New wave of British heavy metal
The new wave of British heavy metal was a nationwide musical movement that started in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s and achieved international attention by the early 1980s. Journalist Geoff Barton coined the term in a May 1979 issue of the British music newspaper Sounds to describe the emergence of new heavy metal bands in the mid to late 1970s, during the period of punk rock's decline and the dominance of new wave music. Although encompassing diverse mainstream and underground styles, the music of the NWOBHM is best remembered for drawing on the heavy metal of the 1970s and infusing it with the intensity of punk rock to produce fast and aggressive songs; the DIY attitude of the new metal bands led to the spread of raw-sounding, self-produced recordings and a proliferation of independent record labels. Song lyrics were about escapist themes such as mythology, fantasy and the rock lifestyle; the NWOBHM began as an underground phenomenon growing in parallel to punk and ignored by the media.
It was only through the promotion of rock DJ Neal Kay and Sounds' campaigning that it reached the public consciousness and gained radio airplay and success in the UK. The movement involved young, white and working-class musicians and fans, who suffered the hardships brought on by rising unemployment for years after the 1973–75 recession; as a reaction to their bleak reality, they created a community separate from mainstream society to enjoy each other's company and their favourite loud music. The NWOBHM was criticised for the excessive hype generated by local media in favour of talentless musicians. Nonetheless, it generated a renewal in the genre of heavy metal music and furthered the progress of the heavy metal subculture, whose updated behavioural and visual codes were adopted by metal fans worldwide after the spread of the music to continental Europe, North America and Japan; the movement spawned a thousand heavy metal bands, but only a few survived the advent of MTV and the rise of the more commercial glam metal in the second half of the 1980s.
Among them, Iron Maiden and Def Leppard became international stars, Motörhead and Saxon had considerable success. Other groups, such as Diamond Head and Raven, remained underground, but were a major influence on the successful extreme metal subgenres of the late 1980s and 1990s. Many bands from the NWOBHM reunited in the 2000s and remained active through live performances and new studio albums. In the second half of the 1970s, the United Kingdom was in a state of social unrest and widespread poverty as a result of the ineffective social politics of both Conservative and Labour Party governments during a three-year period of economic recession; as a consequence of deindustrialization, the unemployment rate was exceptionally high among working class youth. It continued to rise in the early 1980s, peaking in February 1983; the discontent of so many people caused social unrest with frequent strikes, culminated in a series of riots. During this period, the mass of young people, deprived of the prospect of relatively low-skill jobs that were available to the previous generations, searched for different ways to earn money in the music and entertainment businesses.
The explosion of new bands and new musical styles coming from the UK in the late 1970s was a result of their efforts to make a living in the economic depression that hit the country before the governments of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The desperation and the violent reaction of a generation robbed of a safe future are well-represented by the British punk movement of 1977–1978, whose rebellion against the establishment continued diluted in the new wave and post-punk music of the 1980s; these self-proclaimed punks were politically militant, relishing their anarchic attitude and stage practices like pogo dancing. They wore short and spiked hairstyles or shaved heads with safety pins and ripped clothes, considered musical prowess unimportant as long as the music was simple and loud. However, not all working-class male youths embraced the punk movement; the UK was a cradle of the first wave of heavy metal, born at the end of the 1960s and flowered in the early 1970s. Of the many British bands that came to prominence during that period, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple achieved worldwide success and critical acclaim.
The success of the music genre called heavy rock at the time, generated a community of UK fans with strong ties to psychedelia, hippie doctrines and biker subculture. Each of these bands was in crisis in the mid-to-late 1970s: Led Zeppelin were plagued by discord and personal tragedies and had drastically reduced their activities, Black Sabbath fired their charismatic but unreliable frontman Ozzy Osbourne, Deep Purple disbanded; as a consequence, the whole movement lost much of its momentum and media interest, which were refocused on what British writer Malc Macmillan calls "the more fashionable or lucrative markets of the day" such as disco, mod revival, new wave and electronic music. Just like progressive rock acts and other mainstream music groups of the 1970s, heavy rock bands were viewed as – in the words of journalist Garry Bushell – "lumbering dinosaurs" by a music press infatuated with punk rock and new wave; some writers declared the premature demise of heavy metal altogether. The crisis of British heavy rock giants left space for the rise of other rock bands in the mid-1970s, including Queen, Budgie, Bad Company, Status Qu
7 Sinners
7 Sinners is the 13th studio album by German power metal band Helloween, released in 2010. A video clip for "Are You Metal?" was released 11 October 2010. The whole album could be heard on Myspace a week before the physical release. For the first time since 2000's The Dark Ride, each song on the album is a solo composition, i.e. each member has written both the music and lyrics to his song with no additional input from any other member. 7 Sinners sold 1,900 copies in its first week of release in the U. S. Commenting on the album, bassist Markus Grosskopf said: Andi Deris – Vocals Michael Weikath – Guitar Sascha Gerstner – Guitar, backing vocals Markus Grosskopf – Bass Dani Löble – DrumsAdditional personnel: Matthias Ulmer – Keyboards Eddy Wrapiprou – Keyboards Eberhard Hahn – Flute solo on "Raise the Noise" William "Billy" King and Olaf Senkbeil – Choirs Ron Deris – Additional backing vocals on "Far in the Future" Biff Byford – Spoken prologue to'Who is Mr. Madman?' Voiced the intro on their last studio album Gambling with the Devil.
Marcos Moura – Pumpkins Illustrations
Musician
A musician is a person who plays a musical instrument or is musically talented. Anyone who composes, conducts, or performs music is referred to as a musician. A musician who plays a musical instrument is known as an instrumentalist. Musicians can specialize in any musical style, some musicians play in a variety of different styles depending on cultures and background. Examples of a musician's possible skills include performing, singing, producing, composing and the orchestration of music. In the Middle Ages, instrumental musicians performed with soft ensembles inside and loud instruments outdoors. Many European musicians of this time catered to the Roman Catholic Church, they provided arrangements structured around Gregorian chant structure and Masses from church texts. Notable musicians Phillipe de Vitry Guillaume Dufay Guillaume de Machaut Hildegard of Bingen John Jenkins Beatritz de Dia Tyagaraja Purandara Dasa Bhimsen Joshi Bismillah Khan A. R. RAHMAN Renaissance musicians produced music that could be played during masses in churches and important chapels.
Vocal pieces were in Latin—the language of church texts of the time—and were Church-polyphonic or "made up of several simultaneous melodies." By the end of the 16th century, patronage split among many areas: the Catholic Church, Protestant churches, royal courts, wealthy amateurs, music printing—all provided income sources for composers. Notable musicians Giovanni Palestrina Giovanni Gabrieli Thomas Tallis Claudio Monteverdi Leonardo da Vinci The Baroque period introduced heavy use of counterpoint and basso continuo characteristics. Vocal and instrumental "color" became more important compared with the Renaissance style of music, emphasized much of the volume and pace of each piece. Notable musicians George Frideric Handel Johann Sebastian Bach Antonio Vivaldi Classical music was created by musicians who lived during a time of a rising middle class. Many middle-class inhabitants of France at the time lived under long-time absolute monarchies; because of this, much of the music was performed in environments that were more constrained compared with the flourishing times of the Renaissance and Baroque eras.
Notable musicians Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Joseph Haydn Ludwig Van Beethoven The foundation of Romantic period music coincides with what is called the age of revolutions, an age of upheavals in political, economic and military traditions. This age included the initial transformations of the Industrial Revolution. A revolutionary energy was at the core of Romanticism, which quite consciously set out to transform not only the theory and practice of poetry and art, but the common perception of the world; some major Romantic Period precepts survive, still affect modern culture. Notable musicians Ludwig van Beethoven Frédéric Chopin Franz Schubert Niccolò Paganini Franz Liszt Charles-Valentin Alkan Richard Wagner Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Johannes Brahms Johann Strauss II The world transitioned from 19th-century Romanticism to 20th century Modernism, bringing major musical changes. In 20th-century music and musicians rejected the emotion-dominated Romantic period, strove to represent the world the way they perceived it.
Musicians wrote to be"... objective. While past eras concentrated on spirituality, this new period placed emphasis on physicality and things that were concrete."The advent of audio recording and mass media in the 20th century caused a boom of all kinds of music—pop, dance, folk and all forms of classical music. Musicians can experience a number of health problems related to the practice and performance of music; these can include tinnitus and noise-induced hearing loss, which occurs and over a long period of time, most musicians do not seek help until they start to experience secondary symptoms such as tinnitus, distortion of sounds and hyperacusis. In addition, musicians are at increased risk for both musculoskeletal and vocal health problems when producing high sound levels on musical instruments. Increased biomechanical demands, whether at the hands, embouchure, or vocal cords, elevates the risks for occupational health problems like tendonitis, carpal tunnel, rupture of facial muscles, vocal cord malfunction.
Singer Composer Tour manager Musicians' or'Hi-Fi' earplugs Media related to Musicians at Wikimedia Commons
Graham Oliver
Graham Oliver is an English guitarist, born in Mexborough, South Yorkshire. He was a founder member and main songwriter in the heavy metal band Saxon from 1976 to 1995. Oliver was a budding guitarist while working in a factory in the mid-1970s, but gave up after losing the tip of his index finger in an accident with a door, sold his prized 1962/63 Fender Stratocaster, he was, encouraged by future bandmate Paul Quinn to learn to play again. Oliver was a member of the band Son of a Bitch, formed in 1975, along with future Saxon bassist Steve Dawson, Steve Firth on vocals and drummers David Bradley, John Hart and John Walker; the band merged with another local band to become Saxon, with whom Oliver played from 1976 to 1995, acting as the band's main songwriter as well as guitarist during a period in which the band had five top 20 albums in the UK. After leaving Saxon in 1995, he reformed his old band Son of a Bitch with former Saxon bassist Steve Dawson and drummer Pete Gill. Son of a Bitch released.
Bullet and Gill left the band after the release of the album. They were replaced by the vocalist John Ward, another former member of Saxon, Nigel Durham on drums. In 1999, Oliver and Dawson trademarked the name'Saxon', claiming they had exclusive rights to it, attempted to stop Saxon singer Biff Byford from using the name; the trademark claim was overturned after it was ruled to be in bad faith, setting a legal precedent for ownership of a band name. Oliver and Dawson changed the name of the band to Oliver/Dawson Saxon, undertook a British tour with Ronnie James Dio. Graham duetted with Doug Aldrich on "Rainbow in the Dark" on the last gig at Plymouth. Oliver has released the solo album End of an Era in 2001. Five of the tracks were written and performed by the rock indie band Bullrush, with whom Graham Oliver's son Paul played drums, along Steve Tudberry and Scott Howitt. Appearing on the album were Pete Gill, Steve Dawson, Kev Moore, Paul Johnson, Phil Hendriks, Richard Spencer and Chris Archer.
Since 2002, Oliver has played with former Marc Bolan session musician Paul Fenton, touring under the banner "Mickey Finn's T-Rex" and "T. Rex"; this opportunity materialised after Oliver played "Get It On" with Rolan Bolan at a show in Bradford. Oliver suffered a stroke in January 2010. In 2011, Oliver joined pupils at Mexborough School in their production of the Ben Elton musical We Will Rock You. In 2012 guitar manufacturer "Vintage" collaborated with Graham to produce two signature guitars based on his famous Gibson SG and Flying-V guitars. The'SG' model Vintage VS6GO and the'V' model Vintage V60GO. Oliver and Steve Dawson wrote the book Saxon Drugs and Rock and Roll - The Real Spinal Tap, published by Tomahawk Press in 2012, with a foreword by Harry Shearer; as of 2017, Oliver was still playing in Oliver/Dawson Saxon. He is an authority on Yorkshire ceramics. Studio albums Saxon Wheels of Steel Strong Arm of the Law Denim and Leather Power & the Glory Crusader Innocence Is No Excuse Rock the Nations Destiny Solid Ball of Rock Forever Free Dogs of WarLive albums The Eagle Has Landed Rock'n' Roll Gypsies Greatest Hits Live!
BBC Sessions Live at Buxted Lodge 1980 Victim You Re://Landed It's Alive The Second Wave: 25 Years of NWOBHM Motorbiker End of an Era Graham has made a handful of guest appearances with Barnsley comedy band The Bar-Steward Sons of Val Doonican Strong Arm Of The Law Jump Ararnd The Devil Went Darn To Barnsley Crosstarn Traffic Wheels Of Steel Official website
Innocence Is No Excuse
Innocence Is No Excuse is the seventh studio album by heavy metal band Saxon released in 1985. It was the group's first album for EMI after a falling-out with their previous label, Carrere Records, their last with original bassist Steve Dawson; the song "Everybody Up" was used in Demoni. The album was given a positive review by Eduardo Rivadavia of AllMusic, who awarded it four out of five stars. Although he commented in his review for the band's previous album Crusader that this album "would only lead to greater extremes of personality disorder and leave the group's fan base confused and utterly divided", he praised it for being "their strongest collective set of songs since 1981's Denim and Leather" although acknowledged that some of the songs "rubbed many fans the wrong way", he singled out the songs "Back On the Streets", "Rock'n' Roll Gypsy" and "Broken Heroes" for praise, the latter of which he described as an "excellent ballad". He pondered the question of what price the album had to the band's "street-level credibility" and said that "The answer will never be agreed upon".
Martin Popoff, author of The Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal, reviewed negatively the album which represents for Saxon the return "full-steam to the bastions of metal, without an idea in their dust-clouded heads", as shown in the clichéd titles and in the "old age ineptness on this rule-book headbanging fare." "The Medley" consists of "Heavy Metal Thunder", "Stand Up and Be Counted", "Taking Your Chances" and "Warrior." Biff Byford - vocals Graham Oliver - guitar Paul Quinn - guitar Steve Dawson - bass guitar Nigel Glockler - drumsProductionSimon Hanhart - producer Simon Hanhart - recording engineer Union Studios, Germany - recording location Simon Hanhart - mixing Saxon - mixing Wisseloord Studios, Netherlands - mixing location Album
Denim and Leather
Denim and Leather is the fourth studio album by English heavy metal band Saxon released in 1981. The album was certified Gold status in the U. K; this was the last album with the classic line up of Saxon, as drummer Pete Gill would leave the band due to a hand injury joining Motörhead. The album spawned two of their most successful singles, "And the Bands Played On" and "Princess of the Night". There are nine songs on this album. "Princess of the Night" is a song about a powerful steam locomotive and "And the Bands Played On" is about 1980 Monsters of Rock Festival - name checking several of the other acts on the bill including Rainbow and Touch. Other themes for the songs include: partying, the spirit of the music, and, like many of their songs, motorcycles. "Midnight Rider" is a song about Saxon's 1980 North American tour. The name of the album and song was inspired by the popular attire of metalheads in the early 1980s, defined by either denim jeans and jackets or a leather biker jacket; the song is seen as a tribute from the band to their fans while describing the history of the sub-culture and the rise of the new wave of British heavy metal.
The album peaked at #9 in the UK Albums Chart. The album is regarded as a classic in the band's discography, has been received positively by critics and fans. Eduardo Rivadavia of AllMusic called the opening track "Princess of the Night" an "infectiously anthemic opening statement", whilst praising the title track for being an "unqualified classic", he considered "Out of Control" and "Rough and Ready" to be strong tracks, whilst regarding "Fire in the Sky", "Midnight Rider", "And The Bands Played On" as "spectacular". Canadian journalist Martin Popoff had mixed feelings about Denim and Leather, which he considered "Saxon's stadium rock album... boppier and sillier than Wheels of Steel, but still catchy", denouncing "the band's progressively feeble song skills while gaining points for conviction." All tracks written by Saxon. Bonus tracks 12-18 recorded live on the Denim and Leather Tour, 1981. Biff Byford - vocals Graham Oliver - guitar Paul Quinn - guitar Steve Dawson - bass guitar Pete Gill - drumsProductionNigel Thomas - producer Andy Lydon - engineer Aquarius Studios, Geneva - recording location Polar Studios, Stockholm - additional recording location, mixing location
Saxon discography
The following is a comprehensive discography of Saxon, an English heavy metal band. The Eagle Has Landed - #5 UK, Certified as Silver by BPI) Rock'n' Roll Gypsies Greatest Hits Live The Eagle Has Landed – Part II Donnington: The Live Tracks BBC Sessions / Live at Reading Festival'86 The Eagle Has Landed – Part III Heavy Metal Thunder - Live: Eagles Over Wacken St. George’s Day Sacrifice: - Live in Manchester Let Me Feel Your Power The Vinyl Hoard Strong Arm Metal Anthology Back on the Streets The Best of Saxon A Collection of Metal Burrn! Presents: The Best of Saxon Diamonds and Nuggets Masters of Rock: Saxon Heavy Metal Thunder Coming to the Rescue The Very Best of Saxon The Best of Saxon Saxon - The Carrere Years Saxon - The EMI Years Unplugged and Strung Up Baptism in Fire – The Collection 1991-2009 Live Live Innocence! Greatest Hits Live! Power & the Glory - Video Anthology The Saxon Chronicles Live Innocence – The Power & the Glory To Hell and Back Again Saxon: Heavy Metal Thunder - Live Heavy Metal Thunder - Live: Eagles Over Wacken Warriors of the Road - The Saxon Chronicles Part II The Saxon Chronicles Let Me Feel Your Power "Big Teaser" b/w "Stallions of the Highway" "Backs to the Wall" b/w "Militia Guard" "Wheels of Steel" b/w "Stand Up and Be Counted" - #20 "747" b/w "See The Light Shining" - #13 "Big Teaser" b/w "Rainbow Theme" / "Frozen Rainbow" - #66 "Backs to the Wall" b/w "Militia Guard" - #64 "Suzie Hold On" b/w "Judgement Day" "Strong Arm of the Law" b/w "Taking Your Chances" - #63 "And the Bands Played On" b/w "Hungry Years" / "Heavy Metal Thunder" - #12 "Never Surrender" b/w "20,000 Ft." - #18 "Princess of the Night" b/w "Fire in the Sky" - #57 "Power and the Glory" b/w "See the Lightning Shine" - #32 "Nightmare" b/w "Midas Touch" - #50 "Sailing to America" b/w "A Little Bit of What You Fancy" - #81 "Do It All For You" b/w "Just Let Me Rock" "Back on the Streets" b/w "Live Fast Die Young" - #75 "Rock'n' Roll Gypsy" b/w "Krakatoa" - #71 "Waiting for the Night" b/w "Chase the Fade" - #66 "Rock the Nations" b/w "747" - #80 "Northern Lady" b/w "Everybody Up" - #91 "Ride Like the Wind" b/w "Red Alert" - #52 "I Can't Wait Anymore" b/w "Broken Heroes" - #71 "We Will Remember" b/w "Alter of the Gods" Saxon did not have any US Top 40 hits
