Queen's Influence on heavy metal

[i]Read it somewhere that the album Queen is according to many critics the best heavy metal album of all time,don´t know if it is that much,but definitely Queen has a huge influence on the heavy metal we know today.[/i]

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[b]Saif wrote: [/b]

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[b]Micrówave wrote: [/b]



 

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[b]mike hunt wrote: [/b]



 



I started thinking about this after hearing an interview with rob halford claiming that priest along with sabbath were the first bands to play metal. Sabbath was obviously the first true metal band, but priest?...the first priest record in 1974 was a rock/blues album that had no impact on the metal world, it wasn't until 1976 that priest released their first real metal album. By that time Queen already had their share of heavy songs like orge battle, great king rat, and stone cold crazy which were some of the heaviest music of it's day. Makes me Question why Queen arn't mentioned more as an influence on metal music?....



 

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Because when Queen came out, Heavy Metal was already in full swing.

 



Jimi Hendrix's debut album, Are You Experienced (1967), was the first true Metal, I think. Purple Haze is identified by some as the first heavy metal hit.



In 1968, the sound that would become known as heavy metal began to coalesce. That January, the San Francisco band Blue Cheer released a cover of Eddie Cochran's classic "Summertime Blues," from their debut album Vincebus Eruptum, that many consider the first true heavy metal recording.  The same month, Steppenwolf released its self-titled debut album, including "Born to Be Wild," which refers to "heavy metal" in the lyrics.

[/QUOTE] I don't think any of the records you mentioned are metal at all. Hendrix and Steppenwolf were hard rock. Blue Cheer was IMO proto-punk/psychedelic rock. I know bands like Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin were considered metal by many in those days but even then there was a noticeable difference between their sound and that of a real metal band like Black Sabbath. Black Sabbath introduced the use of tritone, down-tuning, stuff like that...

 



 

[/QUOTE] And as much as I love Queen, I don't see how the influenced Iron Maiden. True, Queen is a huge influence on progressive metal and power metal and also some heavy metal and thrash bands, maybe even melodic death metal. But Iron Maiden never admitted to nor showed any influence of Queen in their music. The only thing remotely connected to Queen in their music is their use of the Keep Yourself Alive riff during early tours which they often played at the end(or was it the beginning?) of their song "Sanctuary"(it goes "give me sanctuary from the law"...something like that). I know Bruce Dickinson is a big Queen fan and he mentioned that he cried when he first heard Who Wants To Live Forever. He also recorded an operatic cover of Bohemian Rhapsody with Montserrat Caballe on one of his solo albums but keep in mind that most of Maiden's music is written by Steve Harris, who isn't probably as big a Queen fan as Bruce. So the influence is null at best. [/QUOTE] [/QUOTE]




maiden was influenced by Queen. Great king rat had that maiden style going before maiden even recorded a record.  Also, the phantom of the opera on the first record had to be redone because the producer thought it sounded to much like queen. halford also mentioned that he was influenced by queen2. If you listen to the priest album sad wings of destiny you'll hear that influence.

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[b]lalaalalaa wrote: [/b]

I think Stone Cold Crazy was a major influence on thrash.  I even consider it to be the first thrash song.[/QUOTE]




I don't know about the first thrash song, but it was pretty heavy for it's time. How about orge battle?....Queen were doing the halford style screams before halford was doing it. They should get more credit for that.  I think halford was definitely influenced by queen2 and the sceams on those early queen albums.

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[b]mike hunt wrote: [/b]

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[b]lalaalalaa wrote: [/b]



I think Stone Cold Crazy was a major influence on thrash.  I even consider it to be the first thrash song.

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I don't know about the first thrash song, but it was pretty heavy for it's time. How about orge battle?....Queen were doing the halford style screams before halford was doing it. They should get more credit for that.  I think halford was definitely influenced by queen2 and the sceams on those early queen albums.

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Well just listen to that riff and those drums.  It's at least proto-thrash.

yea, it did have that thrash feel.  Especially the riff. If only roger did the double bass drum.

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[b]mike hunt wrote: [/b]

yea, it did have that thrash feel.  Especially the riff. If only roger did the double bass drum.[/QUOTE]
Well, he can't come up with everything ;)

I'd rather say that Queen started pretty heavier than people think. At the tme it was a heavy rock band I think, since the terms have changed so much now. What then was heavy, now it's progressive rock. I really don't think Queen early stuff was "heavy" perse, it was pretty different from common rock ar the time. It all ends up in terms according to time. Back then it was heavy, but not heavy metal because it had armonies. Now if you listen it's hard rock. But it's fair to have called it heavy in that time.I agree that may have influenced some musicians that later were called heavy metal.

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[b]MmP wrote: [/b]

I'd rather say that Queen started pretty heavier than people think. At the tme it was a heavy rock band I think, since the terms have changed so much now. What then was heavy, now it's progressive rock. I really don't think Queen early stuff was "heavy" perse, it was pretty different from common rock ar the time. It all ends up in terms according to time. Back then it was heavy, but not heavy metal because it had armonies. Now if you listen it's hard rock. But it's fair to have called it heavy in that time.I agree that may have influenced some musicians that later were called heavy metal.[/QUOTE]

So you are saying it can't be heavy metal if it has harmonies?  I disagree.  I think you can have heavy metal with harmony.

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[b]lalaalalaa wrote: [/b]

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[b]MmP wrote: [/b]



I'd rather say that Queen started pretty heavier than people think. At the tme it was a heavy rock band I think, since the terms have changed so much now. What then was heavy, now it's progressive rock. I really don't think Queen early stuff was "heavy" perse, it was pretty different from common rock ar the time. It all ends up in terms according to time. Back then it was heavy, but not heavy metal because it had armonies. Now if you listen it's hard rock. But it's fair to have called it heavy in that time.I agree that may have influenced some musicians that later were called heavy metal.

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So you are saying it can't be heavy metal if it has harmonies?  I disagree.  I think you can have heavy metal with harmony.




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Nah, I meant that nowadays heavy metal (pure heavy metal, I think) It's not as melodic as Queen first years. That's why it has no comparison.

today we don't have a clean image about Havy metal.... havy metal change a lot sice it was created!

Queen showed since their beginning that it's okay for a 'hard rocking band' to play more than just one style.
While in the 70's other hard rock bands played only rock, blues and ballads. I don't think that metal bands were inspired by Queen to play metal, but I do believe it's mainly Freddie's achievement that metal/rock bands dare to bring some more variation, like harmonies, in their music.
It took bands like Metallica and Def Leppard many years to do that!

Btw. I saw a documentary about Queen in which Slash said how much they inspired them. He told the same in a documentary about Black Sabbath...and Aerosmith...

i think Queen can influency a lot of parts of the musics!!! Queen did each music with a diferent "style",, it means,, it's not just rock... you know???? so Queen can influence a lot of bands and styles!!!

How about [i]the Troggs[/i]- [i]Wild Thing[/i]... to me that is the definition of a heavy metal song.

Queen may have influenced metal to a degree, but in my opinion, it is a good thing that they didn't stick to a hard rock formula full stop. If they had, then like many of those early bands mentioned, their careers would have been very short lived, and there is every chance we would never have heard of them uless we were proper metal heads who looked for EVERYTHING ever released.







TYMD was the only real 'rock' tune that was or could be considered a 'hit' by Queen - even 7 seas was not THAT big a hit and is only on GH1 because it was the first 'successful' song.







Perhaps the segment in Bo Rhap is more influential than ANY of their album material - that bit gets EVERYONE going, and if they had stuck to just being hard rockers, Bo Rhap would probably not have ever been.











Edited just to add, that I STILL consider Queen's Stone Cold Crazy as the greatest rock song ever committed to tape :)