Quickie History: Robert Johnson is Proof That Metal (and Especially the Extreme Stuff) is Blues-Derived, Not Rock

6 thoughts on “Quickie History: Robert Johnson is Proof That Metal (and Especially the Extreme Stuff) is Blues-Derived, Not Rock”

1. Love this, and the flurry of shorts. Metal coming from blues (and rock from blues) makes sense, when I think about it. I respect Led Zeppelin, but can’t say I’m a fan. The fact remains that proto-metal bands such as them were heavily blues influenced. Metal taking off as its own genre made that influence less obvious on the surface; not like they were flat-out ripping off the blues like Zeppelin.

   1. Nah dude- Led Zepplin actually were a blues rock band, which basically meant hard rock. Rock was only a decade old when Zepplin formed, and it sounded like Little Richard. They weren’t ripping off shit- they were evolving it in the same way that Marilyn Manson iterated on Alice Cooper. I’m not trying to lecture you, but we’ve all started jumping to these extreme characterizations that are weirdly panic-induced or inducing, and it’s made rational discussion difficult. Musicians have borrowed from each other since the dawn of man- music only became a commodity in the last century, and that was at the beginning of the commoditization of something that previously was much more of a communal activity. In the past, you’d say it was borrowed or influenced by something, but now it’s a high crime of theft, haha. And all blues artists ripped each other off man- that is how blues worked before recording happened, and there weren’t a lot of black people with money for a recording studio in the early 20th century- sometimes playing that shit is the only way Led Zepplin could get people to hear their favorite songs, I’d guess.

      That all said, you know me- I meticulously cite shit and am not suggesting plagiarism is cool. I’m just saying that was a different era and it ain’t that deep 😀

      Fuckin psyched you’re loving the new shit! I’m trying to wrap up this kettlebell article by tomorrow for you guys- it’ll be a rad companion to the podcast episode.

2. I love responses like that. 🙂 Oh, and don’t get me wrong, my use of “ripping off” was loose, as I don’t disagree with what you said.

3. Extreme metal is mostly Classical and Jazz based. The vast majority of extreme metal bands do not use any blues based scales..

   1. I’m referring to the origins of it, not the technical song construction of modern extreme metal. The vocals and lyrics are from the same “evil” source as blues, and blues singers popularized growls and screams. Groove metal is heavily influenced by the pacing and tone of blues, as is numetal and numetalcore. Basically anything with a groove. The black metal comment was really just a play on words, as black metal is noise for shutins planning a spree killing rather than music 🤣. I’ll agree that grind bears little relation to its forebears beyond the vocals, but I’d say that’s no different than the fact that the French speak a romance language in spite of being an ostensibly Germanic nation by blood, or the fact that Colonial Americans all spoke like pirates- the fact I don’t sound like a pirate makes me no less American, you know?

4. People normally trace all metal to Black Sabbath, who obviously had a big blues influence but always said the lyric themes were from horror films. Would guess as far as the music goes Skip James is a bigger influence out of the delta guys, just basing that on the sound though.

   Why do you think believing a guy who’s pretty sure he was there when Johnson was poisoned makes you a conspiracy theorist?

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