Define "Heavy"

[Bruticus]

besides how, like, your mom is "heavy".
Rather as in the expressions "wow, this metal band is heavy", or "oh shit, wow, this is a heavy band right there exclamation mark".

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

 

[The Ozzman]

2heavy4u to be ironic

 

[jimmy101]

I believe heaviness is groove-based.

ie: the more you feel like banging your head, the more heavy something is.

 

[CiG]

Title track on the first Sabbath record.

 

[jimmy101]

Title track on the first Sabbath record.

It feels like this song could be the answer for so many questions

 

[Phylactery]

Title track on the first Sabbath record.

This.

I think people tend to mix up heaviness with brutality and extremity. Well at least my interpretation of heaviness anyway. I consider something like Candlemass’ The Well of Souls to be heavier than a lot of death metal for example - the riffs are just so weighty and forceful.

 

[jimmy101]

Yep. Spot on. Also another misconception is that heaviness comes from having a low-register and tuning your guitars to drop C or something ridiculous like that.

 

[CiG]

I think referring to music as "heavy" probably came from the 60's hippie culture, which meant that something was serious or intense and in the cultural lingo of the time it was something that wasn't a fun time or a kind of buzzkill.

"War is heavy man!" or the song by The Beatles "She's So Heavy" which is about wanting a girl so badly that you feel like shit, it's the opposite side to the flowery poppy romance.

When I think of heavy, I think of songs like "Black Sabbath" because it's not there to give you a good time like a lot of other rock music of the time, it's like a bad, evil trip. It's not loud, it's fucking HEAVY man.

 

[jimmy101]

Agree 100%. I also believe that's where the term "heavy" came from as well. The music media of the day lumped Sabbath with the term and it just kinda stuck as far as I can tell.

 

[CiG]

I think the music media took the term from the Steppenwolf song, no?

 

[jimmy101]

"Heavy metal thunder" lyric?

Haven't heard that assertation before, but it could very well be true.

 

[Satanstoenail]

Also another misconception is that heaviness comes from having a low-register and tuning your guitars to drop C or something ridiculous like that.

What about drop F?

 

[CiG]

From Wiki:

The first documented use of the phrase to describe a type of rock music identified to date appears in a review by Barry Gifford. In the May 11, 1968, issue of Rolling Stone, he wrote about the album A Long Time Comin' by U.S. band Electric Flag: "Nobody who's been listening to Mike Bloomfield—either talking or playing—in the last few years could have expected this. This is the new soul music, the synthesis of white blues and heavy metal rock."

 

[jimmy101]

Interesting. The use of "heavy metal rock" in that paragraph implies that even back then it was already somewhat in common use.

 

[CiG]

Another old review of a Uriah Heep album referred to the music as "heavy metal-laden rock" and also "shit-rock" lmao.

 

[Satanstoenail]

My grandfather always used to ask me if I still listened to that horrible ‘cold steel’ music

 

[Sirjack]

 

[HamburgerBoy]

There's some pre-Di'Anno Maiden bootleg where they refer to themselves as "scrap metal", almost makes me wonder how no one else ever came up with that.

 

[Satanstoenail]

Whut in tarnation