as a kid...but sssssh...don't mention that otherwise this thread will turn into a monster)
Careful!!! Zog is the name of the would-be king (pretendor to the throne) of Albania.... So the likelyhood is not all that remoteBut like you said, there are myriad regional variations of genres and we could talk about them till the Zog Empire finally colonises Earth
(I first heard the term prog rock in the 80s at the height of Neo, never knew of it as a kid...but sssssh...don't mention that otherwise this thread will turn into a monster)
pssst!!! this is getting worrysome
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
Moments of Minstrel In The Gallery are pretty dang heavy. Moments of Lark's Tongue in Aspic and Red are pretty dang heavy. I'm trying to think of some heavy prog...
Other than that, the first thing I thought of when I saw the thread was Sweet Leaf. Master Of Reality is my favorite heavy, sludgy, stoner Sabs.
MoR is my favorite Sab, but I also think Sabotage is pretty close in the heaviness category.
Yup, that and some Aqualung tunes are "HEAVY"... I'd even say that Aqualung (the track) epitomizes what I call heavy
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
Very close, for sure. When I think of "The Straightener" and "Under The Sun" there is no doubt that an argument could be made for Vol. 4, but overall I think 4 is almost "cosmic heavy" as opposed to "space sludge heavy."
No question. But I am not sure this was quite as "organic" as something like MoR. Not sure how else to put it but there is something about MoR where it just feels like this was the book being written on exactly how heavy you could be. And much of the playing truly serves the overall sonic goal. The band were very disciplined on much of the album. No endless "soloing," or "overplaying," if you will. And some of the grooves are just from out of nowhere. Like during each verse of "Lord Of This World," that is just so heavy it is SICK!
Trane, I didn't know that harpsichords were heavy. I'm speaking of Queen 2. I think Queen 1 is heavier. Queen 2 has The Fairy-Fellow's Masterstroke, Nevermore, White Queen(As it Began), Funny How Love Is, and Some Day, One Day; those are the Q2 ballads. Queen only has The Night Comes Down as the only straight ballad. Songs like Doin' Alright and My Fairy King only have ballad sections.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks