Has the definition of ‘heavy’ changed?
Posted in Petulance on September 24th, 2009 by Alex
Heavy
Do you ever get those “did I miss something?” moments? Perhaps you were still under the impression that the word ‘gay’ still meant ‘happy’ until you announced you were ‘feeling gay’ to your mates that time.
I’ve been having a slowly unfolding “did I miss something?” moment with the word ‘heavy’ when applied to metal music. You see, the understanding that I had of this term, in my 25 years of listening to metal music, was that it referred to music that is fantastically loud and aggressive. So if you asked me to name a song that personified ‘heavy’ I’d probably say Battery by Metallica or anything by Napalm Death – super fast, aggressive blast beats, screaming, you know, stuff that makes your nose bleed when you listen to it. But more recently I’ve heard it applied to bands like Electric Wizard or Earth (the early stuff) – in fact, doom in general and specifically anything that sounds like Sabbath. Now, these bands are almost the antithesis of what I would have previously considered ‘heavy’. They are slow, frequently have no drums or screaming – they’re more likely to cause the onset arthritis than a nosebleed. Now, I can see why this could be termed ‘heavy’, this term may well actually be more appropriate for that sort of music, it’s just not what I thought it meant.
I’d actually convinced myself that I had it wrong all these years and begun training myself into using this other meaning of the term, until I recently I started reading the fabulous book on the roots of Grindcore and Death Metal Choosing Death by Albert Mudrian. Here’s a bunch of folks talking about a period when the pursuit of speed and aggression superseded just about any other artistic value, and they’re all attributing these sonic properties to ‘heaviness’. These guys clearly understand the term in the same way that I always have.
So what changed? When did the word ‘heavy’ go from meaning aggression to depression? I’m actally genuinely confused about this. Someone please help.
I think you’ve been hanging around with too many doom ‘erberts.
I understand your confusion about this issue. I’ve thought the same thing myself and in my humble opinion I think that “heavy” can be applied to both of these styles of music. On the one hand, speed and aggression are definitive indicators of heavy metal. Listening to this style gets the blood pumping fast, adrenaline rushing, and will cause those non-metal lovers who hear it to gasp at sheer rawness of this “music.” Whereas more doom-oriented music is heavy because of the sheer sonic weight it delivers. Electric Wizard, for example, is by no means fast or aggressive but those riffs are fueled by so much distortion and played with a slow, mesmerizing force that they actually feel heavy. It’s almost like a giant taking slow, lumbering steps towards the abyss..
Yeah, the conclusion I’m coming to is, as you say, it applies to both styles, and others too. If it feels heavy then it is heavy. In my mind that applies to other genres too, for example The Prodigy, particularly on Jilted Generation are very aggressive and in my mind ‘heavy’. Also some types of hip-hop.