Crossover
I've been reading Metal Mark's countdown of the best metal albums of 1986 lately and it has me thinking about crossover. During the mid 80s, speed metal was the result of hardcore's influence on a group of young metal bands looking for something new on one side and young hardcore bands looking to tighten up their sound on the other. Bands like Metallica and Slayer and Anthrax had more in common with hardcore than they did with more traditional metal just like Agnostic Front or DRI had more in common with metal than with the Pistols or the Clash. So it was an interesting time as 7 Seconds pleaded with us to "Walk Together, Rock Together," it was already happening.
But there's another crossover that seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle a bit. Other punk bands started incorporating more metal influences, albeit not in the play-as-fast-as-we-can meeting of the minds that occured with speed metal and hardcore. A lot of this other crossover centered in the SST Records catalog with a few related bands thrown in. Black Flag had slowed their pace down and turned up the riffage as early as My War, but by Loose Nut, the 70s hard rock/heavy metal influence was abundantly clear. The Circle Jerks followed suit with a pair of metalic offerings in Wonderful and VI. These were still punk records in both spirit and execution, but influence of metal is clearer as they slowed things down. There were also a slew of lesser bands dabbling in this slower, looser metal crossover. DC3, Overkill (not to be confused with the better-known speed metal band), SWA and others all exhibited similar influences and put out records that shouldn't have been forgotten as they were.
But there's another crossover that seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle a bit. Other punk bands started incorporating more metal influences, albeit not in the play-as-fast-as-we-can meeting of the minds that occured with speed metal and hardcore. A lot of this other crossover centered in the SST Records catalog with a few related bands thrown in. Black Flag had slowed their pace down and turned up the riffage as early as My War, but by Loose Nut, the 70s hard rock/heavy metal influence was abundantly clear. The Circle Jerks followed suit with a pair of metalic offerings in Wonderful and VI. These were still punk records in both spirit and execution, but influence of metal is clearer as they slowed things down. There were also a slew of lesser bands dabbling in this slower, looser metal crossover. DC3, Overkill (not to be confused with the better-known speed metal band), SWA and others all exhibited similar influences and put out records that shouldn't have been forgotten as they were.
posted by bob_vinyl at 7:35 AM
6 Comments:
It was just really different then. I mean speed metal and hardcore were starting to be enjoyed by each others fans. However the bands you mentioned were just not as interchangeable. Fans of Black Flag were typicly might have admitted to liking Black Sabbath, but probably would wear the shirts or really openly admit to liking a metal band. Same with a typical Ozzy, Dio or Iron Maiden fan in the mid-80's wasn't going to be thrilled about punk rock. Too many barriers laid down by pre-conceived notions more than differences in the music. Still there conncetions like you mentioned. Metallica wore GBH and Misfit shirts and bands like the Exploited wore Motorhead shirts. The Cro-mags toured with Motorhead and Agnostic Front toured with Slayer in 1986.
The barriers were weird themn. When I was about 14 and discovered punk, I thought I had to put away all of my metal albums for good. It was a year or so later that I realized they could coexist. I remember Rip magazine really catered to the crossover between hardcore and speed metal. It touched on some regular punk bands like Black Flag, but not really pointing to how they crossed over a bit into metal. It was more just expanding the horizons of the readers to see that punk and metal had some things in common in the 80s. I think metal became leaner with speed metal (getting away from bloated arena rock of the 70s) and punk bands were actually getting better technically (which the first generation of punk seemed to reject).
this is one of my favorite topics to discuss in metal and punk...I think SOD is one of the barrier-breakers, because it was Mike Reed who gave Mark a copy to listen to and then me, and somewhere afterwards, we punks and metalheads started getting along, which is what I'd been plying for with some of the other punks we knew in high school
Obviously with DRI and Suicidal going crossover, you have Cryptic Slaughter following suit, and so bands like Broken Bones, Znowhite and the Mags doing likewise...even the Bad Brains metalled up a little on Quickness. I thought it was a somewhat glorious, if confusing time in underground music. I mean, Nuclear Assault and Megadeth caught on with the punks and GBH, Exploited, Black Flag, Misfits Dead Kennedys, All, all of them became endearments to metalheads.
This is the way I envisioned the scene to be if everyone would get their heads out of their asses and realize we were all outcasts listening to "Fuck You" music
Actually it wasn't Mike Reed. It was a guy named Jim from vo-tech. the same guy I heard Reign in blood, Among the living and Darkness Descends from. I think that it was only a small portion of metal fans that took to punk stuff and vice versa.
It's just a shame that very few bands that were good at crossover stayed that way for long. COC were very cool around 86-87, but then they switched styles completely and weren't speed metal or hardcore. DRI were cool around the same time, but then went to being like generic speed metal. AGnostice Front were good then, after Cause for alarm they were just okay. Suicidal Tendencies got more popular, but pretty much stunk after the debut.
Znowhite? They were like the third biggest metal band out of Chicago in the 80's. That puts them behind trouble and Zoetrope so there may have only three.
Wow, Mark and I agree about COC, DRI, AF and Suicidal!
Actually, I pretty much agree with all of that as well. I think ST was good as a thrash band through the Feel Like shit EP and then afterwards they just really lost it. AF today is no different than their followers so I'm actually quite bored of them. Madball's a different story.
I stand corrected on the Mike Reed thing.
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