UK vs US-Genre Throwdown! (w/Martin Popoff)
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- čas přidán 8. 02. 2024
- Join Pete Pardo & Martin Popoff as they discuss six styles/movements of music and pit the UK and US scenes against each other...who did it better?
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It’s something about the way British metal bands recorded their albums too. The riffs were just bigger, louder.
Maybe with America, there was always the possibility of radio play in the back of people's minds and that played into it when recording.
Fun show and timely topic. The Beatles arrived in America almost 60 years ago to the day, 2-7-64.
I was momentarily stumped by the date format, but yes, a massive event for both countries!
Thank you Pete and Martin, it was very interesting and entertaining!
I'm British and not in the least bit patriotic. But if there's one thing I'm proud of is the amazing number of fantastic bands the UK has produced over the years. And given the UK's relatively small population it's all the more impressive.
Truly incredible the quantity of UK music greatness, Brits are the most musical I think!
@@glenfinston704👍
Australia is punching well above its weight as well.... with Caligula's Horse, Voyager, Ne Obliviscaris to name a few
@@WhizzRichardThompsonAnd I’m from America, born here, lived here. We just cannot compete with the quantity of music greatness from UK when considering per capita population!
It is truly amazing. You could easily claim that the 10 or 20 greatest bands of all time are all from the UK. People might disagree but no other country could even make that claim.
Regarding the hard rock era, Peter Grant had toured with the Yardbirds and noticed a hole in the market. He and Mickie Most sent The Jeff Beck Group over and they went down a storm followed by Zeppelin. Then so many British bands cleaned up. Good episode.
There may not have been a lot of thrash in Britain but there was D-Beat, Crust, Grindcore.
I've never considered Thunder or Tesla to be glam bands. They more like classic hard rock in the vein of UFO.
I always considered Thunder to be a continuation of the Bad Company style. Powerful bluesy rock. And Tesla I think adopted a similar style to Aerosmith.
The US Hardcore punk scene was evident whilst we British had NWOBHM. If America was not bringing its own wave of new metal, in 1980 and 1981 it did have Hardcore punk, with small indie labels, and club scenes for gigs, and surely a precursor to the thrash metal scene? In Britian in the 1980's we had synthesizer/electronic sounds and New Wave, and middle and late 1980's saw a massive indie rock scene that grew into successful bands under Britpop such as Oasis, Blur etc. in the 1990's. For me in the 1980's, I loved NWOBHM, then US Hardcore, then US rock bands, before going onto indie rock. The 1980's provided for me such variety of music, but one thing I did not need was "Hair Metal"....lol.
So true about what you said about the UK sitting out and getting lighter as the US got heavier in 86 , 87.
UK 1986 : Maiden - "Somewhere in Time"
Priest - "Turbo"
US 1986 : Slayer - "Reign in Blood"
Megadeth - "Peace Sells....."
Metallica - "Master of Puppets"
At 54 yrs old I still listen to all those albums , yes , even Turbo . 😎🤘
The UK might have more or less sat out thrash but did invent grindcore at the end of the 80s with Napalm Death, Carcass and Bolt Thrower......and yeah as someone also in the comments has mentioned there was goth and punk. Martin's point about the weather is really valid as the UK can't create music like that which comes out of California (glam and thrash) as it is grey and rains a lot!!
I posted the same comment and then saw yours! The UK really gave birth to what is modern extreme metal with its Grindcore and Crustcore scenes.
I love when these Funhouse shows dive into some history and analysis. I only wish you'd gone longer, maybe talked about grunge, post-punk, power metal, etc. Might be interesting to do a show about bands coming from places where there wasn't a scene, too, like Krokus out of Switzerland.
The US invented power metal too. Then Helloween went "European power metal" with "Keeper of the Seven Keys Pt. 1" and it exploded into a million different genres and subgenres while US power metal has pretty much stayed TRUE METAL! HAIL AND KILL!
Glam! :-]
This is a great episode, the UK didn't do party/happy/hair metal very well at all, yet we did glam rock pretty well. I'm from the UK and grew up listening to metal from the mid late 80s, but, from my UK media perspective, Metal was fairly shunned. Radio ignored it for the most part, it was rarely on TV, we had a 2 hour rock show on radio 1 on a Friday night, a video show at 3am on a Friday night and that was about it. If a band had a hit, they may have been on Top of the Pops but it was rare. I formed my own band in 1989 and trying to get small gigs was tough, the biker pubs were dying out and the ones we did play were fairly empty so getting a foot into a scene was difficult. I think the audience for metal in the UK was there but the media largely ignored and hated it probably because they thought it was 'all just noise'. We've not really had much of metal scene since but some great bands.
I didn’t even know party/happy metal was a genre! When I think of party/drinking rock in the UK I think of Slade, Quo, T Rex, which as you say is more glam orientated. Perhaps they are the same genre in this context. Slade were my gateway to metal.
Very well said Pete. I concur with everything you say. I'm an English guy who lived in the South of England and Metal was treated appallingly by the British Media in the 80's. It was completely shunned and villified by everyone and had very little chance of succeeding. A sad indictment from a Country that gave the Rock World the likes of Queen, Status Quo, Slade and Sweet.
The US doesn't have a perfect parallel to the NWOBHM but my favourite US scene - the so-called "US Power Metal" scene of the mid-80s - kind of ran parallel to tail end of the NWOBHM and the early emergence of Thrash at the same time.
It wasn't as cool or as popular as either - but it was heavily indebted to the NWOBHM.
Basically a lot of those bands sound like "Iron Maiden on steroids" to me - and that's a major reason why I love them so much. Bands like Savatage, Manowar, Manilla Road, Warlord, Cirith Ungol, Liege Lord, Savage Grace, Omen, Crimson Glory, Metal Church, Jag Panzer etc.
Mark Briody of Jag Panzer told me his primary influence was the NWOBHM!
To me this is the jewel in America's Heavy Metal crown and it's not really mentioned in this video.
They were kind of stuck in a no-mans-land because they weren't commercial like Glam and weren't extreme enough for Thrash audiences.
So if we compare the NWOBHM to that realm of US Heavy/Power Metal - as much as I love the NWOBHM, I'd pick the US for that round!
Queensryche, of course - that EP is the definitive USPM release, imo
yeah I posted a similar comment too...also interesting that the U.S. bands SOUNDED European too and, at least early on, didn't try to Americanize it that much.
@@sinbysin666 Yeah one of the greatest! Gamechanger!
@@michaelhudson2912 And I would've mentioned Virgin Steele too but their best work came along in the mid to late 90s!
For some of my favorite genres:
Psychedelic - US
Alternative - US
Goth - UK
Punk - UK
Power Pop - US
Metal -UK
Prog - UK
Power Pop was invented by the Beatles so UK
Punk was created in the US
@@JoinMeInDeathBabyyes Iggy Pop and the Ramones were a huge influence on punk .... Good call.
@@JoinMeInDeathBabyBut the Brits defined the genre, every country looked to the UK as leaders of the punk movement. The look the fashion is largely driven by British culture.
Good to see some love for goth! And in that department there is no need to argue. UK is the best compared to any other country. By a mile.
Great point Martin, Jimi goes TO UK to become an international superstar!
I think the first three albums by (Todd Rundgren's) Utopia deserve to be called prog... plus Initiation by Todd.
In Britain we have had Nothing from radio/Television. Growing up we Loved the US Thrash death music. It was that good no British band would have made it.
I absolutely loved this idea and the content produced out it. Hope we can see a couple more episodes in this vein.
Years ago I made a list of how many British bands I love in extremely high regard (cream of the crop) vs American. The British list was about 7 or 8 times longer. It’s in a journal somewhere in my closet
Topic idea: albums with good music but bad vocals and how much do the vocals affect your enjoyment of the album.
I think one reason the Brits didn't jump on the thrash bandwagon was because, in attitude, the Brits already had their DIY, anti-establishment heavy music craze in the punk explosion in '77-'78 and felt no need to participate in something so similar again. Plus, when you consider how much the U.K. got their heads back into heavy metal with traditional speed and power metal in the 90s and beyond, it makes sense that they sat out heavy metal in the mid/late-80s; they had to form a new plan to come out ahead of the Americans in the next wave of heavy metal. As a fan of course, it makes sense TO ME that Diamond Head, Saxon, Judas Priest, and Tygers of Pan Tang would have come out with their own editions of a thrash album in '85, '86, '87 and probably sold more records than ever before. But bands don't always think like fans.
Great idea, but there are oh so many more categories, which take us more into a kaleidoscope than a US vs. Them.
The huge breakthrough was in the 1950s with Rock 'N' Roll, which was an exclusively US phenomenon, the phenomenon that woke the UK and Germany up. At least half of what followed came from that.
This invigorated UK bands, like The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, The Kinks etc., but meanwhile the US was doing something else: rocky Western Music, LA backyard bands, the San Francisco sound, the Chicago sound, the Detroit sound (Motown), Soul, American folk vs. British folk.
Yes, the Bits had early heavy metal and prog rock (working off European classical scales rather than the Blues scale), but there was an underground R&B revival in the US, with Tom Petty, Iggy and the Stooges, while Europe developed core heavy metal in Germany, and the UK developed Glam Rock and then Punk Rock, and then New Wave. I can't think of many New Wave bands in the US to match Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson, Ian Dury et al. The Cars, perhaps.
Then the US pushed through Alice Cooper, Iggy & The Stooges, Bob Seger (who rarely gets mentioned), Journey, Todd Rundgren, The Eagles etc. (a whole medley of sounds), while the UK goes with the New Romantics - XTC, Human League etc.).
A lot of cross-flows were going on, and all hugely healthy for the rock movement, Grunge and Oasis to follow ... and then absolutely nothing. Every idea was played out, and hip-hop took over as the new serious, intellectual idea.
The question is why a grandiose, luxuriant, intelligent, exciting, all-encompassing, fun, exhilarating, beaty, rhythmic tradition just completely fell apart ... and the answer has to be that the commercial structure of all this changed - exploration and creativity got replaced by the for-profit industry. Everything since then has been pop - including that hip-hop is fundamentally pop, but for Black people.
All those jewels are still there. They could be picked up, and built up, and create a huge new movement, but we need a new Beatles, a new Jimi Hendrix, a new Deep Purple, a new anybody to lead the next rock crusade. And nobody had stepped up on a colossal stage as yet. No one has truly fired the imagination into a new era of music. Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran are popsters, and nothing more.
We need some new giants, and they will come.
Well said.
Great topic and good discussion.
Thanks!
Funny thing with early 80's Heavy Metal is that the US isn't even in second place, or even third place. It's Sweden, and then maybe Japan?
You see me now a veteran, of a thousand psychic wars...
I've only listened to two of the three singles from 'Invincible Shield' so far. I wasn't a fan of "Panic Attack," but I really like "Crown of Horns"! Great episode, by the way!
Uk music fans have always had a short attention span and after 2 or 3 years we’re busy looking for the next big thing. I was in my early teens when NWOBHM exploded in the UK…It was a fantastic time, but as the 80’s progressed we all just moved on to the acid house, dance club scene. We blew our brains out there for a little while, then all of a sudden…Cool Britannia was back in the game! A plethora of indie bands like Primal Scream, Radiohead, Muse, The Verve, OCN, Suede, Stereophonics and of course…Blur and Oasis, sent us all mad for Britpop….Nowadays I just reach for whichever album suits my daily mood.
Don't forget Journey's first 3 albums from 1975, without a doubt they were progressive, with hard rock and jazz fusion influences .
Brilliant show gentleman ❤
Pete and Martin,
On genre of music that is NEVER talked about on this channel is Country, and perhaps understandably so. However, I do believe that you are both (I'm certain on Pete) fellow Sirius/XM subscribers. The one channel that I find myself listening to as much as any other is the Outlaw Country channel. If you were not aware, in a very odd kinda tragedy, their most well-known DJ, Mojo Nixon, passed away this week WHILE ON the Outlaw Country Cruise!
I'm presuming that neither of you guys spends a whole lot of time on this channel, but I would argue that for guys our age and who love Hard Rock and Metal, that Outlaw Country is a somewhat natural progression and not at all a different universe. Either way, I thought it worth noting Mojo's passing.
Take care!
Probably because country sucks.
Thunder is one of the best live acts of all time. Class act live.
The largest amount of iconic rock bands came from Britain but there were a few great bands from USA also.
The Kinks released 'You Really Got Me' in 1964 and that was arguably the first heavy metal single.
rumble link wray
Happy sunny bands from England? How about the king, Peter Frampton, he owned that type of music!
The British are not a lighthearted people. To call somebody fun, happy, or even nice, is something of an insult. It suggests a lack of sophistication, the essence of which is to be discerning, critical, and not entirely impressed by anything. OK, but ...
There are lighthearted bands, but they are humorous, silly bands: Madness, The Bonzo Dog Dooh Dah Band, The Ruttles, whoever wrote 'The Birdy Song' or any number of novelty pop songs, The Bay City Rollers. Humor, cheeky chappies, girl bands, boy bands, disposable.
It is almost impossible to imagine a British Beach Boys (thank the good Lord). Getting serious about the fun of sunshine and surfing? CSNY are serious in the US, trivial in Britain. Songs about nothing
Now The Smiths, Joy Division, Blur, Pulp, any band where a member has just died, preferably by suicide. Now, that's serious stuff. That's British.
OK, one towering exception - The Beatles. Cheeky chappies and yet somehow meaningful. I really can't think of any others. T Rex is adored (a good car wreck death), Mud - disposable, Sweet - disposable, Gary Glitter - disposable and only to be whispered about, Slade - disposable. There was a whole unique rock movement - Glam Rock - and virtually everyone participating is written off as trivial except David Bowie.
If you want back-against-the-wall, acerbic comedy, look to Britain. Fun? Nah.
Proto-Metal/Early Hard Rock - UK
Glam Metal - US
Thrash Metal - US
Heavy Metal (mainly NWOBHM) - UK
Power Metal - US
New Wave - UK
Death Metal - US
Grindcore - UK
Doom Metal - US
Power Pop - US
Rock and Roll - US
Hardcore Punk - US
Punk Rock - UK
Hard Rock - US
AOR - UK (Europe in general, really)
Soul & R&B - US
Jazz & Swing - US
Blues - US
Progressive Rock - UK
Glam Rock - UK
Southern Rock - US
I guess I favor my countries music. Never thought about it much but I guess it makes sense.
@@erorufurakku6378Yeah, agreed.
UK Thrash band Onslaught. The Uk was big into new wave and electronic music, Ultravox, OMD, Depeche Mode, Spandau Ballet , Duran Duran etc
Rush was the first band to combine Heavy Metal and Prog. Unless Black Sabbath - Sabotage is considered Prog. If so both did it in 1975 . The Rush debut was like Led Zeppelin, no Prog Rock until Bytor & the Snowdog
That was fun keep up the good work guys.
This subject is crying out for a US vs the UK Connection gladiatorial contest!
The reason the UK didn’t really take to hair metal, was that many of our favourite hard rocking bands like Whitesnake and Priest just simply upped sticks and decamped to the States for many years. When they eventually returned as mega rich, pouting poodles, many of their UK fans had already moved on to different things.
Considering we had so many great bands in the late 70s and early 80s the heavy rock/metal scene in the UK…didn’t really exist in the consciousness of the mainstream. It was very much and an underground movement that operated under the radar in scruffy pubs and small theatres, in mainly provincial towns and cities But unlike the US, there was no dedicated radio station or rock chart for these bands to measure their progress, and they very rarely got appear on TV. Also if it wasn’t for publications like Sounds, Kerrang or even the Friday Rock show on the BBC, many of our beloved metal bands would never have made it across the pond to find fame and fortune.
I’m from England so we win.
Would like to see this topic on the UK connection show
Would love to hear their opinions on this topic...maybe Pete 😅 could fly over there and drive a car on the wrong side of the road.... Lol 😅
@@ilj1259 by "wrong" do you mean right?
@@independenceltd.I think he means, what's left!😂
We invented rock and roll, Britain perfected it!
The beginning of this genre pre-dates the other genres you discuss, but the U.S. had it all over the UK with jazz from the 50s all the way, arguably, until today. It was only in continental Europe that you saw a flourishing jazz scene, really, though the UK did get in on the act with fusion: Mahavishnu (but Americans were involved in that case too), Brand X, Bruford, etc.
Great video Gentlemen. But you should've included Psychedelic Rock and Soft Rock !!
Thank you Pete and Martin, a very interesting show. I'm an English guy who likes lots of Rock stuff whether it's from the UK or the US. Or anywhere else for that matter. But hey!.....You guys gave us Rock and Roll, so I make that a 4-3 win for the US
Cool episode!!
Foghat = British
Never considered Thunder as "hair metal". Traditional blues rock
That was a fun show. As a 66 year old American,if i rank all my favorite bands for popularity the first 2 (at least 2, or more) bands on the list are from the UK. Those 2 are immovable.
Ok - UK for most. Beatles, Stones followed by Sabbath, purple and zeppelin. Then punk, goth and new wave of British heavy metal.
Looking forward to new Priest!
The UK had The Beatles & Cream.
End of discussion!😊
Oh...did I mention the Marshall Amplifier?
an amp is useless without a les paul or fender
@@independenceltd.And a Les Paul or Fender are useless without an amp.
The Marshall Amp changed the sound of the guitar from an ensemble instrument to the forefront of pop music, creating the Rock genre and everything that came after. Thank you Mr Marshall from London, UK!
@@nickfryearson1531 Fender: 1950. Gibson: 1952. Marshall: 1963
@@independenceltd. Kinks 'You Really Got Me' 1964.
The birth of rock.
@@nickfryearson1531 Maybe in the UK, but "Rocket 88" came out in '51.
England is definitely the home and birthplace of HM 🤘
You guys are right there is a lot more hard rock metal bands from England, You sort of mentioned “Blue Chair”, “Grand Funk Railroad”, and I’m also mentioning “James Gang” with Joe Walsh. All three were the ones that I saw during that time period that were heavy, hard rockers from America. as far as Prague, you’re also right about the English but a band from LA called “Spirit” had a great Prague album called the “12 Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus”. And you do a lot of Prague shows but you never mention “Todd Rundgren Utopia”. they had at least three heavy Prague albums. My two go to US Prague Bands.
Prague had Modry Efekt.
Sorry I won't be watching live because I'm working. But I'll check you up later.
I don't think that people in the rest of the world understand the power of BBC Radio 1 in the UK. One major radio station broadcasting across the whole country basically dictated what would be popular, what would make the charts, what would sell. If you were playlisted on daytime Radio 1 you would sell product, and in the 80s whilst rock and metal was big in North America very few rock acts got played. Those that made the sales charts did so off the back of coverage in Kerrang!, and/or the 2 hour Friday Night Rock Show (10pm to midnight) on Radio 1 whilst many of us were in the pub.
Through the mid 80s here in the UK the biggest hard rock and metal bands were well established. We only had a couple of arenas so big rock bands typically played multiple nights at large theatres or converted halls (here in Leeds, our Queens Hall was an old tram shed). The biggest bands were AC/DC, Lizzy, Whitesnake, Motorhead, and Maiden. until Bon Jovi blew up and their success lifted up Leppard and a few others. Thrash was pretty popular but Metallica didn't rise much out of 2-3000 cap venues until the 80s were over.
The homegrown bands couldn't economically (and maybe creatively) compete. Very few wrote great songs, and the industry which was based in London wasn't very supportive. Kerrang! writers were having cash thrown at them to fly out to LA, so why would they prefer to check out a band from Scunthorpe or Cockermouth. I had friends in good local bands who garnered some interest from labels but they went nowhere.
I remember when Slammer got signed by WEA, they were touted as the next Metallica, but in comparison to the financial support the US bands received it was insufficient to compete (which sometime meant buying on to a bigger tour).
Metal Church is worthy of note. As is Slade.
The strange thing about Thrash is that it was quite a phenomenon all over the world. Germany, all of Latin America, even Eastern Europe had lots of excellent Thrash bands well up into the early 90s but the UK was always way behind the rest of the world, not just the US in that particular genre.
I’m surprised that Martin doesn’t acknowledge US bands Iron Butterfly and Vanilla Fudge as forerunners of Heavy Metal.
It would conflict with his narrative that the UK invented heavy metal.
Hi all. Love the channel to death.
For The Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Who, The Kinks, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Queen, Roxy Music, Judas Priest, Motorhead, Kate Bush, Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Jam, Joy Division, The Cure, Iron Maiden, The Smiths, Radiohead etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. On behalf of the UK. You’re welcome. Apologies for Coldplay and Ed Sheeran though.
More accurately, they are all from England. So it becomes more impressive still.
Always disappointed if Martin doesn't start off by saying "morning sir, morning sir"! It always makes me smile.
The UK may have had a lack of Thrash, but they did have a strong Punk and Hardcore underground which eventually made way for Grindcore.
@@MantratyaProds I know..
Thunder have made some of the best blues rock albums ever released.
Maiden, Priest, Motorhead, and Ozzy were strong in the 80's.
Chariot, Tyson Dog, Soldier, Elixer, Tokyo Blade, Tresspass & Tank all continue to bring out albums from time to time abd still sticking to their NWOBHM sound. Tresspass had a few slight style changes but git back on track on last 1 or 2 at least.
We had a very good Glam Rock(Sweet, Slade, etc) Period in the 1970s, but the 1980s here(UK) was very much taken by the New Wave, New Romantic and electric bands. At this time, I don't recall many hard rock acts getting much airplay.
Thanks boys...Kalevala, Tasavallan Wigwam, Tasavallan Presidentti, (Stubb now..)..Finnish👍✌️🌞
RIOT , The Rods and Y&T were killing it in the UK . KERRANG did many reports.
Sir Lord Baltimore is the only band that kept up with the UK heavy metal scene.
It´s quite interesting that the UK pretty much sat out Thrash but then in 1988 and onwards went head to head with the US regarding Death Metal and Grindcore - Bolt Thrower, Benediction, Napalm Death, Cancer, Carcass...
Angel Witch!!!!
Some of my favorite albums from all time across all genres are from US bands but overall I think I am pretty biased towards UK music, and enthralled by that whole "English aesthetic" (or aesthetics) that is so hard to define clearly.
I'm with you on that. And yes, it is incredibly difficult to define.
By the way, an episode or two on the history of German Heavy Metal with German guests would be great to see.
Great show chaps It's worth actually doing a deep dive into the British scene from 1965-1985 it's pretty astonishing the evolution.
Don't forget the glam scene and the punk scene which influenced the USA thrash bands.
punk started in the US and I doubt Slade influenced many thrash bands. Motorhead, yes. Sweet, no.
@@independenceltd. I'm talking about Discharge, Exploited and GBH which clearly did influence Exodus Slayer etc.
@@gordy3714 i'm sure they may have listened to those bands, but I'd bet Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Venom, Saxon and Motörhead, and later on Exciter, Anvil and Accept, played a much bigger role in thrash.
@@independenceltd. Possibly, but I remember buying the 1st couple of Discharge EP's back in 1980 and Fight Back sounded different to anything I heard to that point even though Decontrol sounded a bit like Overkill.
You're wrong about the Norwegian BM thing, except for the Church burnings it could have very well started in the Pacific NorthWest. If Grunge wasn't happening at the same time it could have happened up here bc everyone was looking for something new and different and grunge hit first. NWBM is some of the best out there now bc it hit basically a few years after grunge and nu-metal died with bands like Agalloch, Inquisition, Uada, Leviathan.
Savage only had the one mellow lp Hyperactve, their 3rd album on where a return to metal, Holy Wars , Babylon, Xtreme Machine, Sons of Malace & 7 were great heavy riffing albums, maybe only Chris Bradley & Andy Dawson remain add Chris's son Kristisn on guitar. But at least relielised the error and came back nice and heavy.
I think the UK hair band thing didn't take off because the UK audiences were all about American hair metal, and if you weren't from the States, forget it.
those UK "hair bands" were pretty terrible too
Cool show and nice topic, although I think the topics were picked just so we could have a tie 😂I would say british is the winner because the most important genres of the history of metal are the ones they nailed, the 70s birth of metal and the NWOBHM...bands like Sabbath, Purple, Priest, Pink Floyd, Queen, Uriah Heep, Whitesnake, Maiden etc will never be matched neither in importance nor in quality.
The UK was always playing catch up in the 80s during the hair metal era. Thunder righted the ship and we're our best shot at breaking the US but their debut came out in 1990 just as the scene was falling in on itself.
Post NWOBHM in the UK was a weird time: mostly the post-punk alternative scene and electronica of the New Romantic movement, whose biggest bands became the mainstream music press's darlings. Rock became more niche, so it was somewhat sidelined. Then a whole bunch of genres blew up out of the dance/rave scene. We'd eventually see some fantastic bands grow out of all of this - from The Prodigy and Chemical Brothers to Massive Attack and Portishead. And of course some of the bands that came from the alternative rock mould, like Radiohead and Muse. None of whom, of course, are really the focus of SoT. Here in the UK, I think we need some kind of new explosion of rock creativity to shake the tree and grab the mainstream consciousness. Stuff that makes the wider music press sit up, go 'wow', and then want to champion. To illustrate the point I'm making... I think had Steven Wilson been producing albums like The Raven that Refused to Sing a few decades earlier, his success story would have been very different.
America had an answer to NWOBHM Van Halen, Y&T, Angel, Motley Crue(81), and Manila Road.
Re: American metal, Blue Oyster Cult's debut preceded Aerosmith and Montrose, and was arguably heavier, e.g., Cities on Flame, Transmaniacon MC, Stairway to the Stars.
Whole Lotta Love is a pretty heavy cut ( Zep just a blues band ? ) The James Gang were the first Stoner Rock Band ! The RAMONES did to the UK what the Beatles did to America.
HAWKWIND pioneers of everything !
Starcastle was US Prog
UK definitely for the win per capita. Maybe I'll do punk on my podcast or some Contrarians guys. By the same token, Pete could continue this with some genres I don't follow too well.
Styx first record was 1972 right? Aren't they considered mostly prog rock?
And we had the prog-adjacent Chicago before that.
What about Gibson and Fender guitars? Most of that great music from England was being played on these instruments.
And England goes down for the count! 😂🤘🇺🇸
And how many of the American bands used Marshalls? 😊
I understood „Martin, have you heard the new Carol King album?“ and was really confused for quite a while. Carol King did not play in Slayer, did she? Then I realized it must have been Kerry King. 😂
Tapestry of Blood!
I heard Carol King too. I thought well this is a sharp left turn in the conversation 😂
By the mid 80's the U.K. were too busy with The Cure, Depeche Mode and U2 and the rest of the New Wave scene to care about Metal, and frankly there hasn't been ANYTHING Metal coming from the U.K. since then. Maybe The Cult might be one of the few "newer" bands that made great "metal" albums, but they also moved to the U.S. to do so...
The rest of Europe, North America and even South America have produced great Metal bands since then, but not the U.K.
Great show.
Cheers.
The only Metal band in the UK to continue have success after the NWOBHM scene was done was Iron Maiden and maybe Def Leppard if you consider them a Metal band,
I guess it may depend on how you define "great" bands (getting radio airplay?) but the mid 80s to late 90s UK scene gave birth to bands like Bolt Thrower, Napalm Death, Carcass, Paradise Lost, Cathedral, My Dying Bride, among many others. All very important bands.
You're absolutely right! For a moment there I forgot about those great bands! I guess, maybe, they didn't become as big as the U.S. bands from the same time, but that doesn't mean they aren't as good or better. Love Lee Dorrian!@@MorryB
Interesting discussion but you have omitted the genres that were successful in the US, such as the West coast sound(Eagles, Grateful Dead, CSNY, Jefferson Airplane), Southern Rock(Lynyrd Skynyrd, Allman Brothers), Heartland Rock (Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, John Cougar , Bob Seger) plus the influence of Motown, Funk , Jazz, Country and singer/songwriters on the American musical landscape. At the end of the day making money is what the Recording Industry focuses on.
Guys...what about Dust 1971?...one of USA's first heavy rock band...only 2 albums...Marc Bell, Richie Wise, Kenny Aaronson...they cooked! Love Hard Attack from 1972! Learning to Die, Suicide, Pull Away/So Many Times are killer heavy rock!
Sir Lord Baltimore
Those Dust albums, while fun, are filled with lots of non-heavy songs, and they were really obscure at the time.
The only U.S band who had a NWOBHM vibe was The Rods
Very interesting disussion. I will say that it did not finish 3-3, UK won it 4-2, since they also won the "Hair Metal battle" by not actually competing in it. That's a definite win to me. 🙂
Pete, can you rank the albums of Amon Duul ll?
I would give Riot an honorary mention in the early 80s American version of what was going on in the NWOBHM. Manowar too possibly.
Punk bands like Discharge could be the UK answer to thrash metal.😀❤️
Jaguar hanoi rocks ..Martin🙏
Late to this but exc vid !!
I have trouble seeing things in terms of national scenes I guess. I mean for every example there's a counterexample. Maybe you guys are right about heavy metal in the early 80s for instance and for sure the British bands seemed to rule the time, but Manilla Road is still my favourite, and they existed in isolation. I tend to view music as very much a case-by-case thing, though obviously I do see how scenes develop especially when it comes to bands of a similar nature playing live together. It makes sense, but my favourite groups still tend to be the outlyers. To me, Riot is just as important as any NWOBHM band. But i love these episodes. I mean just last week with the "proto hair metal" show, I was yelling, "Oh c'mon, ther'es no way DOkken is better than Angel Witch!". It's all relative to our ears and brains I guess! haha
I wonder too if punk fashion and attitude influenced both NWOBHM and Los Angeles hair metal? Leather, spikes, colored hair definitely came from punk. In the UK, they were switching focus from heavy music to new wave & techno by the mid 80s.
I would consider the early Journey records ( Pre Steve Perry) to be very Prog.
The UK got NWOBHM, We got the THE bands. The Cars, The Knack and all the rest of New Wave.