Heavy metal was born of two ideas, the proto-metal of Black Sabbath and the esoteric Celtic hard rock of Led Zeppelin, which were fused into an orthodoxy by bands in the middle 1970s to form a discernibly different style. Musically, heavy metal is distinguished by its almost exclusive use of the fifth with added second power chord, and is known by millions as that loud, distorted angst and anger blaring from the stereo next door. Heavy metal bands were more musically educated than their punk counterparts, and from the desire for extremes came experimentation with a range of scales and techniques. What made this music different from rock was its emphasis on "heavy": not only did it use the three lowest strings of the guitar for its chords, but it had a tendency to string them together in rapid succession, battering the listener. In addition, topics in heavy metal were broader than those in rock, and included not only existential questions but discussion of occultism that pointed toward a Nietzschean critique of Judeo-Christian morality and social values. Bands often displayed crosses, inverted or otherwise, and other controversial symbols (including, in the case of Motorhead, the German Iron Cross, generally considered taboo for its associations with the Third Reich). Although it was unsociable music, being loud and more aggressive than what most people would tolerate, it became popular with a wide range of alienated youth and working people who increasingly saw social and political order failing around them; this was dramatic contrast to the 1960s prog and flower rock that dominated the radio. Where most people were trying to concot a futuristic posivity, heavy metal was like a primal slab of reality, carnivorous and tribal. Its excesses in the late 1970s and early 1980s killed its creative spirit, leaving behind silly people with big hair playing shrill radio hits disguised as rebelleion. In the 1990s, heavy metal experienced a rebirth with "doom metal," a genre that played very slowly to induce a sense of dread, or perhaps tedium. This was the last shriek of the genre before being absorbed into a speed metal hybrid, "power metal," and of course, the rap-pop-industrial hybrid of "nu-metal" (ick). Still, heavy metal remains enigmatic, because despite its membership in the rock family of genres, it retains an outsider perspective, both in content and musicality.

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