Dunn has punk and hardcore on the tree. I don't think it's too much to say he should've been allowed to do episodes on them.
Sure, prog rock was a natural precursor to prog metal, but it also gave rise to those who were bored out of their t!ts by long winding songs and noodly technical wizardry. Punk was more immediate, fueled with aggression on par, if not greater than metal, and it was music that could be played almost solely on emotion rather than skill.
Face time was given to MC5 and Iggy & the Stooges. But rather than using them to simply talk about the Detroit scene, why not talk about the style they influenced most? Punk would have been the next logical step!
Punk was an influence on hardcore, thrash and grunge. Hardcore was an influence on thrash, metalcore and black metal. For a couple examples, the Nu-Metal episode talked about Jonathan Davis's vocal style... without a single mention of Mike Muir and Suicidal Tendencies. ST was a direct link between punk, hardcore and thrash. The grunge episode had a one-off comment mentioning how Black Flag came through Seattle, influencing that movement, with a short amount of Three Night played in the background. But that was it. They deserved more coverage than that.
And I know early metal had 2 episodes, US & UK, but I still would have like to have seen it expanded more, giving time to Blue Oyster Cult, Uriah Heep, and (in what I realize is a repeat from another thread) the most glaringly neglected band in the genre, AC/DC.
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Trillianne
12 years ago
I was surprised by the prog rock episode. I thought the whole point about prog rock was that they ruined everything and punk and heavy metal/NWBHM had to save the day. I can see how punk influenced metal, but prog?
Where would AC/DC be on the tree? Maybe they sort of stand on their own? Which isn't a good reason for leaving them out, btw.
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yngvai
12 years ago
I saw prog rock as showing how a song didn’t have to be straight ahead verse/chorus, but could ramble off in a zillion different dimensions if the band wanted it. It was music for practiced musicians who could change time signatures, and go off on lengthy passages that could have nothing to do with how the song began (or ended).
Prog bored lots of people and fueled the rise of punk, which was something completely neglected by this series. But the prog episode also showed how prog influenced metal musicians, who went on to incorporate those elements into a harder style of music. The interviews of that episode demonstrated the influence that bands like Genesis, Yes, and King Crimson had on metal.
As for AC/DC, at imagens. ailhadometal.com/2012/02/definitive-metal-family-tree.png there’s an older version of the tree with a branch called “Original Hard Rock” with bands Thin Lizzy, Blue Oyster Cult, Aerosmith, AC/DC, and Ted Nugent. There was also “Early Metal” before Dunn broke it out to “Early Metal UK” and “Early Metal US”. I think that since Dunn chose to split it between US and UK, there was no place for an Australian band, regardless of the fact that Back in Black is STILL in the top 10 best selling albums of all time worldwide.
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