Current Directions in Metal Studies

3 Iron and Steel Forging Heavy Metal’s Song Structures or the Impact of Black Sabbath and Judas Priest on Metal’s Musical Language Dietmar Elflein To refer to the idea of a specific musical language of heavy metal implies that this particular style of music differs from other styles and/or genres of popular music on a level open to musicological analysis.1 Regarding a possible musical language of heavy metal, the available musicological literature focuses on tonal relationships as the principle object of study. The monographs of Walser (1993) and Berger (1999) are outstanding contributions in this respect, both finding the use of power chords, modes, chromatics, and augmented fourths to be characteristic of heavy metal music. These findings distinguish heavy metal musically from a more blues-based hard rock music. But both genres share the same ancestors and are closely related. According to Weinstein (2000) and Christie (2003), the formalization of heavy metal started when it detached itself from British blues and progressive rock—and American psychedelic rock—at the beginning of the 1970s. The genre crystallized 10 years later, via the NWOBHM, and then began the progressive stylistic differentia- tion that, today, is still evolving to the extent that a globalized genre is form- ing. Therefore, I will join Weinstein (2000, pp. 6–8) and Alan Moore (2001, p. 148) in assuming a stylistic continuum between hard rock and heavy metal. Figure 3.1 The Hard Rock–Metal Continuum. As far as sound is concerned, the idea of a continuum helps, too. The available literature predominantly associates a distorted electric guitar sound with hard rock and heavy metal (see Walser, 1993, pp. 41–44). On the way toward extreme metal, the degree of distortion increases (see Berger and Fales 2005, p. 195) and supplements the guitar sound with distorted bass and DOI: 10.4324/9781315742816-4 36 Dietmar Elflein screamed and/or growled vocals. Distorted drum sounds are few and commonly labeled as an industrial/electronic musical influence.2 The tone color of the bass is, however, relatively unimportant, while the timbre of the vocals is so strongly differentiated within various sub-genres that there is no such thing as a timbre typical to heavy metal as a whole (Elflein, 2010, p. 305). At the same time, the use of vocals in heavy metal seems to be influenced by a regard for the virtuosic control of the voice (Berger, 2004, pp. 49–60), which can culminate in long, drawn-out screams, like the ones of Rob Halford, or in a virtuoso switch between contrasting timbres in more recent metal variations, such as metal core. Berger (2004, p. 58) differentiates this heavy metal style of voice control from a more blues-based expressive control of the voice exemplified, according to Berger, by Bruce Springsteen. I argue with Walser (1993, p. 14) that ensemble virtuosity is important to heavy metal music. Furthermore, I argue that Berger’s virtuosic control of the voice in heavy metal could be used as a means to describe and analyze the formal structure of the compositions. Therefore, every little part of the composition is fixed and a matter of exact reproduction—with the exception of a few (guitar) solos. To underline my argument I will concentrate in the following on song structures by structurally analyzing and comparing several songs of the Birmingham-based metal pioneers, Black Sabbath and Judas Priest. Black Sabbath has a blues-rock background, while Judas Priest uses more progressive rock influences in their beginning. Both bands move to the metal side of the continuum cited above while bands like Led Zeppelin or Deep Purple stay on the hard rock side of the continuum.3 By doing so, I don’t argue that Black Sabbath and Judas Priest are personal innovators. In fact a lot of other bands on the psychedelic and blues-rock circuit worked on similar ideas simultaneously or even before Black Sabbath and Judas Priest. Therefore, both bands serve as good examples within the continuously flow- ing stream of the tradition of Heavy Metal music, because they happen to be amongst the most successful heavy metal bands of their particular era. Song Structures in Popular Music To talk about specific metal song structures means to argue that they differ from other song structures in popular rock music styles. It is neces- sary to distinguish between structures that string together structural units and periodic structures. The former could be an endless repetition of a blues structure. For example, a funk track like James Brown’s ‘Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag’, which starts with an alternation between two parts A and B (with A being a 12 bar blues structure) and stays with part B in the entire second half of the track or with a more recent electronic dance music track. Regarding periodic structures Moore (2001) identifies the “introduction, two verses, break, verse, playout” formula common to pop since the beat era’ (p. 150). This structure adds an introduction and a playout to the 32 bar AABA structure of classic American Tin Pan Alley songs (Forte, 2001) Iron and Steel 37 with the verse fittingA and the break fitting B of the AABA structure. Terminological problems begin here, though, as the 32-bar AABA structure is commonly labeled a refrain and preceded by a single verse that differs from Moore’s verse. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a distinctive terminology regarding song structures in popular music.4 Ken Stephenson (2002, pp. 121–143) deduced the verse-chorus structure from the Tin Pan Alley Song, with the A of the 32-bar AABA structure divided into verse and chorus while B mutates to the bridge.5 An additional part, between verse and chorus, is commonly labeled a pre-chorus because it leads emotion- ally and musically to the chorus. In addition, recent commercial pop song writing thinks in terms of hooks. Pre-chorus and chorus are regarded as two hooks with unchangeable lyrics, which are supplemented by a verse with alterable lyrics (see Fitzgerald, 2007, pp. 121–122; Peterik, Austin, and Lynne, 2010, pp. 73–90). Table 3.1 The Standard Rock Song Structure Structural Unit Source (Verse) A ABA Tin Pan Alley Introduction Verse (V) V Break (B) V Playout Moore (I) I V Chorus V C Bridge (B) C C (optional) (C) I V Pre- C V p C B (p) C C (optional) Stephenson chorus (p) I A A B A' (optional) Elflein I V Hook 1 Hook 2 V, H1, (optional) H1 H2 (optional) Pop-Song (H1) (H2) H2 I’d like to call the highlighted structure of table. 3.1, the standard rock song structure. An introduction is followed by a main part A, which is repeated once. Then something new is happening, a contrasting part B. Finally, the standard rock song returns to a modified A built out of a selection of the already known verse, pre-chorus, and chorus parts, which are sometimes modified (e.g., vocal line of the chorus plus verse accompaniment) or mixed with new musical ideas. Regarding the two bands in question, early Black Sabbath tends to avoid both verse-chorus structures and the clichés of the standard rock song, although these features became more prominent with the release of the third album, Master of Reality (1971). In contrast, Judas Priest uses both formulas throughout its career but varies them in distinctive ways. The break-through album British Steel (1980) abandons the more complex song structures identified with progressive rock and present on the band’s earlier releases, in favor of a formal reduction of complexity, which seems 38 Dietmar Elflein to accompany or underline the change of image from hippy/psychedelia to the spikes and leather costumes now identified as one of the archetypical heavy-metal looks. Therefore, both bands learn to consciously work with rock/pop song formulas as a matter of becoming more professional and experienced musicians. Heavy Metal Song Structures As a musical style, heavy metal is based around riffs rather than chord progressions. Richard Middleton (1999) defines riffs as ‘short rhythmic, melodic or harmonic figures repeated to form a structural framework’ (p. 143). Therefore, the earlier-mentioned song structures stringing together structural units may play an important role in heavy metal song writing in addition to periodic structures. As a consequence, song structures are based on sequences of partly repeated guitar riffs. In what follows, the formal structure of a number of song examples is presented analytically as a sequence of guitar riffs that form the microstructure of the song. The riffs are labeled in the order of their appearance a, b, c. … A repetition of a riff is labeled with Arabic num- bers, that is 2a = aa, 2ab = aab and 2(ab) = abab. Variations of riffs are indicated by superscript.6 Since riffs differ in length, their length is measured as pulse length in order to make them comparable as structural units. If a = 8 pulses and b = 16 pulses, 2a has the same length as b. In order to simplify the resulting microstructure to a macrostructure, sequences of riffs get combined and labeled with capitals A, B, C. … As a third analytic step, the vocal structure tries to convert the ana- lyzed micro- and macrostructure into a periodic song structure using the following terminology: introduction (I), verse (V), pre-chorus (p), chorus (C), bridge (B), instrumental interlude (In), instrumental Solo (S), playout (Po) and short outro (O). In addition, Br indicates a harsh break between two structural units, such as a general pause.

Load more