Wow, even more stuff to check! Thanks a ton, man. This will take a little while to go through and digest, but that's super interesting. And as I said in the OP, don't hesitate to mention anything regardless of whether you think it's too obvious (or might not be heavy or relevant enough). We all have different bits of info and references, I'm sure, and some stuff obvious to you might be unknown to me and so on. Case in point: you say "the obvious stuff like Strawberry Alarm Clock's Incense and Peppermints" yet I've never heard of this band, let alone song. ^^
Mk II (Mark II) is just the way to specify the classic Deep Purple line-up which started in 1970, with Ian Gillan and Roger Glover. No other band I'm aware of ever did that, but Purple specifically have a whole nomenclature to identify each of their various line-ups over the decades. Deep Purple Mark II is the most relevant, successful and important I think in general and for this topic in particular, but Mk III or IV or whichever is the one with David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes who made "Buuuuuuurn" in 74 is well worth checking as well.
Well, before 1970, it was almost always just a song or two or a few at most. That's basically the big "finishing line" I'm referring to in what I describe as a "race" or a "quest" for heavy metal until actual full-blown, mostly cohesive albums started coming out in 70-71. Before that, no one was making it their main sound, even those who were hyped by some of the press at the time for being the "heaviest, loudest, wildest" ever, like The Who (insane as it may seem looking back now ^^). So for one of the most obvious examples (to me at least), The Beatles were obviously never even a really hard rock band, but they had many hard rock songs, psychedelic songs, and even a few really influential proto-metal songs, most notably "Helter Skelter" and the angrier and faster version of "Revolution" (both from 68), as well as "I Want You (She's so Heavy)", and parts of "Oh, Darling" (69). Hendrix was mostly chill but he (and his awesome original rhythm section) did play around with a number of ideas, sounds and ways to play that would have a significant influence as well (most notably on "Foxy Lady" for guitar work, "Highway Chile" for bass, "Fire" for drums, and "Purple Haze" for the whole package, basically). Led Zeppelin's first four (especially II and IV) definitely broke new grounds and established the new gold standard for hard rock from then on, while also contributing to proto-metal's development more directly (besides the production values and loud as hell for the time sound) arguably across their first three, with a few key songs like "Communication Breakdown", "How Many More Times", "Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You" (I), "Heartbreaker", "Bring it on Home" (II), and "Immigrant Song" (III). The first Stooges album made quite a mark for sound and aggressive, amateur-sounding approach in general, but nothing else on it compares to the ominous as fuck "I Wanna be Your Dog" from that. Stuff like High Tide's debut has loads of metal moments for 69, especially on the overlong yet somewhat mesmerizing instrumental "Death Warmed Up", although it was almost incidental to them and not what they were going for at all. And so on.
And yes, gear limitations, custom-made or otherwise modified guitars, amps etc. were a very big factor throughout the 60s. Hard rock arguably only really started being a thing beyond the punchier cuts of The Rolling Stones and others when and because Ray Davies of The Kinks started slashing parts of his amp cabinet with razor blades to get an unprecedented amount of distortion circa 64-65 and then unleashed riffs like "You Really Got Me" and "All Day And All of the Night" on the music world. Even The Beatles, as insanely popular, successful and rich as they were by the mid-60s, and willing to experiment along with George Martin, had to go through all kinds of workarounds to bypass or transcend studio limitations of their time. They started out when the norm was recording everything on 4-track tapes and in freaking mono. Every step of the way from there to what would eventually become the new norm by the late 60s and early 70s was an uphill battle, for them and even more so for less supported and wealthy bands. The first time they got to record in stereo was kind of like when 3D became a possibility for video games, including the initial "well, that's neat but how the fuck should we use this thing?" stage and all its trial and error (including tons of early stereo Beatles recordings that literally have the lead singer and say, guitars entirely on the left, drums bass and piano entirely on the right, and just some backing vocals daring to blur the line, which is awkward as hell looking back ^^). Bands jumped through hoops to get the privilege to record on 8-track for the first time, even when neither they nor the engineers really knew how to make use of all that extra space. Among many others, Tony Iommi was told by his endorsing brands multiple times that such and such type of strings, or necks, or amps he requested "couldn't be made", only to McGyver prototypes for himself and then eventually get the brands to make real versions.
That's equal parts baffling and inspiring, in retrospect. Especially in this day and age where there was never as many possible variations as readily and easily accessible for anything and everything, and yet most records sound the fucking same (and often too loud, too clinical and too well, "fake" in a way). Back then, you couldn't sound like X even if you were even aware of X, because you needed access to their weird-ass unique gear and record in the same bathroom with the same crazy microphone set-up for that. And you were too busy sounding unique just because of your own unique gear limitations yourself anyway. ^^
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Osore wrote: I would like to hear some recommendations of black metal bands/albums that sound depressive, yet sad and melancholic at the same time.
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