Metal Evolution

If you are a fan of metal in any kind - YOU MUST SEE THIS. However, it is interesting for people that don't even like metal music. My sister is not a fan but, she's almost more into this show than I am. I love metal and I love the fact that this show explores all the different genres. I hate the fact that people that don't like metal think it's all just violence and anger. For some bands it is but, however, there are so many different forms of metal that some people would even be surprised to learn that certain bands are even considered metal. The cool thing about this show is that even if there is a band that I absolutely hate on it, it's equally as interesting and entertaining when there's a band I love. This is one the greatest shows on TV right now and I hope that it can open at least one person's eyes to what metal really is.

I first heard of "Metal Evolution" when creator, and narrator, Sam Dunn went on VH1's "That Metal Show" to talk about the series. As I am always interested to hear new music, especially older bands that I had overlooked, I tuned in and instantly got more than I bargained for. Dunn crafts the show so that you get a current view of a metal sub-genre along with it's past and it's influences. Often I would leave an episode with a list of 5-6 bands that I had never heard of (or never cared to listen to) and would immediately be happy as I worked through new set lists on Spotify.

Best of all, this show not only appealed to myself (self-professed metal head), but my wife who wants nothing to do with heavy metal music. While my wife won't be picking up any of the new bands from the show, she was interested in the evolution of the music and seeing how current metal music tied back to bands that she was already aware of. While there are some episodes that I particularly didn't care for (grunge / nu-metal) I still found the shows to be extremely interesting.

Metal Evolution is an 11 episode documentary that looks at the influence of Heavy Metal and chronologically how it changed stylistically to form the different genres, glam, power metal, death, trash etc. It starts with how heavy metal came to be in the 70s, what influenced the musicians to create this new form of music. Personally I found it rather generic as it can be argued that most if not all forms of modern music can directly draw its roots from classical, jazz or blues. From there it follows a chronological timeline from the 70s to the present day. Each episode ends with how the genre in that episode led to another genre. So each new episode is a new genre. The narrative includes the narrotors personal view of the music as well as interviews with musicians, magazine editors, music writers and even anthropologist. Some of the linkage IMO is rather far fetched, example is grunge being a genre of metal. Yes it can be argued that some grunge musicians listened metal and definitely grunge happened as a backlash to glam metal. But stylistically grunge is more a descendant of punk. (creed was totally disavowed by all...hahahaha). In summary an entertaining piece of work with a lot of information and personal perspective from the musicians involved.

For an old metalhead, this is an interesting show for people who liked the Headbangers Journey video. The disingenuousness shows up when you're reminded that Sam Dunn created his own "family tree" and is basically indulging himself with this show. He's practically begging the grunge bands to declare themselves "metal" and I'm sitting here going, who cares? LOL. I guess as an anthropologist Sam Dunn is naturally predisposed to dissect his obsessions like this, but he needs something else to do. A Rush-style biography of Scorpions or Sabbath would be good.

I thought the show was interesting and am sometimes shocked at how some of the performers, such as Metallica and Slayer, seem to be oh so very human during their interviews. The origins of metal, according to the show, developed during the Elvis Presley era. Which, I think is a bit far fetched. To me, the first heavy metal song was Helter Skelter by the Beatles. I also never considered bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam having anything to do with metal. I always considered them more on the lines of punk rock. I thought the documentary was well done. Bringing up bands like Blue Cheer was great, because I had always thought they never got their due. All in all, it's still Rock and Roll to me.