Heavy Metal Britannia

Any metalheads in the audience? Oh there you are. Check out this wonderful BBC4 documentary on the rise (and fall?) of British Heavy Metal music, which aired on March 5th, 2010. Part One:

Continued: 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9

Now pardon me as I’m off to run to the hills in a slightly paranoid fashion, you sweet child in time you.

7 thoughts on “Heavy Metal Britannia”

  2. Interesting, if somewhat narrow in scope. Perhaps they should have titled it: “Very Hard Britannia”. Heavy metal enthusiasts might also want to check out “Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey”:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_wZLp8wDjM&feature=related

    Myself, I have always been drawn to the heavy guitar sounds laid down by The Allman Brothers Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Outlaws, Black Oak Arkansas, Molly Hatchet, and more recently in the last couple decades, Raging Slab, Black Crowes, Gov’t Mule, Drive-By Truckers and Kings of Leon.

    Listening to these Brits, you’d get the idea that they somehow invented the hard rock sound. Boys, there be industrial factories all over this world. That pounding industrial beat no more emerged from Northern England than it did from Detriot with MC5. What I will acknowledge, though, is their emergence as a distinct brand of music in the UK (such as British Blues)

  3. In their own minds, these old farts probably reckon they did invent it. But ‘their own minds’ is another story! What I like about these documentaries is seeing how these chaps have aged – some better than others. Ian Gillan looks almost normal and reasonably healthy whereas Edgar Broughton looks like the kind of guy you don’t want to sit next to on the bus…
    I too am considerably fatter and more bald than I was in those days!

  5. Do any of you gents at KUR happen to have the entire Heavy Metal Britannia broadcast on DVD? I’d love to get a copy of it. Those BBC4 documentaries are usually excellent, and this looks like another good one.

  6. [quote comment=”12850″]Do any of you gents at KUR happen to have the entire Heavy Metal Britannia broadcast on DVD?[/quote]
    I think I speak for all of us at KUR here: “no, I don’t.”
    You might want to look into how one can download YouTube videos though…

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