Andrew Listens to... The Metal Primer (feat. Jim Alrutz)
In a personally exciting collaboration, I take a dive into a genre I have long avoided! Props to Jim for curating this experience for us!
I love music and I like to think I’ve cultivated an appreciation for many types of music. But my bugbear has been Metal, for as long as I can remember. In my biased judgement, it was so loud, so aggressive, so horny (specifically the Hair Metal of the 80s), and just unpleasant to listen to. So, when Jim and I sat down to talk about what they could do for this collaboration post, we figured out pretty quickly that their passion for the genre and my greenness would make a great combination. I tried to approach these 10 songs with as much of an open mind as I could, and Jim had the goal of making this as approachable to me as possible. I won’t make you wait; I’ll freely admit that Jim won me over. There’s just such a range to the genre, and a lot of it can be absolutely bangers. This playlist really is a great primer for those of you who want to learn to appreciate an often misunderstood (by me and others) genre.
Andrew Listens to… The Metal Primer (Linked to Spotify)
Children of the Grave by Black Sabbath
Hell Bent for Leather by Judas Priest
The Number of the Beast by Iron Maiden
Animal (Fuck like a Beast) by W.A.S.P.
Indians by Anthrax
Living Dead Girl by Rob Zombie
Schism by Tool
Bring Me To Life by Evanescence
Psychosocial by Slipknot
The Steeple by Halestorm
The List
Jim: Rock aficionados can debate whether Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath invented heavy metal. However, I think Sabbath needs to be our starting point because of their dark musical sound (making use of the tritone, a.k.a. “the Devil’s interval) and lyrical reference to the supernatural or Satanic continue to influence heavy metal left an indelible mark on the genre. Their choice to significantly tune down their guitars to accommodate Tony Iommi’s finger injury only further added to their reputation as the darkest side of rock music. These forerunners of metal still show their influence from blues and jazz, but as they wrote and recorded more, they started to come into their own styles that continue to influence modern bands to this day.
Andrew: A change for the modern music scene is that production often smooths out the music, blending the various artists, studio and from the band, into a pleasant screen behind the music. But when you listen to “Children of the Grave” you are treated to each musician owning the space as equal partners. The driving bass, screaming guitar, pounding drums and Ozzy’s iconic voice. I think it took me a full week before I really heard the lyrics and took in the anti-war, anti-atomic message that says, “So, you children of the world/ Listen to what I say… Show the world that love is still alive, you must be brave/ Or you children of today are children of the grave, yeah”. For such a dark sound, it’s a remarkably uplifting message. Genius.
Jim: If Zeppelin and Sabbath invented heavy metal, Judas Priest certainly codified it in sound and image. The blues influences are gone, replaced by the chugging attack of twin guitars, two kick drums, and Rob Halford’s five octave vocal range. Halford also gave metal the now iconic look of black leather and studs, riding on stage on a motorcycle (click to view). Although they were rarely critical darlings, competing with the rise of punk and new wave music, no discussion of the history of metal would be complete without them.
Andrew: Jim is correct, this is the sound that I often associate with metal of this time, with the swaggering machismo of a motorcycle gang. “Hell Bent for Leather” is not aiming for incredible lyric depth, but it evokes a very powerful kind of imaginary space, a vaguely Mad Max-esque world of violence and dominance.
Jim: Iron Maiden is one of the most important bands of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM), building on the foundations of Judas Priest and laying groundwork for American bands to pick up the metal torch in the mid- to late-eighties. This record also helped Maiden pick up Sabbath’s baton as a lightning rod of controversy, which would continue as bands like Venom, Mercyful Fate, Possessed, and Candlemass developed the heavier sounds and controversial imagery and lyrics of black metal, death metal, and doom metal (which are, believe it or not, three distinct subgenres).
Andrew: I’m a sucker for self-serious openings, like “The Number of the Beast” 's Barry Clayton reading quotes from Revelation, especially when paired with the joy of Iron Maiden’s rush and whoop. I struggle to understand what made this so provocative at the time, buried as I am in the current moment. But the imagery is so intense with the fire and the flames, and this was the time when D&D was hunted out of schools, so maybe for a certain breed of Christian conservative, this would be scalding. I just think it’s a good time
Jim: While I’ll earn few friends by placing anything to do with “hair metal” in this primer, this was one of the peaks of popularity for metal in the popular zeitgeist. Once the shredding and theatrics of Van Halen upstaged Black Sabbath while opening for their late 70s tour, the door was thrown wide open for the sound of the Sunset Strip to follow in their footsteps. Glam metal represented the sound of hedonism and excess in music, lyrics, and imagery, and while the rise of grunge turned it deader than disco, countless guitar heroes got their start because of these bands, even if they would never admit it.
Andrew: I agree with Jim; you can’t talk about the history and evolution of metal without spending a moment with the towering popularity of hair metal. Personally “Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)” doesn’t do much for me, as I have a hard time resonating with the abject hedonism of the song, but I CERTAINLY believe that in the coked up 80s, this would have absolutely crushed. (And to be honest, is it really any more horny than Sabrina Carpenter?)
Jim: Thrash metal, particularly the “Big Four” of Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, and Slayer, continue to define heavy metal in the popular consciousness to this day, especially as Headbanger’s Ball on MTV showed both glam and thrash developing side by side. Thrash metal combined the technical proficiency of earlier heavy metal with the speed of hardcore punk. While never reaching the same height of popularity as its glam cousin, most of these bands weathered the 90s and onward much more gracefully, and many acts continue to release well received music to this day.
Andrew: As a child of the 90s, I developed through culture osmosis the understanding that thrash metal were the true heirs of the metal legacy, not like those hair metal fakers. And while I never listened to Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, or Slayer, I had a reverence for them as artists. “Indians” demonstrates exactly why they earned that reputation given their speed and dexterity. The lyrics for this song are… clumsy. (“Prejudice, something we all can do without/ The flag of many colors is what this land's all about”). But an over-reliance on lyrics to sell bad music is a hallmark of folk music that I love, so I’ll accept that lyrics just aren't what people come to this song for. The powerful swell of righteous rage on the other hand…
Jim: The industrial metal movement shows both musical and visual influences of shock rockers like Alice Cooper and KISS as their costuming and visuals took a role almost as significant as the music itself in inviting shock and awe. The pulsing repetitive riffs and beats of groups like Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, and Rammstein managed to be abrasive and groovy at once. Rob Zombie, who would later find success not only as a musician but as a horror film director, helped pioneer this sound with the group White Zombie before striking out on his own with his first solo album, Hellbilly Deluxe.
Andrew: Hands down, “Living Dead Girl” is my favorite song on this list. It’s just so fun, with another parody/serious opening, samples of old movies, techno-adjacent sound paired perfectly with the harder nosed guitar and bass. In some ways, I could see this playing as a night club in Berlin, marrying the sexy and the macabre. Jim is right, the abrasive and the groovy are both present, in just the right balance.
Jim: Progressive metal might not have the same historical significance as some of the other picks on this list, but Andrew told me one of the reasons they think metal doesn’t stick with them is that they don’t have the musical training to appreciate it in the same way that I do. While I think they do themselves a disservice in that way, I felt obligated to include an exaggerated example here for effect. Tool is famous for their use of changing time signatures and complex rhythms, as heard in the iconic bass intro to this track.
Andrew: Jim quoted me correctly, I have been very forthwith that sometimes guitar players nerd out about metal in a way that I can’t fathom, because my musical training was strictly classical piano. But I appreciate that Jim added “Schism” to this list because I love it. The rolling arpeggios that slink through this song are so impressive and yet are not distracting. It’s virtuosic, while still being approachable. Also, perhaps I was primed to like this because I love the musical content creator Mac Glocky (click to view), from whom I’ve seen several pop and pop songs in the style of Tool. Technical prowess and listenability are not always synonymous, but they definitely are here!
Jim: Hey, it’s the highest charting song on this list! Although Amy Lee probably wouldn’t be happy with me using this track to represent the genre, as the male vocals and rap break in this song were added at the pressing of label execs to fit into the musical landscape of the time. While “nu metal” is often derided by fans of the more technical side, bands like Korn and Limp Bizkit helped metal find new footing after hair metal was slain by grunge. It would never have the grip on pop culture it once had, but nu metal proved that even as guitar-driven music started to decline in popularity, there was still room to sell metal.
Andrew: Oh, I know “Bring Me to Life”! I totally forgot that nu metal is still a subcategory of metal, but at this point in the playlist, I really get that lineage. While I never got into much nu metal, middle school Andrew listened to Linkin Park’s “Hybrid Theory” so often that I actually wore through my CD. And while I’d admit that the fusion of rap and metal was best done by Rage Against the Machine, I will always have a soft spot in my heart for these black sheep artists.
Jim: As we move into the aughts, metal continues to splinter further and further into subgenres, but whether through music, image, or both, many of these bands continue to headline major festivals when they aren’t busy inventing their own. Slipknot’s earlier records fell more within the nu metal movement. While their masked visages and the pulse of a trio of percussionists may seem like an offshoot of nu or industrial metal, the skilled musicianship of its members make them statesmen of the current metal scene.
Andrew: Slipknot is one of those bands that bubble up in my cultural understanding of the current music scene, with their Walking Dead masks and growing vocals catching my attention frequently. I really love the instrumentation of “Psychosocial”, but boy, screaming and growling does very little for me. But I can’t deny it’s skill of the musicians.
Jim: While it’s unlikely that metal will ever return to the heights of popularity it enjoyed in the past, it has carved enough of a place in culture that it’s never going away. Whether it’s the feature of Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” in season four of Stranger Things or Gojira’s performance at the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, it both settles into the place of having the respect of plentiful history while still having many newer bands recording fresh and engaging music. Extra credit if you watch Halestorm’s “Live at Wembley” (click to view) concert on their YouTube channel.)
Andrew: Halestorm’s “The Steeple” borrows the language of big church music to tell the story of rejuvenation as the bands and audiences returned to concerts again post pandemic (which I only know because I asked Jim if Halestorm was a Christian metal band). This is an interesting way for Jim to end this playlist, as it definitely demonstrates the metal heritage going back to Black Sabbath, while also having a sound in common with contemporary rock bands like Imagine Dragons, perhaps demonstrating a future of fusion between the guitar-driven genres to survive in modern mainstream music. In any case, Halestorm demonstrates that the legacy of Metal will live on.
I want to thank Jim for their thoughtful, succinct, and wide-ranging approach to The Metal Primer and for opening this genre to me.
Next time: Andrew Listens to… Love Songs