Re: Daily Song: Hallowed Be Thy Name
10/10. How could it possibly be anything else?
Let's take a look at the historical perspective. In rock and popular music, it usually takes about 10 to 15 years for a new genre to fully emerge and mature. Consider these examples:
1. Rock and roll. By which I mean the
original rock and roll, which eventually developed into mainstream rock music. Summer 1955: "Rock Around The Clock" is the first rock and roll #1 single. Within a year, Elvis has broken big and rock and roll is the new style. But rock didn't fully mature until the psychedelic revolution of the late 1960s. That long experimental period was needed to explore the sonic possibilities of rock.
2. Rap. Started in the mid-70s in the Bronx. Reached the mainstream with Run-DMC in 1985 (only a few sporadic hits before that). But rap's formative period - that time usually called "old school" - didn't really end until the late 80s, when Public Enemy and NWA changed the game completely.
Now, what about metal? The starting point is always an argument starter, but we can agree on this much: it started no later than Feb 13, 1970 - the day
Black Sabbath was released. And we can see the same pattern: for about a decade, a few giants lead the way. Then a time of fertile experimentation begins; in metal, we call it NWOBHM. That's when metal came of age, and the mature genre emerged.
So the NWOBHM was the most critically important time in metal's history. Maiden was the 800-lb gorilla in that room. And Maiden first completely found their classic sound on TNOTB - nowhere more completely than Hallowed.
In other words: there is no single song that defines Heavy Metal better than Hallowed.
You might get a more complete definition with more songs - but Hallowed is always at the top of the list.
All you folks saying "we don't need to explain why Hallowed is great, we all know" ... We aren't always posting just for ourselves, ya know.
When I was a kid, I heard everyone talk about Stairway To Heaven and how it was so great. Not
why - just that it was. Didn't understand a thing till I was old enough to start buying Zep albums.
Somewhere out there, there might be some 12-year-old kid, just getting into metal, having no idea. Sometimes, you gotta post for the next generation.