8. Flight of the Riff: Distinguishing Hard Rock and Metal in the Seminal Styles of Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Uriah Heep, and Black Sabbath
Who Do We Think They Are? - Deep Purple and Metal Studies - Andy R. Brown
Dietmar Elflein [+]
Technical University Braunschweig
Description
In Chapter 8, Dietmar Elflein compares and contrasts Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep and Led Zeppelin, as key bands in the evolution of heavy metal. This is done as part of a critique of those writers who have attempted to differentiate hard rock and heavy metal, in viewing Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple as ‘hard rock’ and Black Sabbath as ‘heavy metal,’ without providing satisfactory musicological criteria. For Elflein (2016), Black Sabbath's status as the first bona fide metal band is derived from a musicological analysis of their song structures that are shown to exhibit a sequencing of riffs, rather than a verse/chorus pattern. Following on from this, Elflien seeks to explore how the song structures of Deep Purple Mk2 differ from their contemporaries Black Sabbath, as well as the other competitors for the title ‘first heavy metal band,’ Led Zeppelin and Uriah Heep. He also considers whether the multiple line-up changes of Deep Purple, from MK1 onwards affect their song structures. The crucial overriding issue here is whether Deep Purple make use of a compositional model that is independent of their frequent line-up changes or not. For this purpose, all Deep Purple studio albums of the line-ups Mk1 to Mk9, as well as selected albums from later line-ups are analyzed. In the case of the competitor bands, Led Zeppelin and Uriah Heep, albums released parallel to that of the Mk2 Purple band are analyzed. The analysis of Black Sabbath focuses on the first five albums with Ozzy Osbourne as a singer compared with the albums where Ronnie James Dio is the singer. To complete the picture, the albums by Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow with Ronnie James Dio, are also integrated into the analysis.