Bang Your Head: The Rise and Fall of Heavy Metal

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Synopsis
Like an episode of VH1's Behind the Music on steroids, BANG YOUR HEAD is an epic history of every band and every performer that has proudly worn the Heavy Metal badge. Whether headbanging is your guilty pleasure or you firmly believe that this much-maligned genre has never received the respect it deserves, BANG YOUR HEAD is a must-read that pays homage to a music that's impossible to ignore, especially when being blasted through a sixteen-inch woofer. Charting the genesis of early metal with bands like Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden; the rise of metal to the top of the Billboard charts and heavy MTV rotation featuring the likes of Def Leppard and Metallica; hitting its critical peak with bands like Guns N' Roses; disgrace during the "hair metal" '80s; and a demise fueled by the explosion of the Seattle grunge scene and the "alternative" revolution, BANG YOUR HEAD is as funny as it is informative and proves once and for all that there is more to metal than sin, sex, and spandex. To write this exhaustive history, David Konow spent three years interviewing the bands, wives, girlfriends, ex-wives, groupies, managers, record company execs, and anyone who was or is a part of the metal scene, including many of the band guys often better known for their escapades and bad behavior than for their musicianship. Nothing is left unsaid in this jaw-dropping, funny, and entertaining chronicle of power ballads, outrageous outfits, big hair, bigger egos, and testosterone-drenched debauchery.
Copyright:
2002

Book Details

Book Quality:
Publisher Quality
ISBN-13:
9780307565600
Related ISBNs:
9780609807323, 9780859653374
Publisher:
Three Rivers Press
Date of Addition:
Copyrighted By:
David Konow
Adult content:
No
Language:
English
Has Image Descriptions:
No
Categories:
History, Entertainment, Nonfiction, Social Studies, Music
Submitted By:
Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:
This is a copyrighted book.

Reviews

4 out of 5

By on

This is exactly what the title suggests: a good overview of the history of heavy metal. Longtime headbangers won't learn anything earth-shattering, but there are enough tidbits of trivia you didn't know to keep you reading (Vince Neil having his stage raps written out word for word, the behind-the-scenes squabbling at the Moscow Music and Peace Festival, etc.) Most major bands are profiled, and the general evolution of the music is detailed, up to a point (the official synopsis would make one think it's just a history of the '80's "hair-band" years, which isn't the case). Konow writes as a fan, not as a stuffy "rock journalist," and as such he never condescends to the fan or belittles the music. Where certain people or bands are cast in a negative light, it's not without reason or just to be snarky, so I find his commentary overall to be very fair-minded. Really my only gripe would be that Konow falls into the trap a lot of people do when writing about metal, even people who should know better, which is to write about it as if it were a thing of the past. The book was published in 2002, but essentially ends with the music's commercial downfall in the early '90's. Although he doesn't blame grunge for singlehandedly "killing" metal, the last chapter could be summed up by saying, "And then grunge came and everything fell apart." If it happened after 1991, it's most likely touched on only briefly (the unlikely rise of Pantera through the '90's is given surprisingly little attention, for one example). Little, if any, space is given to the various forms of "extreme" metal, i.e. death-metal, black-metal, etc. Likewise metal's continued growth and underground popularity, which is disappointing. But for what it is, Bang Your Head is an informative and engaging read, for the fans and the curious outsider alike.