Heavy Metal and American History

Hey everybody, I have to do a school report on heavy metal for history class, and I need to link it to five points of time in American history. Anybody know some instances? I have the fact that many artists have used their music to challenge or support popular political and social ideas such as the Jimi Hendrix with the Viet Nam war, but anything else would be really appreciated. Thanks.

You could definitely link it to the whole Tipper Gore thing when they started putting labels on albums with "explicit lyrics." Dee Snider was sort of at the forefront of that whole thing.

Then there's the religious thing where they said there were hidden messages and people who listened to that kind of music were Satan worshippers.

If you count KISS as heavy metal, you could talk about the whole KISS-mania thing.

thanks guys

Originally Posted by: earthman buckYou could definitely link it to the whole Tipper Gore thing when they started putting labels on albums with "explicit lyrics." Dee Snider was sort of at the forefront of that whole thing.

Frank Zappa had a lot to do with that also......When he found out that his next album (back in the day, can't remember which album) had to have the explicit lyrics sticker put on it, he intentionally released an instrumental album. I believe that is the only instrumental album to ever have the explicit lyrics sticker on it without any lyrics being on the album.

You could talk about the term, "heavy metal" itself - it actually comes from a Beat Movement Novel, Naked Lunch by William Burroughs. Perhaps you could find a synopsis of the novel (or read it, if you've got the time!) and link the heavy metal thing to the significance of the Beat Movement. I recently did an assignment on Operation: Mindcrime by Queensryche, talking about how it was essentially a denunciation of the Conservative Protestant political and religious establishment in 1980s America. And, perhaps it's more of a sociological thing, but you could talk about how all the tribute merchandise that's come out since the death of Dimebag Darrell is indicative of pervasive commercialism in the arts in America, to the point where the alternative/underground music scene is exploited for its commercial value (could also refer to the nineties death metal boom for this).