title: Albuquerque, New Mexico

text: In 2006, the City of Albuquerque under the administration of Mayor Martin Chavez had planned and attempted to "fast track" the development of a "Modern Streetcar" project. Funding for the US$270 million system was not resolved as many citizens vocally opposed the project. The city and its transit department maintain a policy commitment to the streetcar project. The project would run mostly in the southeast quadrant on Central Avenue and Yale Boulevard.


title: Albuquerque, New Mexico

text: , the city is working on a study to develop a bus rapid transit system through the Central Ave. corridor. This corridor carried 44% of all bus riders in the ABQ Ride system, making it a natural starting point for enhanced service. In 2017, the city moved forward with the plans, and began construction on Albuquerque Rapid Transit, or ART, including dedicated bus lanes between Coors and Louisiana Boulevards.


title: Albuquerque, New Mexico

text: Albuquerque has a well-developed bicycle network. In and around the city there are trails, bike routes, and paths that provide the residents and visitors with alternatives to motorized travel. In 2009, the city was reviewed as having a major up and coming bike scene in North America. The same year, the City of Albuquerque opened its first Bicycle Boulevard on Silver Avenue. There are plans for more investment in bikes and bike transit by the city, including bicycle lending programs, in the coming years.


title: Albuquerque, New Mexico

text: A 2011 study by Walk Score ranked Albuquerque below average at 28th most walkable of the fifty largest U.S. cities.


title: Albuquerque, New Mexico

text: Albuquerque is served by two airports, the larger of which is Albuquerque International Sunport. It is located southeast of the central business district of Albuquerque. The Albuquerque International Sunport served 5,888,811 passengers in 2009. Double Eagle II Airport is the other airport. It is primarily used as an air ambulance, corporate flight, military flight, training flight, charter flight, and private flight facility.


title: Albuquerque, New Mexico

text: PNM Resources, New Mexico's largest electricity provider, is based in Albuquerque. They serve about 487,000 electricity customers statewide. In September 2021, PNM entered final merger talks with Avangrid, the U.S. subsidiary of Spanish power giant Iberdrola. New Mexico Gas Company provides natural gas services to more than 500,000 customers in the state, including the Albuquerque metro area.


title: Albuquerque, New Mexico

text: The Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority is responsible for the delivery of drinking water and the treatment of wastewater. Trash and recycling in the city is managed by the City of Albuquerque Solid Waste Management Department.


title: Albuquerque, New Mexico

text: Albuquerque is the medical hub of New Mexico, hosting numerous medical centers. The University of New Mexico Hospital is the largest hospital in New Mexico with 628 licensed beds and is the primary teaching hospital for the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, the state's only medical school. It provides the state's only residency training programs, children's hospital, burn center, and level I pediatric and adult trauma centers, as well as a certified advanced primary stroke center and the largest collection of adult and pediatric specialty and subspecialty programs in the state. Albuquerque's other largest hospitals are Presbyterian Hospital (Presbyterian Healthcare Services) with 543 licensed beds, Raymond G. Murphy VA Medical Center (Veterans Health Administration) with 298 beds, and Lovelace Medical Center (Lovelace Health System) with 263 beds. Smaller specialty hospitals include the Heart Hospital of New Mexico and Lovelace Women's Hospital.


title: John Ritter

text: Johnathan Southworth Ritter (September 17, 1948 – September 11, 2003) was an American actor. Ritter was a son of the singing cowboy star Tex Ritter and the father of actors Jason and Tyler Ritter. He is known for playing Jack Tripper on the ABC sitcom "Three's Company" (1977–1984), and received a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award for the role in 1984. Ritter briefly reprised the role on the spin-off "Three's a Crowd", which aired for one season, producing 22 episodes before its cancellation in 1985.


title: John Ritter

text: He appeared in over 100 films and television series combined and performed on Broadway, with roles including adult Ben Hanscom in "It" (1990), "Problem Child" (1990), "Problem Child 2" (1991), a dramatic turn in "Sling Blade" (1996), and "Bad Santa" in 2003 (his final live action film, which was dedicated to his memory). In 2002, Don Knotts called Ritter the "greatest physical comedian on the planet". His final roles include voicing the title character on the PBS children's program "Clifford the Big Red Dog" (2000–2003), for which he received four Daytime Emmy Award nominations, and as Paul Hennessy on the ABC sitcom "8 Simple Rules" (2002–2003).


title: John Ritter

text: Johnathan Southworth Ritter was born on September 17, 1948, at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California. Ritter had a birth defect known as a coloboma in his right eye. His father, Tex Ritter, was a singing cowboy and matinee star, and his mother, Dorothy Fay (née Southworth), was an actress. He had an older brother, Thomas "Tom" Ritter. Ritter attended Hollywood High School, where he was student body president. He attended the University of Southern California and majored in psychology with plans to have a career in politics. He later changed his major to theater arts and attended the USC School of Dramatic Arts (formerly School of Theatre). Ritter was a member of Phi Gamma Delta fraternity at USC. While still in college, Ritter traveled to the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and West Germany to perform in plays. Ritter graduated in 1970.


title: John Ritter

text: Ritter headlined several stage performances. After his graduation from USC in 1970, his first television acting experience was a campus revolutionary in the television series "Dan August" starring Burt Reynolds and future "Three's Company" co-star Norman Fell. Ritter made his film debut in the 1971 Disney film "The Barefoot Executive". He made guest appearances on the television series "Hawaii Five-O", "M*A*S*H", and many others. He had a recurring role as the Reverend Matthew Fordwick on the drama series "The Waltons" from October 1972 to December 1976. Because he was not a weekly cast member, he had time to pursue other roles, which he did until December 1976, when he left for a starring role in the hit sitcom "Three's Company" (the Americanized version of the 1970s British Thames Television series "Man About the House") in 1977. In 1978, Ritter played Ringo Starr's manager on the television special "Ringo". In 1982, Ritter provided the voice of Peter Dickinson in the animated film "The Flight of Dragons".


title: John Ritter

text: Ritter became a household name on "Three's Company", portraying struggling culinary student Jack Tripper with two female roommates. Ritter co-starred opposite Joyce DeWitt and Suzanne Somers, and then later Jenilee Harrison and Priscilla Barnes. Much of the comedy centered around Jack's pretending to be gay to keep the old-fashioned landlords appeased over the co-ed living arrangements. The series spent several seasons near the top of the ratings in the United States before ending in 1984. A year-long spin-off, "Three's a Crowd", ensued, as the Jack Tripper character has a live-in girlfriend and runs his own bistro. The original series has been seen continuously in reruns and is available on DVD. During the run of "Three's Company", Ritter appeared in the films "Hero at Large", "Americathon", and "They All Laughed". In 1986, he played the role of Dad in the music video for Graham Nash's song "Innocent Eyes" from the album of the same name.


title: John Ritter

text: "Hooperman" was Ritter's first regular television role after "Three's Company". Detective Harry Hooperman inherits a run-down apartment building and hires Susan Smith (Debrah Farentino) to run it. A relationship follows, and Hooperman must juggle work, love, and the antics of Bijoux the dog. In 1988, John was nominated for both an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award for his work on "Hooperman". Ritter won a People's Choice Award for this role. From 1992 to 1995, Ritter returned to television for three seasons as John Hartman, aide to a U.S. Senator, in "Hearts Afire". This series starred Markie Post as Georgie Anne Lahti and Billy Bob Thornton as Billy Bob Davis. He also played Garry Lejeune / Roger Tramplemain in the production "Noises Off" in 1992.


title: John Ritter

text: After his time on television, he appeared in a number of movies, most notably "Problem Child" and its first sequel. He played the lead role in Blake Edwards' 1989 film "Skin Deep", appeared in the film version of "Noises Off", rejoined Billy Bob Thornton in the Oscar-winning "Sling Blade" (playing a kindhearted, gay, discount-store manager), and co-starred with Olivier Gruner in the 1996 action film "Mercenary".


title: John Ritter

text: Ritter starred in many made-for-TV movies, including "Gramps" (1995), co-starring with Andy Griffith, Rob Hedden's "The Colony" (1995) with Hal Linden, Stephen King's "It", "Danielle Steel's Heartbeat" with Polly Draper, and "It Came from the Sky" in 1999 with Yasmine Bleeth. Ritter also made guest appearances on television shows, such as "Felicity", "Ally McBeal," "Scrubs," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", and "". He also provided the voice of the title character in the animated children's show "Clifford the Big Red Dog" and its animated film adaptation "Clifford's Really Big Movie" (2004), a role for which he received four Emmy nominations. His final film was "Stanley's Dinosaur Round-Up" (2006), an animated direct-to-DVD film based on the television series, which was dedicated to his memory. At the time of his death, he was starring in "8 Simple Rules... for Dating My Teenage Daughter."


title: John Ritter

text: In 2000, Ritter co-starred with Henry Winkler in Neil Simon's "The Dinner Party" at the Music Box Theatre on Broadway, portraying Claude Pichon. It ran for 364 performances. Ritter won the Theatre World Award in 2001 for his performance in that work. In 2003, Ritter made his final stage appearance in "All About Eve" at the Ahmanson Theatre.


title: John Ritter

text: J For J at LA's Court Theatre March 14-April 21, 2002. Starring John Ritter, Jeff Kober and Jenny Sullivan. Directed by Joseph Fuqua. Written by Jenny Sullivan.


title: John Ritter

text: On October 16, 1977, Ritter married actress Nancy Morgan, with whom he had three children: Jason Carly, and Tyler. They divorced on September 1, 1996. He married actress Amy Yasbeck on September 18, 1999, at the Murphy Theatre in Wilmington, Ohio. They had a child born in 1998. Yasbeck played his love interest in the first two "Problem Child" movies, though as two different characters. Yasbeck also played Ritter's wife in two sitcom appearances. In 1991, both were guest stars on "The Cosby Show", in which Yasbeck played the in-labor wife of Ritter's basketball coach character. In 1996, Ritter guest-starred on Yasbeck's sitcom, "Wings", as the estranged husband of Yasbeck's character, Casey.


title: John Ritter

text: On September 11, 2003, Ritter was rehearsing for "8 Simple Rules... for Dating My Teenage Daughter" on the Walt Disney Studios lot in Burbank, California when he suddenly fell ill and began to experience problems with his heart. Sweating profusely, vomiting and complaining of chest pain, he was taken across the street to the Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center at 6:00 pm. Ritter was initially treated by emergency room physicians for a heart attack; however, his condition quickly worsened. Ritter was then diagnosed with aortic dissection and was taken into surgery but he was pronounced dead at 10:48 p.m.


title: John Ritter

text: A private funeral for Ritter was held in Los Angeles on September 15, 2003, after which he was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills.


title: John Ritter

text: In 2008, Ritter's widow Amy Yasbeck, on behalf of herself and Ritter's children, filed lawsuits against doctors involved in Ritter's treatment and Providence St. Joseph Medical Center. The lawsuits against Providence St. Joseph were settled out of court for $9.4 million. A $67 million wrongful-death lawsuit against two of the physicians, radiologist Matthew Lotysch and cardiologist Joseph Lee, went to trial. Yasbeck accused Lee, who treated Ritter on the day of his death, of misdiagnosing his condition as a heart attack and Lotysch, who had given him a full-body scan two years earlier, of failing at that time to detect an enlargement of Ritter's aorta. In 2008, at the Los Angeles County Superior Court, the jury concluded that the doctors who treated Ritter the day he died were not negligent and thus were not responsible for his death.


title: John Ritter

text: Many of Ritter's colleagues expressed sorrow following the news of his death. Zach Braff, who worked with Ritter on "Scrubs", called Ritter a "comic hero" of his and said he had approached series creator Bill Lawrence to get Ritter to play his character J.D.'s father (which Ritter did for two episodes and was slated to return for a third the week following his death). Katey Sagal testified in the wrongful death lawsuit, calling Ritter a "funny man who was funny like nobody's business". His "Three's Company" co-star Joyce DeWitt remarked he was "impossible to forget. Impossible not to love".


title: John Ritter

text: "8 Simple Rules... for Dating My Teenage Daughter" was later retitled "8 Simple Rules" following Ritter's death and continued for one and a half more seasons before its cancellation in 2005. Ritter's character, Paul Hennessy, was said to have died after collapsing in a grocery store while buying milk. ABC aired the first three episodes of the show's second season that had been taped before his death, each of which was introduced by Katey Sagal. The remainder of the show dealt with the family trying to grapple with Paul's death. New male characters, played by James Garner and David Spade, were later added to the main cast as Ritter's replacements. Shortly before his death, Ritter had done a week-long taping with "Hollywood Squares", which was aired as a tribute to him, introduced by Henry Winkler, the executive producer of the show and a very close friend of Ritter's. Four days after Ritter's death, Nick at Nite ran an all-night "Three's Company" marathon dedicated to his memory.


title: John Ritter

text: In 2004, Ritter was posthumously given an Emmy nomination for playing Paul Hennessy in "8 Simple Rules... for Dating My Teenage Daughter" but lost to Kelsey Grammer for playing the title character of "Frasier". Upon accepting his trophy, Grammer's remarks included comments made in tribute and remembrance of Ritter. Ritter's final films, "Bad Santa" and "Clifford's Really Big Movie", along with a Season 4 episode of "Scrubs" (his character in this series died, as well), the Season 8 "King of the Hill" episode "Stressed for Success" (in which he played music teacher Eugene Grandy) and "Stanley's Dinosaur Round-Up" (in which he played Great Uncle Stew) were all dedicated to his memory.


title: John Ritter

text: On June 6, 2008, Hollywood High School dedicated a mural of Ritter painted by Eloy Torrez. In March 2010, the Thoracic Aortic Disease (TAD) Coalition, in partnership with Yasbeck and the John Ritter Foundation (JRF), announced the creation of the "Ritter Rules" which are life-saving reminders to recognize, treat and prevent thoracic aortic dissection. The purpose of the JRF is to provide accurate information to the general public about the disease and its risk factors, provide support to individuals who have thoracic aortic disease or have lost a loved one to the disease and improve the identification of individuals at risk for aortic dissections and the treatment of thoracic aortic disease through medical research. Yasbeck worked with the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) to establish the John Ritter Research Program in Aortic and Vascular Diseases with the goal of preventing premature deaths due to aortic dissection by identifying genetic mutations that predispose individuals to thoracic aortic aneurysms and dissections.


title: Mark David Chapman

text: Mark David Chapman (born May 10, 1955) is an American man who murdered former Beatle John Lennon in New York City on December 8, 1980. As Lennon walked into the archway of his apartment building at The Dakota, Chapman shot Lennon from a few yards away with a Charter Arms Undercover .38 Special revolver. Lennon was hit four times from the back. Chapman remained at the scene reading J. D. Salinger's novel "The Catcher in the Rye" until he was arrested by police. He planned to cite the novel as his manifesto.


title: Mark David Chapman

text: Raised in Decatur, Georgia, Chapman had been a fan of the Beatles, but was incensed by Lennon's lifestyle and public statements, such as his remark about the band being "more popular than Jesus" and the lyrics of his later songs "God" and "Imagine". In the years leading up to the murder, Chapman developed a series of obsessions, including artwork and the music of Todd Rundgren. "The Catcher in the Rye" took on great personal significance for him, to the extent that he wished to model his life after the novel's protagonist, Holden Caulfield. Chapman also contemplated killing other public figures, including Johnny Carson, Paul McCartney, Ronald Reagan and Elizabeth Taylor. He had no prior criminal convictions and had just resigned from a job as a security guard in Hawaii.


title: Mark David Chapman

text: Following the murder, Chapman's legal team intended to mount an insanity defense based on the testimony of mental health experts who said that he was in a delusional psychotic state. He was more cooperative with the prosecutor, who argued that his symptoms fell short of a schizophrenia diagnosis. As the trial approached, he instructed his lawyers that he wanted to plead guilty based on what he had decided was the will of God. The judge granted Chapman's request and deemed him competent to stand trial. He was sentenced to a prison term of 20 years to life with a stipulation that mental health treatment would be provided.


title: Mark David Chapman

text: Chapman refused requests for press interviews during his first six years in prison; he later said that he regretted the murder and did not want to give the impression that he killed Lennon for fame and notoriety. He ultimately supplied audiotaped interviews to journalist Jack Jones, who used them to write the investigative book "Let Me Take You Down: Inside the Mind of Mark David Chapman" in 1992. In 2000, Chapman became eligible for parole, which has since been denied 12 times. His life was dramatized in the films "The Killing of John Lennon" (2006) and "Chapter 27" (2007).


title: Mark David Chapman

text: Mark David Chapman was born on May 10, 1955, in Fort Worth, Texas. His father, David Chapman, was a staff sergeant in the U.S. Air Force, and his mother, Diane (née Pease), was a nurse. His younger sister, Susan, was born seven years later. As a boy, Chapman stated he lived in fear of his father, who he said was physically abusive towards his mother and unloving towards him. Chapman began to fantasize about having God-like power over a group of imaginary "little people" who lived in the walls of his bedroom. He attended Columbia High School in Decatur, Georgia. By the time he was 14, Chapman was using drugs and skipping classes. He once ran away from home to live on the streets of Atlanta for two weeks. He said he was often bullied at school because of his mediocre athleticism.


title: Mark David Chapman

text: In 1971, Chapman became a born-again Presbyterian and distributed Biblical tracts. He met his first girlfriend, Jessica Blankenship, and began work as a summer camp counselor at the South DeKalb County, Georgia YMCA. He was very popular with the children, who nicknamed him "Nemo" (after the protagonist of the Jules Verne novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea) and was promoted to assistant director after winning an award for Outstanding Counselor. Those who knew him in the caretaking professions unanimously called him an outstanding worker.


title: Mark David Chapman

text: Chapman read J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye" on the recommendation of a friend. The novel eventually took on great personal significance for him, to the extent he reportedly wished to model his life after its protagonist, Holden Caulfield. After graduating from Columbia High School, Chapman moved for a time to Chicago and played guitar in churches and Christian night spots while his friend did impersonations. He worked successfully for World Vision with Vietnamese refugees at a resettlement camp at Fort Chaffee in Arkansas, after a brief visit to Lebanon for the same work. He was named an area coordinator and a key aide to program director David Moore, who later said Chapman cared deeply for the children and worked hard. Chapman accompanied Moore to meetings with government officials, and President Gerald Ford shook his hand.


title: Mark David Chapman

text: Chapman joined Blankenship as a student at Covenant College, an evangelical Presbyterian liberal arts college in Lookout Mountain, Georgia. However, Chapman fell behind in his studies and became obsessed with guilt over having a previous affair. He started having suicidal thoughts and began to feel like a failure. He dropped out of Covenant College after just one semester, and his girlfriend broke off their relationship soon after. Chapman returned to work at the resettlement camp but left after an argument with a supervisor. In 1977, Chapman moved to Hawaii, where he attempted suicide by carbon monoxide asphyxiation. He connected a hose to his car's exhaust pipe, but the hose melted and the attempt failed. A psychiatrist admitted Chapman to Castle Memorial Hospital for clinical depression. Upon his release from the ward, he began working at the hospital as a janitor. After Chapman's parents began divorce proceedings, his mother joined him in Hawaii.


title: Mark David Chapman

text: In 1978, Chapman embarked on a six-week trip around the world. The vacation was partly inspired by the film and novel "Around the World in 80 Days". He visited Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, New Delhi, Beirut, Geneva, London, Paris, and Dublin. He began a relationship with his travel agent, a Japanese American woman named Gloria Abe, whom he married on June 2, 1979. Chapman got a job at Castle Memorial Hospital as a printer, working alone rather than with staff and patients. He was then fired by the hospital and later, rehired; following an argument with a nurse he finally quit. After this, Chapman took a job as a night security guard at a high end apartment complex and began drinking heavily to cope with his depression. He developed a series of obsessions, including artwork, "The Catcher in the Rye", music, and the musician John Lennon. In September 1980, he wrote a letter to a friend, Lynda Irish, in which he stated, "I'm going nuts." He signed the letter, "The Catcher in the Rye." Chapman had no criminal convictions prior to his trip to New York City to kill Lennon.


title: Mark David Chapman

text: Chapman allegedly started planning to kill English musician John Lennon three months prior to the murder. A longtime fan of Lennon's band the Beatles, Chapman turned against Lennon due to a religious conversion and Lennon's highly publicized 1966 remark about the Beatles being "more popular than Jesus." Some members of Chapman's prayer group made a joke in reference to Lennon's song "Imagine": "It went, 'Imagine, imagine if John Lennon was dead.'" Chapman's childhood friend Miles McManushe recalled that he said that the song was "communist".


title: Mark David Chapman

text: Chapman had also been influenced by Anthony Fawcett's "John Lennon: One Day at a Time" about Lennon's lifestyle in New York. According to his wife Gloria, "He was angry that Lennon would preach love and peace but yet have millions". Chapman later said: "He told us to imagine no possessions and there he was, with millions of dollars and yachts and farms and country estates, laughing at people like me who had believed the lies and bought the records and built a big part of their lives around his music." He also recalled having listened to Lennon's solo albums in the weeks before the murder:


title: Mark David Chapman

text: Chapman's planning has been described as "muddled." Over the years, Chapman has both supported and denied whether he felt justified by his spiritual beliefs at the time or had the intention of acquiring notoriety. The only time he made a public statement before his sentencing — and for several years afterward — was during a brief psychotic episode in which he was convinced that the meaning of his actions was to promote "The Catcher in the Rye", which amounted to a single letter mailed to "The New York Times" asking the public to read the novel.


title: Mark David Chapman

text: Journalist James R. Gaines, who interviewed Chapman extensively, concluded that Chapman did not kill Lennon to become popular. According to Chapman in a later parole hearing, he had a hit list of other potential targets in mind, including Lennon's bandmate Paul McCartney, talk show host Johnny Carson, actress Elizabeth Taylor, actor George C. Scott, former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, recently-elected US president Ronald Reagan, and Hawaii governor George Ariyoshi. In 2010, he said that the only criterion for the list was being "famous," and that he chose Lennon out of convenience.


title: Mark David Chapman

text: It is rumored that Chapman traveled to Woodstock, New York, during one of his visits to the state in search of Todd Rundgren, another target of obsession. Chapman was wearing a promotional T-shirt for Rundgren's album "Hermit of Mink Hollow" when he was arrested and had a copy of "" in his Manhattan hotel room. Rundgren was not aware of the connections until much later. On the day of the murder, singer David Bowie was appearing on Broadway in the play "The Elephant Man". "I was second on his list," Bowie later said. "Chapman had a front-row ticket to "The Elephant Man" the next night. John and Yoko were supposed to sit front-row for that show too. So the night after John was killed there were three empty seats in the front row. I can't tell you how difficult that was to go on. I almost didn't make it through the performance."


title: Mark David Chapman

text: Chapman went to New York in late October 1980 intending to kill Lennon, but left to obtain ammunition from his unwitting friend in Atlanta before returning in November. During his October trip to New York, Chapman was inspired by the film "Ordinary People" to stop his plans. He returned to Hawaii and told his wife that he had been obsessed with killing Lennon. Chapman showed her the gun and bullets, but she did not inform the police or mental health services. Chapman later said that the commandment "thou shalt not kill" flashed on the television at him and was on a wall hanging that his wife put up in their apartment. He made an appointment to see a clinical psychologist, but he did not keep it and flew back to New York on December 6, 1980. At one point, he considered ending his life by jumping from the Statue of Liberty.


title: Mark David Chapman

text: On December 7, Chapman accosted singer James Taylor at the 72nd Street subway station. According to Taylor, "The guy had sort of pinned me to the wall and was glistening with maniacal sweat and talking some freak speak about what he was going to do and his stuff with how John was interested and he was going to get in touch with John Lennon." He also reportedly offered cocaine to a taxi driver. That night, Chapman and his wife talked on the phone about getting help with his problems by first working on his relationship with God.


title: Mark David Chapman

text: On the morning of December 8, Chapman left his room at the Sheraton Hotel, leaving personal items behind that he wanted the police to find. He bought a copy of "The Catcher in the Rye" in which he wrote "This is my statement", signing it "Holden Caulfield." He then spent most of the day near the entrance to the Dakota apartment building where Lennon lived, talking to fans and the doorman. Early in the morning, Chapman was distracted and missed seeing Lennon step out of a cab and enter the Dakota. Later in the morning, he met Lennon's housekeeper who was returning from a walk with Lennon's five-year-old son Sean. Chapman reached in front of the housekeeper to shake Sean's hand and called him a beautiful boy, quoting Lennon's song "Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)."


title: Mark David Chapman

text: Around 5 p.m., Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono were leaving the Dakota for a recording session at the Record Plant. As they walked toward their limousine without saying a word, Chapman held out a copy of Lennon's album "Double Fantasy" for Lennon to sign. Amateur photographer Paul Goresh (1959–2018) was standing by and took a picture as Lennon signed the album. Chapman said in an interview that he tried to get Goresh to stay, and he asked another loitering Lennon fan to go out with him that night. He suggested that he would not have murdered Lennon that evening if the girl had accepted his invitation or if Goresh had stayed, but he probably would have tried another day.


title: Mark David Chapman

text: Around 10:50 p.m., Lennon and Ono returned to the Dakota in a limousine. They got out of the vehicle, passed Chapman, and walked toward the archway entrance of the building. From the street behind them, Chapman fired five hollow-point bullets from a .38 special revolver, four of which hit Lennon in the back and shoulder. One newspaper later reported that Chapman called out "Mr. Lennon" and dropped into a combat stance before firing. Chapman said that he does not recall saying anything, and Lennon did not turn around.


title: Mark David Chapman

text: Chapman remained at the scene and appeared to be reading "The Catcher in the Rye" when the NYPD officers arrived and arrested him without incident. The first responders recognized that Lennon's wounds were severe and decided not to wait for an ambulance; they rushed him to Roosevelt Hospital in a squad car. Lennon was pronounced dead on arrival. Three hours later, Chapman told the police, "I'm sure the big part of me is Holden Caulfield, who is the main person in the book. The small part of me must be the Devil."


title: Mark David Chapman

text: Chapman was charged with second-degree murder. He admitted to police that he had used hollow-point bullets "to ensure Lennon's death". Gloria Chapman had known of her husband's preparations for killing Lennon, but she took no action because Chapman did not follow through at the time; she was not charged. Chapman later said that he harbored a "deep-seated resentment" toward his wife, "that she didn't go to somebody, even the police, and say, 'Look, my husband's bought a gun and he says he's going to kill John Lennon.'"


title: Mark David Chapman

text: More than a dozen psychologists and psychiatrists interviewed Chapman in the six months prior to his trial—three for the prosecution, six for the defense, and several more on behalf of the court—and they conducted a battery of standard diagnostic procedures and more than 200 hours of clinical interviews. All six defense experts concluded that Chapman was psychotic; five diagnosed paranoid schizophrenia, while the sixth felt that his symptoms were more consistent with manic depression. The three prosecution experts declared that his delusions fell short of psychosis and instead diagnosed various personality disorders. The court-appointed experts concurred with the prosecution's examiners that he was delusional yet competent to stand trial. In the examinations, Chapman was more cooperative with the prosecution's mental health experts than with those for the defense; one psychiatrist conjectured that he did not wish to be considered "crazy" and was persuaded that the defense experts only declared him insane because they were hired to do so.


title: Mark David Chapman

text: Charles McGowan had been pastor of Chapman's church in Decatur, Georgia, and he visited Chapman. "I believe there was a demonic power at work," he said. Chapman initially embraced his old religion with new fervor as a result; but McGowan revealed information to the press that Chapman had told him in confidence, so Chapman disavowed his renewed interest in Christianity and reverted to his initial explanation: he had killed Lennon to promote the reading of "The Catcher in the Rye".


title: Mark David Chapman

text: Chapman's court-appointed lawyer Herbert Adlerberg withdrew from the case amid threats of lynching. Police feared that Lennon fans might storm the hospital, so they transferred Chapman to Rikers Island for his personal safety.


title: Mark David Chapman

text: At the initial hearing in January 1981, Chapman's new lawyer Jonathan Marks instructed him to enter a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. In February, Chapman sent a handwritten statement to "The New York Times" urging everyone to read "The Catcher in the Rye," calling it an "extraordinary book that holds many answers." The defense team sought to establish witnesses as to Chapman's mental state at the time of the killing. However, Chapman told Marks in June that he wanted to drop the insanity defense and plead guilty. Marks objected with "serious questions" over Chapman's sanity and legally challenged his competence to make this decision. In the pursuant hearing on June 22, Chapman said that God had told him to plead guilty and that he would not change his plea or ever appeal, regardless of his sentence. Marks told the court that he opposed Chapman's change of plea, but Chapman would not listen to him. Judge Dennis Edwards Jr. refused a further assessment, saying that Chapman had made the decision of his own free will, and declared him legally competent to plead guilty.


title: Mark David Chapman

text: The sentencing hearing took place on August 24, 1981. Two experts gave evidence on Chapman's behalf. Judge Edwards interrupted Dorothy Lewis, a research psychiatrist who was relatively inexperienced in the courtroom, indicating that the purpose of the hearing was to determine the sentence and there was no question of Chapman's criminal responsibility. Lewis had maintained that Chapman's decision to change his plea did not appear reasonable or explicable, and she implied that the judge did not want to allow an independent competency assessment. The district attorney argued that Chapman committed the murder as an easy route to fame. Chapman was asked if he had anything to say, and he rose and read a passage from "The Catcher in the Rye" in which Holden tells his little sister Phoebe what he wants to do with his life:


title: Mark David Chapman

text: I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around – nobody big, I mean – except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff – I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all.


title: Mark David Chapman

text: The judge ordered psychiatric treatment for Chapman during his incarceration and sentenced him to 20 years to life, 5 years less than the maximum sentence of 25 years to life.


title: Mark David Chapman

text: In 1981, Chapman was imprisoned at Attica Correctional Facility outside of Buffalo, New York. He fasted for 26 days in February 1982, so the New York State Supreme Court authorized the state to force-feed him. Central New York Psychiatric Center director Martin Von Holden said that Chapman refused to eat with other inmates but agreed to take liquid nutrients. He was held in a solitary confinement unit for violent and at-risk prisoners, in part due to concern that he might be harmed by Lennon's fans in the general population. There were 105 prisoners in the facility who were "not considered a threat to him," according to the New York State Department of Correctional Services. He had his own cell, but spent "most of his day outside his cell working on housekeeping and in the library."


title: Mark David Chapman

text: Chapman worked in the prison as a legal clerk and kitchen helper. He was barred from participating in the Cephas Attica workshops, a charitable organization helping inmates adjust to life outside prison. He was also prohibited from attending the prison's violence and anger management classes due to concern for his safety. He told a parole board in 2000 what he would do if paroled: "I would immediately try to find a job, and I really want to go from place to place, at least in the state, church to church, and tell people what happened to me and point them the way to Christ." He also said that he thought that he could find work as a farmhand or return to his previous trade as a printer.


title: Mark David Chapman

text: Chapman is in the Family Reunion Program and has been allowed regular conjugal visits since 2014 with his wife, since he accepted solitary confinement. The program allows him to spend 44 hours alone with his wife in a specially built prison home. He also gets occasional visits from his sister, clergy, and a few friends. In 2004, Department of Correctional Services spokesman James Flateau said that Chapman had been involved in three "minor incidents" between 1989 and 1994 for delaying an inmate count and refusing to follow an order. On May 15, 2012, he was transferred to the Wende Correctional Facility in Alden, New York, which is east of Buffalo, New York. On March 30, 2022, he was transferred to the Green Haven Correctional Facility in Beekman, New York, which is in Dutchess County.


title: Mark David Chapman

text: Chapman refused all requests for interviews following the murder and during his first six years at Attica, later claiming that he did not want to give the impression that he killed Lennon for fame and notoriety. Despite his claim that he refused all interviews during those six years, James R. Gaines interviewed him and wrote a three-part, 18,000-word "People" magazine series starting in 1981 and climaxing in February and March 1987. Chapman told the parole board that he regretted the interview. He later gave a series of audio-taped interviews to Jack Jones of the Rochester "Democrat and Chronicle", and Jones published "Let Me Take You Down: Inside the Mind of Mark David Chapman, the Man Who Killed John Lennon" in 1992. Jones asked Chapman to tell his story for "Mugshots", a CourtTV program in 2000, with his first parole hearing approaching. Chapman refused to go on camera but consented to tell his story in a series of audiotapes.


title: Mark David Chapman

text: On December 4, 1992, ABC's "20/20" aired an interview with Barbara Walters, Chapman's first television interview. On December 17, 1992, Larry King interviewed Chapman on his CNN program "Larry King Live".


title: Mark David Chapman

text: Chapman first became eligible for parole in 2000 after serving twenty years in prison. Under New York state law, he is required to have a parole hearing every two years from that year onward. Since that time, a three-member board has denied Chapman parole twelve times. Before Chapman's first parole hearing, Yoko Ono sent a letter to the board requesting that Chapman should stay behind bars and serve out the remainder of his life sentence. In addition, New York State Senator Michael Nozzolio, chairman of the Senate Crime Victims, Crime and Correction Committee, wrote to Parole Board Chairman Brion Travis saying: "It is the responsibility of the New York State Parole Board to ensure that public safety is protected from the release of dangerous criminals like Chapman."


title: Heavy metal music

text: Heavy metal (or simply metal) is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the United Kingdom and United States. With roots in blues rock, psychedelic rock and acid rock, heavy metal bands developed a thick, monumental sound characterized by distorted guitars, extended guitar solos, emphatic beats and loudness.


title: Heavy metal music

text: In 1968, three of the genre's most famous pioneers – Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple – were founded. Though they came to attract wide audiences, they were often derided by critics. Several American bands modified heavy metal into more accessible forms during the 1970s: the raw, sleazy sound and shock rock of Alice Cooper and Kiss; the blues-rooted rock of Aerosmith; and the flashy guitar leads and party rock of Van Halen. During the mid-1970s, Judas Priest helped spur the genre's evolution by discarding much of its blues influence, while Motörhead introduced a punk rock sensibility and an increasing emphasis on speed. Beginning in the late 1970s, bands in the new wave of British heavy metal such as Iron Maiden and Saxon followed in a similar vein. By the end of the decade, heavy metal fans became known as "metalheads" or "headbangers". The lyrics of some metal genres became associated with aggression and machismo, an issue that has at times led to accusations of misogyny.


title: Heavy metal music

text: During the 1980s, glam metal became popular with groups such as Bon Jovi, Mötley Crüe and Poison. Meanwhile, however, underground scenes produced an array of more aggressive styles: thrash metal broke into the mainstream with bands such as Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax, while other extreme subgenres such as death metal and black metal became – and remain – subcultural phenomena. Since the mid-1990s, popular styles have expanded the definition of the genre. These include groove metal and nu metal, the latter of which often incorporates elements of grunge and hip-hop.


title: Heavy metal music

text: Heavy metal is traditionally characterized by loud distorted guitars, emphatic rhythms, dense bass-and-drum sound and vigorous vocals. Heavy metal subgenres variously emphasize, alter or omit one or more of these attributes. In a 1988 article, "The New York Times" critic Jon Pareles wrote, "In the taxonomy of popular music, heavy metal is a major subspecies of hard-rock—the breed with less syncopation, less blues, more showmanship and more brute force." The typical band lineup includes a drummer, a bassist, a rhythm guitarist, a lead guitarist and a singer, who may or may not be an instrumentalist. Keyboard instruments are sometimes used to enhance the fullness of the sound. Deep Purple's Jon Lord played an overdriven Hammond organ. In 1970, John Paul Jones used a Moog synthesizer on "Led Zeppelin III"; by the 1990s, synthesizers were used in "almost every subgenre of heavy metal".


title: Heavy metal music

text: The electric guitar and the sonic power that it projects through amplification has historically been the key element in heavy metal. The heavy metal guitar sound comes from a combined use of high volumes and heavy fuzz. For classic heavy metal guitar tone, guitarists maintain gain at moderate levels, without excessive preamp or pedal distortion, to retain open spaces and air in the music; the guitar amplifier is turned up loud to produce the "punch and grind" characteristic. Thrash metal guitar tone has scooped mid-frequencies and tightly compressed sound with multiple bass frequencies. Guitar solos are "an essential element of the heavy metal code ... that underscores the significance of the guitar" to the genre. Most heavy metal songs "feature at least one guitar solo", which is "a primary means through which the heavy metal performer expresses virtuosity". Some exceptions are nu metal and grindcore bands, which tend to omit guitar solos. With rhythm guitar parts, the "heavy crunch sound in heavy metal ... [is created by] palm muting" the strings with the picking hand and using distortion. Palm muting creates a tighter, more precise sound and it emphasizes the low end.


title: Heavy metal music

text: The lead role of the guitar in heavy metal often collides with the traditional "frontman" or bandleader role of the vocalist, creating a musical tension as the two "contend for dominance" in a spirit of "affectionate rivalry". Heavy metal "demands the subordination of the voice" to the overall sound of the band. Reflecting metal's roots in the 1960s counterculture, an "explicit display of emotion" is required from the vocals as a sign of authenticity. Critic Simon Frith claims that the metal singer's "tone of voice" is more important than the lyrics.


title: Heavy metal music

text: The prominent role of the bass is also key to the metal sound, and the interplay of bass and guitar is a central element. The bass provides the low-end sound crucial to making the music "heavy". The bass plays a "more important role in heavy metal than in any other genre of rock". Metal basslines vary widely in complexity, from holding down a low pedal point as a foundation to doubling complex riffs and licks along with the lead or rhythm guitars. Some bands feature the bass as a lead instrument, an approach popularized by Metallica's Cliff Burton with his heavy emphasis on bass solos and use of chords while playing the bass in the early 1980s. Lemmy of Motörhead often played overdriven power chords in his bass lines.


title: Heavy metal music

text: The essence of heavy metal drumming is creating a loud, constant beat for the band using the "trifecta of speed, power, and precision". Heavy metal drumming "requires an exceptional amount of endurance", and drummers have to develop "considerable speed, coordination, and dexterity ... to play the intricate patterns" used in heavy metal. A characteristic metal drumming technique is the cymbal choke, which consists of striking a cymbal and then immediately silencing it by grabbing it with the other hand (or, in some cases, the same striking hand), producing a burst of sound. The metal drum setup is generally much larger than those employed in other forms of rock music. Black metal, death metal and some "mainstream metal" bands "all depend upon double-kicks and blast beats".


title: Heavy metal music

text: In live performance, loudness – an "onslaught of sound", in sociologist Deena Weinstein's description – is considered vital. In his book, "Metalheads", psychologist Jeffrey Arnett refers to heavy metal concerts as "the sensory equivalent of war". Following the lead set by Jimi Hendrix, Cream and the Who, early heavy metal acts such as Blue Cheer set new benchmarks for volume. As Blue Cheer's Dick Peterson put it, "All we knew was we wanted more power." A 1977 review of a Motörhead concert noted how "excessive volume in particular figured into the band's impact". Weinstein makes the case that in the same way that melody is the main element of pop and rhythm is the main focus of house music, powerful sound, timbre and volume are the key elements of metal. She argues that the loudness is designed to "sweep the listener into the sound" and to provide a "shot of youthful vitality".


title: Heavy metal music

text: Heavy metal performers tended to be almost exclusively male until at least the mid-1980s, with some exceptions such as Girlschool. However, by the 2010s, women were making more of an impact, and PopMatters' Craig Hayes argues that metal "clearly empowers women". In the power metal and symphonic metal subgenres, there has been a sizable number of bands that have had women as the lead singers, such as Nightwish, Delain and Within Temptation.


title: Heavy metal music

text: The rhythm in metal songs is emphatic, with deliberate stresses. Weinstein observes that the wide array of sonic effects available to metal drummers enables the "rhythmic pattern to take on a complexity within its elemental drive and insistency". In many heavy metal songs, the main groove is characterized by short, two- or three-note rhythmic figures – generally made up of eighth or 16th notes. These rhythmic figures are usually performed with a staccato attack created by using a palm-muted technique on the rhythm guitar.


title: Heavy metal music

text: Brief, abrupt and detached rhythmic cells are joined into rhythmic phrases with a distinctive, often jerky texture. These phrases are used to create rhythmic accompaniment and melodic figures called riffs, which help to establish thematic hooks. Heavy metal songs also use longer rhythmic figures such as whole note- or dotted quarter note-length chords in slow-tempo power ballads. The tempos in early heavy metal music tended to be "slow, even ponderous". By the late 1970s, however, metal bands were employing a wide variety of tempos, and as recently as the 2000s, metal tempos range from slow ballad tempos (quarter note = 60 beats per minute) to extremely fast blast beat tempos (quarter note = 350 beats per minute).


title: Heavy metal music

text: One of the signatures of the genre is the guitar power chord. In technical terms, the power chord is relatively simple: it involves just one main interval, generally the perfect fifth, though an octave may be added as a doubling of the root. When power chords are played on the lower strings at high volumes and with distortion, additional low-frequency sounds are created, which add to the "weight of the sound" and create an effect of "overwhelming power". Although the perfect fifth interval is the most common basis for the power chord, power chords are also based on different intervals such as the minor third, major third, perfect fourth, diminished fifth or minor sixth. Most power chords are also played with a consistent finger arrangement that can be slid easily up and down the fretboard.


title: Heavy metal music

text: Heavy metal is usually based on riffs created with three main harmonic traits: modal scale progressions, tritone and chromatic progressions, and the use of pedal points. Traditional heavy metal tends to employ modal scales, in particular the Aeolian and Phrygian modes. Harmonically speaking, this means the genre typically incorporates modal chord progressions such as the Aeolian progressions I-♭VI-♭VII, I-♭VII-(♭VI), or I-♭VI-IV-♭VII and Phrygian progressions implying the relation between I and ♭II (I-♭II-I, I-♭II-III, or I-♭II-VII for example). Tense-sounding chromatic or tritone relationships are used in a number of metal chord progressions. In addition to using modal harmonic relationships, heavy metal also uses "pentatonic and blues-derived features".


title: Heavy metal music

text: The tritone, an interval spanning three whole tones – such as C to F# – was considered extremely dissonant and unstable by medieval and Renaissance music theorists. It was nicknamed the "diabolus in musica –" "the devil in music".


title: Heavy metal music

text: Heavy metal songs often make extensive use of pedal point as a harmonic basis. A pedal point is a sustained tone, typically in the bass range, during which at least one foreign (i.e., dissonant) harmony is sounded in the other parts. According to Robert Walser, heavy metal harmonic relationships are "often quite complex" and the harmonic analysis done by metal players and teachers is "often very sophisticated". In the study of heavy metal chord structures, it has been concluded that "heavy metal music has proved to be far more complicated" than other music researchers had realized.


title: Heavy metal music

text: Robert Walser stated that, alongside blues and R&B, the "assemblage of disparate musical styles known ... as 'classical music'" has been a major influence on heavy metal since the genre's earliest days, and that metal's "most influential musicians have been guitar players who have also studied classical music. Their appropriation and adaptation of classical models sparked the development of a new kind of guitar virtuosity [and] changes in the harmonic and melodic language of heavy metal."


title: Heavy metal music

text: In an article written for "Grove Music Online", Walser stated that the "1980s brought on ... the widespread adaptation of chord progressions and virtuosic practices from 18th-century European models, especially Bach and Antonio Vivaldi, by influential guitarists such as Ritchie Blackmore, Marty Friedman, Jason Becker, Uli Jon Roth, Eddie Van Halen, Randy Rhoads and Yngwie Malmsteen." Kurt Bachmann of Believer has stated that "if done correctly, metal and classical fit quite well together. Classical and metal are probably the two genres that have the most in common when it comes to feel, texture, creativity."


title: Heavy metal music

text: Although a number of metal musicians cite classical composers as inspiration, classical and metal are rooted in different cultural traditions and practices – classical in the art music tradition, metal in the popular music tradition. As musicologists Nicolas Cook and Nicola Dibben note: "Analyses of popular music also sometimes reveal the influence of 'art traditions.' An example is Walser's linkage of heavy metal music with the ideologies and even some of the performance practices of nineteenth-century Romanticism. However, it would be clearly wrong to claim that traditions such as blues, rock, heavy metal, rap or dance music derive primarily from "art music.'"


title: Heavy metal music

text: According to David Hatch and Stephen Millward, Black Sabbath and the numerous heavy metal bands that they inspired have concentrated lyrically "on dark and depressing subject matter to an extent hitherto unprecedented in any form of pop music." They take as an example Black Sabbath's second album, "Paranoid" (1970), which "included songs dealing with personal trauma—'Paranoid' and 'Fairies Wear Boots' (which described the unsavoury side effects of drug-taking)—as well as those confronting wider issues, such as the self-explanatory 'War Pigs' and 'Hand of Doom.'" Deriving from the genre's roots in blues music, sex is another important topic – a thread running from Led Zeppelin's suggestive lyrics to the more explicit references of glam metal and nu metal bands.


title: Heavy metal music

text: The thematic content of heavy metal has long been a target of criticism. According to Jon Pareles, "Heavy metal's main subject matter is simple and virtually universal. With grunts, moans and subliterary lyrics, it celebrates ... a party without limits ... [T]he bulk of the music is stylized and formulaic." Music critics have often deemed metal lyrics juvenile and banal, and others have objected to what they see as advocacy of misogyny and the occult. During the 1980s, the Parents Music Resource Center petitioned the U.S. Congress to regulate the popular music industry due to what the group asserted were objectionable lyrics, particularly those in heavy metal songs. Andrew Cope stated that claims that heavy metal lyrics are misogynistic are "clearly misguided" as these critics have "overlook[ed] the overwhelming evidence that suggests otherwise". Music critic Robert Christgau called metal "an expressive mode [that] it sometimes seems will be with us for as long as ordinary white boys fear girls, pity themselves, and are permitted to rage against a world they'll never beat".


title: Heavy metal music

text: Heavy metal artists have had to defend their lyrics in front of the U.S. Senate and in court. In 1985, Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider was asked to defend his song "Under the Blade" at a U.S. Senate hearing. At the hearing, the PMRC alleged that the song was about sadomasochism and rape; Snider stated that the song was about his bandmate's throat surgery. In 1986, Ozzy Osbourne was sued over the lyrics of his song "Suicide Solution". A lawsuit against Osbourne was filed by the parents of John McCollum, a depressed teenager who committed suicide allegedly after listening to Osbourne's song. Osbourne was not found to be responsible for the teen's death. In 1990, Judas Priest was sued in American court by the parents of two young men who had shot themselves five years earlier, allegedly after hearing the subliminal statement "do it" in the band's cover of the song "Better by You, Better than Me". While the case attracted a great deal of media attention, it was ultimately dismissed. In 1991, U.K. police seized death metal records from the British record label Earache Records, in an "unsuccessful attempt to prosecute the label for obscenity".


title: Heavy metal music

text: In some predominantly Muslim countries, heavy metal has been officially denounced as a threat to traditional values, and in countries such as Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon and Malaysia, there have been incidents of heavy metal musicians and fans being arrested and incarcerated. In 1997, the Egyptian police jailed many young metal fans, and they were accused of "devil worship" and blasphemy after police found metal recordings during searches of their homes. In 2013, Malaysia banned Lamb of God from performing in their country, on the grounds that the "band's lyrics could be interpreted as being religiously insensitive" and blasphemous. Some people considered heavy metal music to being a leading factor for mental health disorders, and thought that heavy metal fans were more likely to suffer with a poor mental health, but study has proven that this is not true and the fans of this music have a lower or similar percentage of people suffering from poor mental health.


title: Heavy metal music

text: For many artists and bands, visual imagery plays a large role in heavy metal. In addition to its sound and lyrics, a heavy metal band's image is expressed in album cover art, logos, stage sets, clothing, design of instruments and music videos.


title: Heavy metal music

text: Down-the-back long hair is the "most crucial distinguishing feature of metal fashion". Originally adopted from the hippie subculture, by the 1980s and 1990s, heavy metal hair "symbolised the hate, angst and disenchantment of a generation that seemingly never felt at home", according to journalist Nader Rahman. Long hair gave members of the metal community "the power they needed to rebel against nothing in general".


title: Heavy metal music

text: The classic uniform of heavy metal fans consists of light-colored, ripped, frayed or torn blue jeans, black T-shirts, boots, and black leather or denim jackets. Deena Weinstein wrote, "T-shirts are generally emblazoned with the logos or other visual representations of favorite metal bands." In the 1980s, a range of sources – from punk rock and goth music to horror films – influenced metal fashion. Many metal performers of the 1970s and 1980s used radically shaped and brightly colored instruments to enhance their stage appearance.


title: Heavy metal music

text: Fashion and personal style was especially important for glam metal bands of the era. Performers typically wore long, dyed, hairspray-teased hair (hence the nickname "hair metal"); makeup such as lipstick and eyeliner; gaudy clothing, including leopard-skin-printed shirts or vests and tight denim, leather or spandex pants; and accessories such as headbands and jewelry. Pioneered by the heavy metal act X Japan in the late 1980s, bands in the Japanese movement known as visual kei, which includes many non-metal groups, emphasize elaborate costumes, hair and makeup.


title: Heavy metal music

text: When performing live, many metal musicians – as well as the audience for whom they're playing – engage in headbanging, which involves rhythmically beating time with the head, often emphasized by long hair. The "il cornuto", or "devil horns", hand gesture was popularized by vocalist Ronnie James Dio during his time with the bands Black Sabbath and Dio. Although Gene Simmons of Kiss claims to have been the first to make the gesture on the 1977 "Love Gun" album cover, there is speculation as to who started the phenomenon.


title: Heavy metal music

text: Attendees of metal concerts do not dance in the usual sense. It has been argued that this is due to the music's largely male audience and "extreme heterosexualist ideology". Two primary body movements used are headbanging and an arm thrust that is both a sign of appreciation and a rhythmic gesture. The performance of air guitar is popular among metal fans both at concerts and listening to records at home. According to Deena Weinstein, thrash metal concerts have two elements that are not part of the other metal genres: moshing and stage diving, which "were imported from the punk/hardcore subculture". Weinstein states that moshing participants bump and jostle each other as they move in a circle in an area called the "pit" near the stage. Stage divers climb onto the stage with the band and then jump "back into the audience".


title: Heavy metal music

text: It has been argued that heavy metal has outlasted many other rock genres largely due to the emergence of an intense, exclusionary and strongly masculine subculture. While the metal fan base is largely young, white, male and blue-collar, the group is "tolerant of those outside its core demographic base who follow its codes of dress, appearance, and behavior". Identification with the subculture is strengthened not only by the group experience of concert-going and shared elements of fashion, but also by contributing to metal magazines and, more recently, websites. Attending live concerts in particular has been called the "holiest of heavy metal communions".


title: Heavy metal music

text: The metal scene has been characterized as a "subculture of alienation" with its own code of authenticity. This code puts several demands on performers: they must appear both completely devoted to their music and loyal to the subculture that supports it; they must appear uninterested in mainstream appeal and radio hits; and they must never "sell out". Deena Weinstein stated that for the fans themselves, the code promotes "opposition to established authority, and separateness from the rest of society".


title: Heavy metal music

text: Musician and filmmaker Rob Zombie observed, "Most of the kids who come to my shows seem like really imaginative kids with a lot of creative energy they don't know what to do with" and that metal is "outsider music for outsiders. Nobody wants to be the weird kid; you just somehow end up being the weird kid. It's kind of like that, but with metal you have all the weird kids in one place." Scholars of metal have noted the tendency of fans to classify and reject some performers (and some other fans) as "poseurs" "who pretended to be part of the subculture, but who were deemed to lack authenticity and sincerity".


title: Heavy metal music

text: The origin of the term "heavy metal" in a musical context is uncertain. The phrase has been used for centuries in chemistry and metallurgy, where the periodic table organizes elements of both light and heavy metals (e.g., uranium). An early use of the term in modern popular culture was by countercultural writer William S. Burroughs. His 1961 novel "The Soft Machine" includes a character known as "Uranian Willy, the Heavy Metal Kid". Burroughs' next novel, "Nova Express" (1964), develops the theme, using "heavy metal" as a metaphor for addictive drugs: "With their diseases and orgasm drugs and their sexless parasite life forms—Heavy Metal People of Uranus wrapped in cool blue mist of vaporized bank notes—And The Insect People of Minraud with metal music." Inspired by Burroughs' novels, the term was used in the title of the 1967 album "Featuring the Human Host and the Heavy Metal Kids" by Hapshash and the Coloured Coat, which has been claimed to be its first use in the context of music. The phrase was later lifted by Sandy Pearlman, who used the term to describe the Byrds for their supposed "aluminium style of context and effect", particularly on their album "The Notorious Byrd Brothers" (1968).


title: Heavy metal music

text: Metal historian Ian Christe describes what the components of the term mean in "hippiespeak": "heavy" is roughly synonymous with "potent" or "profound", and "metal" designates a certain type of mood, grinding and weighted as with metal. The word "heavy" in this sense was a basic element of beatnik and later countercultural hippie slang, and references to "heavy music" – typically slower, more amplified variations of standard pop fare – were already common by the mid-1960s, such as in reference to Vanilla Fudge. Iron Butterfly's debut album, which was released in early 1968, was titled "Heavy". The first use of "heavy metal" in a song lyric is in reference to a motorcycle in the Steppenwolf song "Born to Be Wild", also released that year: "I like smoke and lightning / Heavy metal thunder / Racin' with the wind / And the feelin' that I'm under".


title: Heavy metal music

text: An early documented use of the phrase in rock criticism appears in Sandy Pearlman's February 1967 "Crawdaddy" review of the Rolling Stones' "Got Live If You Want It" (1966), albeit as a description of the sound rather than as a genre: "On this album the Stones go metal. Technology is in the saddle—as an ideal and as a method." Another appears in the 11 May 1968 issue of "Rolling Stone", in which Barry Gifford wrote about the album "A Long Time Comin'" by U.S. band Electric Flag: "Nobody who's been listening to Mike Bloomfield—either talking or playing—in the last few years could have expected this. This is the new soul music, the synthesis of white blues and heavy metal rock." In the 7 September 1968 edition of the "Seattle Daily Times", reviewer Susan Schwartz wrote that the Jimi Hendrix Experience "has a heavy-metals blues sound". In January 1970, Lucian K. Truscott IV, reviewing "Led Zeppelin II" for the "Village Voice", described the sound as "heavy" and made comparisons with Blue Cheer and Vanilla Fudge.


title: Heavy metal music

text: Other early documented uses of the phrase are from reviews by critic Mike Saunders. In the 12 November 1970 issue of "Rolling Stone", he commented on an album put out the previous year by the British band Humble Pie: ""Safe as Yesterday Is," their first American release, proved that Humble Pie could be boring in lots of different ways. Here they were a noisy, unmelodic, heavy metal-leaden shit-rock band with the loud and noisy parts beyond doubt. There were a couple of nice songs ... and one monumental pile of refuse." He described the band's latest, self-titled release as "more of the same 27th-rate heavy metal crap".


title: Heavy metal music

text: In a review of Sir Lord Baltimore's "Kingdom Come" in the May 1971 edition of "Creem", Saunders wrote, "Sir Lord Baltimore seems to have down pat most all the best heavy metal tricks in the book." "Creem" critic Lester Bangs is credited with popularizing the term via his early 1970s essays on bands such as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. Through the decade, "heavy metal" was used by certain critics as a virtually automatic putdown. In 1979, lead "New York Times" popular music critic John Rockwell described what he called "heavy-metal rock" as "brutally aggressive music played mostly for minds clouded by drugs" and, in a different article, as "a crude exaggeration of rock basics that appeals to white teenagers".


title: Heavy metal music

text: Coined by Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward, "downer rock" was one of the earliest terms used to describe this style of music and was applied to acts such as Sabbath and Bloodrock. "Classic Rock" magazine described the downer rock culture revolving around the use of Quaaludes and the drinking of wine. The term would later be replaced by "heavy metal".


title: Heavy metal music

text: Earlier on, as "heavy metal" emerged partially from heavy psychedelic rock, also known as acid rock, "acid rock" was often used interchangeably with "heavy metal" and "hard rock". "Acid rock" generally describes heavy, hard or raw psychedelic rock. Musicologist Steve Waksman stated that "the distinction between acid rock, hard rock, and heavy metal can at some point never be more than tenuous", while percussionist John Beck defined "acid rock" as synonymous with hard rock and heavy metal.


title: Heavy metal music

text: Apart from "acid rock", the terms "heavy metal" and "hard rock" have often been used interchangeably, particularly in discussing bands of the 1970s, a period when the terms were largely synonymous. For example, the 1983 edition of the "Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll" includes the following passage: "Known for its aggressive blues-based hard-rock style, Aerosmith was the top American heavy-metal band of the mid-Seventies".


title: Heavy metal music

text: "The term 'heavy metal' is self-defeating," remarked Kiss bassist Gene Simmons. "When I think of heavy metal, I've always thought of elves and evil dwarves and evil princes and princesses. A lot of the Maiden and Priest records were real metal records. I sure as hell don't think Metallica's metal, or Guns N' Roses is metal, or Kiss is metal. It just doesn't deal with the ground opening up and little dwarves coming out riding dragons! You know, like bad Dio records."


title: Heavy metal music

text: Heavy metal's quintessential guitar style, which is built around distortion-heavy riffs and power chords, traces its roots to early 1950s Memphis blues guitarists such as Joe Hill Louis, Willie Johnson and particularly Pat Hare, who captured a "grittier, nastier, more ferocious electric guitar sound" on records such as James Cotton's "Cotton Crop Blues" (1954). Other early influences include the late 1950s instrumentals of Link Wray, particularly "Rumble" (1958); the early 1960s surf rock of Dick Dale, including "Let's Go Trippin'" (1961) and "Misirlou" (1962); and The Kingsmen's version of "Louie Louie" (1963), which became a garage rock standard.


title: Heavy metal music

text: However, the genre's direct lineage begins in the mid-1960s. American blues music was a major influence on the early British rockers of the era. Bands like The Rolling Stones and The Yardbirds developed blues rock by recording covers of classic blues songs, often speeding up the tempos. As they experimented with the music, the U.K. blues-based bands – and in turn the U.S. acts they influenced – developed what would become the hallmarks of heavy metal (in particular, the loud, distorted guitar sound). The Kinks played a major role in popularising this sound with their 1964 hit "You Really Got Me".


title: Heavy metal music

text: In addition to The Kinks' Dave Davies, other guitarists such as The Who's Pete Townshend and The Yardbirds' Jeff Beck were experimenting with feedback. Where the blues rock drumming style started out largely as simple shuffle beats on small kits, drummers began using a more muscular, complex and amplified approach to match and be heard against the increasingly loud guitar. Vocalists similarly modified their technique and increased their reliance on amplification, often becoming more stylized and dramatic. In terms of sheer volume, especially in live performance, The Who's "bigger-louder-wall-of-Marshalls" approach was seminal to the development of the later heavy metal sound.


title: Heavy metal music

text: The combination of loud and heavy blues rock with psychedelic rock and acid rock formed much of the original basis for heavy metal. The variant or subgenre of psychedelic rock often known as "acid rock" was particularly influential on heavy metal; acid rock is often defined as a heavier, louder or harder variant of psychedelic rock, or the more extreme side of the psychedelic rock genre, frequently containing a loud, improvised and heavily distorted, guitar-centered sound. Acid rock has been described as psychedelic rock at its "rawest and most intense", emphasizing the heavier qualities associated with both the positive and negative extremes of the psychedelic experience rather than only the idyllic side of psychedelia. In contrast to more idyllic or whimsical pop psychedelic rock, American acid rock garage bands such as the 13th Floor Elevators epitomized the frenetic, heavier, darker and more psychotic psychedelic rock sound known as acid rock, a sound characterized by droning guitar riffs, amplified feedback and guitar distortion, while the 13th Floor Elevators' sound in particular featured yelping vocals and "occasionally demented" lyrics. Frank Hoffman noted that "[Psychedelic rock] was sometimes referred to as 'acid rock'. The latter label was applied to a pounding, hard rock variant that evolved out of the mid-1960s garage-punk movement... When rock began turning back to softer, roots-oriented sounds in late 1968, acid-rock bands mutated into heavy metal acts."


title: Heavy metal music

text: One of the most influential bands in forging the merger of psychedelic rock and acid rock with the blues rock genre was the British power trio Cream, who derived a massive, heavy sound from unison riffing between guitarist Eric Clapton and bassist Jack Bruce, as well as Ginger Baker's double bass drumming. Their first two LPs – "Fresh Cream" (1966) and "Disraeli Gears" (1967) – are regarded as essential prototypes for the future style of heavy metal. The Jimi Hendrix Experience's debut album, "Are You Experienced" (1967), was also highly influential. Hendrix's virtuosic technique would be emulated by many metal guitarists and the album's most successful single, "Purple Haze", is identified by some as the first heavy metal hit. Vanilla Fudge, whose first album also came out in 1967, has been called "one of the few American links between psychedelia and what soon became heavy metal," and the band has been cited as an early American heavy metal group. On their self-titled debut album, Vanilla Fudge created "loud, heavy, slowed-down arrangements" of contemporary hit songs, blowing these songs up to "epic proportions" and "bathing them in a trippy, distorted haze".


title: Heavy metal music

text: During the late 1960s, many psychedelic singers, such as Arthur Brown, began to create outlandish, theatrical and often macabre performances that influenced many metal acts. The American psychedelic rock band Coven, who opened for early heavy metal influencers such as Vanilla Fudge and the Yardbirds, portrayed themselves as practitioners of witchcraft or black magic, using dark – Satanic or occult – imagery in their lyrics, album art and live performances, which consisted of elaborate, theatrical "Satanic rites". Coven's 1969 debut album, "Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls", featured imagery of skulls, black masses, inverted crosses and Satan worship, and both the album artwork and the band's live performances marked the first appearances in rock music of the sign of the horns, which would later become an important gesture in heavy metal culture. At the same time in England, the band Black Widow were also among the first psychedelic rock bands to use occult and Satanic imagery and lyrics, though both Black Widow and Coven's lyrical and thematic influences on heavy metal were quickly overshadowed by the darker and heavier sounds of Black Sabbath.


title: Heavy metal music

text: Critics disagree over who can be thought of as the first heavy metal band. Most credit either Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath, with American commentators tending to favour Led Zeppelin and British commentators tending to favour Black Sabbath, though many give equal credit to both. Deep Purple, the third band in what is sometimes considered the "unholy trinity" of heavy metal along with Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath fluctuated between many rock styles until late 1969 when they took a heavy metal direction. A few commentators – mainly American – argue for other groups, including Iron Butterfly, Steppenwolf, Blue Cheer or Vanilla Fudge as the first to play heavy metal.


title: Heavy metal music

text: In 1968, the sound that would become known as heavy metal began to coalesce. That January, San Francisco band Blue Cheer released a cover of Eddie Cochran's classic "Summertime Blues" as a part of their debut album, "Vincebus Eruptum", and many consider it to be the first true heavy metal recording. The same month, Steppenwolf released their self-titled debut album, on which the track "Born to Be Wild" refers to "heavy metal thunder" in describing a motorcycle. In July, the Jeff Beck Group, whose leader had preceded Page as The Yardbirds' guitarist, released its debut record, "Truth", which featured some of the "most molten, barbed, downright funny noises of all time", breaking ground for generations of metal ax-slingers. In September, Page's new band, Led Zeppelin, made its live debut in Denmark (but were billed as The New Yardbirds). The Beatles' self-titled double album, released in November, included "Helter Skelter", then one of the heaviest-sounding songs ever released by a major band. The Pretty Things' rock opera "S.F. Sorrow", released in December, featured "proto heavy metal" songs such as "Old Man Going" and "I See You". Iron Butterfly's 1968 song "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" is sometimes described as an example of the transition between acid rock and heavy metal or the turning point in which acid rock became "heavy metal", and both Iron Butterfly's 1968 album "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" and Blue Cheer's 1968 album "Vincebus Eruptum" have been described as laying the foundation of heavy metal and greatly influential in the transformation of acid rock into heavy metal.


title: Heavy metal music

text: In this counterculture period, MC5, who began as part of the Detroit garage rock scene, developed a raw, distorted style that has been seen as a major influence on the future sound of both heavy metal and later punk music. The Stooges also began to establish and influence a heavy metal and later punk sound, with songs such as "I Wanna Be Your Dog", featuring pounding and distorted heavy guitar power chord riffs. Pink Floyd released two of their heaviest and loudest songs to date, "Ibiza Bar" and "The Nile Song", the latter of which being regarded as "one of the heaviest songs the band recorded." King Crimson's debut album started with "21st Century Schizoid Man", which was considered heavy metal by several critics.


title: Heavy metal music

text: In January 1969, Led Zeppelin's self-titled debut album was released and reached No. 10 on the "Billboard" album chart. In July, Led Zeppelin and a power trio with a Cream-inspired, but cruder sound, called Grand Funk Railroad played the Atlanta Pop Festival. That same month, another Cream-rooted trio led by Leslie West released "Mountain", an album filled with heavy blues rock guitar and roaring vocals. In August, the group – now itself dubbed Mountain – played an hour-long set at the Woodstock Festival, exposing the crowd of 300,000 people to the emerging sound of heavy metal. Mountain's proto-metal or early heavy metal hit song "Mississippi Queen" from the album "Climbing!" is especially credited with paving the way for heavy metal and was one of the first heavy guitar songs to receive regular play on radio. In September 1969, the Beatles released the album "Abbey Road" containing the track "I Want You (She's So Heavy)", which has been credited as an early example of or influence on heavy metal or doom metal. In October 1969, British band High Tide debuted with the heavy, proto-metal album "Sea Shanties".


title: Heavy metal music

text: Led Zeppelin defined central aspects of the emerging genre, with Page's highly distorted guitar style and singer Robert Plant's dramatic, wailing vocals. Other bands, with a more consistently heavy, "purely" metal sound, would prove equally important in codifying the genre. The 1970 releases by Black Sabbath ("Black Sabbath", which is generally accepted as the first heavy metal album, and "Paranoid") and Deep Purple ("Deep Purple in Rock") were crucial in this regard.


title: Heavy metal music

text: Birmingham's Black Sabbath had developed a particularly heavy sound in part due to an industrial accident guitarist Tony Iommi suffered before cofounding the band. Unable to play normally, Iommi had to tune his guitar down for easier fretting and rely on power chords with their relatively simple fingering. The bleak, industrial, working-class environment of Birmingham, a manufacturing city full of noisy factories and metalworking, has itself been credited with influencing Black Sabbath's heavy, chugging, metallic sound – and the sound of heavy metal in general.


title: Heavy metal music

text: Deep Purple had fluctuated between styles in its early years, but by 1969, vocalist Ian Gillan and guitarist Ritchie Blackmore had led the band toward the developing heavy metal style. In 1970, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple scored major U.K. chart hits with "Paranoid" and "Black Night", respectively. That same year, two other British bands released debut albums in a heavy metal mode: Uriah Heep with "...Very 'Eavy... Very 'Umble" and UFO with "UFO 1". Bloodrock released their self-titled debut album, a collection of heavy guitar riffs, gruff style vocals and sadistic and macabre lyrics. The influential Budgie brought the new metal sound into a power trio context, creating some of the heaviest music of the time. The occult lyrics and imagery employed by Black Sabbath and Uriah Heep would prove particularly influential; Led Zeppelin also began foregrounding such elements with its fourth album, released in 1971. In 1973, Deep Purple released the song "Smoke on the Water", whose iconic riff is usually considered as the most recognizable one in "heavy rock" history, as a single of the classic live album "Made in Japan".


title: Heavy metal music

text: On the other side of the Atlantic, the trendsetting group was Grand Funk Railroad, who was described as "the most commercially successful American heavy-metal band from 1970 until they disbanded in 1976, [they] established the Seventies success formula: continuous touring." Other influential bands identified with metal emerged in the U.S. such as Sir Lord Baltimore ("Kingdom Come," 1970), Blue Öyster Cult ("Blue Öyster Cult", 1972), Aerosmith ("Aerosmith", 1973) and Kiss ("Kiss", 1974). Sir Lord Baltimore's 1970 debut album and both Humble Pie's debut and self-titled third album were among the first albums to be described in print as "heavy metal", with "As Safe As Yesterday Is" referred to by the term "heavy metal" in a 1970 review in "Rolling Stone" magazine. Various smaller bands from the U.S., U.K. and Continental Europe – including Bang, Josefus, Leaf Hound, Primeval, Hard Stuff, Truth and Janey, Dust, JPT Scare Band, Frijid Pink, Cactus, May Blitz, Captain Beyond, Toad, Granicus, Iron Claw, and Yesterday's Children – though lesser known outside of their respective scenes, proved to be greatly influential on the emerging metal movement. In Germany, Scorpions debuted with "Lonesome Crow" in 1972. Blackmore, who had emerged as a virtuoso soloist with Deep Purple's highly influential album "Machine Head" (1972), left the band in 1975 to form Rainbow with Ronnie James Dio, singer and bassist for blues rock band Elf and future vocalist for Black Sabbath and heavy metal band Dio. Rainbow with Ronnie James Dio would expand on the mystical and fantasy-based lyrics and themes sometimes found in heavy metal, pioneering both power metal and neoclassical metal. These bands also built audiences via constant touring and increasingly elaborate stage shows.


title: Heavy metal music

text: There are arguments about whether these and other early bands truly qualify as "heavy metal" or simply as "hard rock". Those closer to the music's blues roots or placing greater emphasis on melody are now commonly ascribed the latter label. AC/DC, which debuted with "High Voltage" in 1975, is a prime example. The 1983 "Rolling Stone" encyclopedia entry begins, "Australian heavy-metal band AC/DC ..." Rock historian Clinton Walker wrote, "Calling AC/DC a heavy metal band in the seventies was as inaccurate as it is today... [They] were a rock 'n' roll band that just happened to be heavy enough for metal." The issue is not only one of shifting definitions, but also a persistent distinction between musical style and audience identification; Ian Christe describes how the band "became the stepping-stone that led huge numbers of hard rock fans into heavy metal perdition".


title: Heavy metal music

text: In certain cases, there is little debate. After Black Sabbath, the next major example is Britain's Judas Priest, which debuted with "Rocka Rolla" in 1974. In Christe's description,


title: Heavy metal music

text: Black Sabbath's audience was... left to scavenge for sounds with similar impact. By the mid-1970s, heavy metal aesthetic could be spotted, like a mythical beast, in the moody bass and complex dual guitars of Thin Lizzy, in the stagecraft of Alice Cooper, in the sizzling guitar and showy vocals of Queen, and in the thundering medieval questions of Rainbow... Judas Priest arrived to unify and amplify these diverse highlights from hard rock's sonic palette. For the first time, heavy metal became a true genre unto itself.


title: Heavy metal music

text: Though Judas Priest did not have a top 40 album in the United States until 1980, for many it was the definitive post-Sabbath heavy metal band; its twin-guitar attack, featuring rapid tempos and a non-bluesy, more cleanly metallic sound, was a major influence on later acts. While heavy metal was growing in popularity, most critics were not enamored of the music. Objections were raised to metal's adoption of visual spectacle and other trappings of commercial artifice, but the main offense was its perceived musical and lyrical vacuity: reviewing a Black Sabbath album in the early 1970s, Robert Christgau described it as "dull and decadent... dim-witted, amoral exploitation."


title: Heavy metal music

text: Punk rock emerged in the mid-1970s as a reaction against contemporary social conditions as well as what was perceived as the overindulgent, overproduced rock music of the time, including heavy metal. Sales of heavy metal records declined sharply in the late 1970s in the face of punk, disco and more mainstream rock. With the major labels fixated on punk, many newer British heavy metal bands were inspired by the movement's aggressive, high-energy sound and "lo-fi", do it yourself ethos. Underground metal bands began putting out cheaply recorded releases independently to small, devoted audiences.


title: Heavy metal music

text: Motörhead, founded in 1975, was the first important band to straddle the punk/metal divide. With the explosion of punk in 1977, others followed. British music magazines such as the "NME" and "Sounds" took notice, with "Sounds" writer Geoff Barton christening the movement the "New Wave of British Heavy Metal". NWOBHM bands including Iron Maiden, Saxon and Def Leppard re-energized the heavy metal genre. Following the lead set by Judas Priest and Motörhead, they toughened up the sound, reduced its blues elements and emphasized increasingly fast tempos.


title: Heavy metal music

text: "This seemed to be the resurgence of heavy metal," noted Ronnie James Dio, who joined Black Sabbath in 1979. "I've never thought there was a "desurgence" of heavy metal – if that's a word! – but it was important to me that, yet again "[after Rainbow]", I could be involved in something that was paving the way for those who are going to come after me."


title: Heavy metal music

text: By 1980, the NWOBHM had broken into the mainstream, as albums by Iron Maiden and Saxon, as well as Motörhead, reached the British top 10. Though less commercially successful, NWOBHM bands such as Venom and Diamond Head would have a significant influence on metal's development. In 1981, Motörhead became the first of this new breed of metal bands to top the U.K. charts with the live album "No Sleep 'til Hammersmith".


title: Heavy metal music

text: The first generation of metal bands was ceding the limelight. Deep Purple broke up soon after Blackmore's departure in 1975, and Led Zeppelin split following drummer John Bonham's death in 1980. Black Sabbath were plagued with infighting and substance abuse, while facing fierce competition from their opening band, Van Halen. Eddie Van Halen established himself as one of the leading metal guitarists of the era. His solo on "Eruption", from the band's self-titled 1978 album, is considered a milestone. Eddie Van Halen's sound even crossed over into pop music when his guitar solo was featured on the track "Beat It" by Michael Jackson, which reached No. 1 in the U.S. in February 1983.


title: Heavy metal music

text: Inspired by Van Halen's success, a metal scene began to develop in Southern California during the late 1970s. Based on the clubs of L.A.'s Sunset Strip, bands such as Mötley Crüe, Quiet Riot, Ratt and W.A.S.P. were influenced by traditional heavy metal of the 1970s. These acts incorporated the theatrics (and sometimes makeup) of glam metal or "hair metal" bands such as Alice Cooper and Kiss. Glam metal bands were often visually distinguished by long, overworked hairstyles accompanied by wardrobes which were sometimes considered cross-gender. The lyrics of these glam metal bands characteristically emphasized hedonism and wild behavior, including lyrics that involved sexual expletives and the use of narcotics.


title: Heavy metal music

text: In the wake of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and Judas Priest's breakthrough with "British Steel" (1980), heavy metal became increasingly popular in the early 1980s. Many metal artists benefited from the exposure they received on MTV, which began airing in 1981; sales often soared if a band's videos screened on the channel. Def Leppard's videos for "Pyromania" (1983) made them superstars in America, and Quiet Riot became the first domestic heavy metal band to top the "Billboard" chart with "Metal Health" (1983). One of the seminal events in metal's growing popularity was the 1983 US Festival in California, where the "heavy metal day" featuring Ozzy Osbourne, Van Halen, Scorpions, Mötley Crüe, Judas Priest and others drew the largest audiences of the three-day event.


title: Heavy metal music

text: Between 1983 and 1984, heavy metal's share of all recordings sold in the U.S. increased from 8% to 20%. Several major professional magazines devoted to the genre were launched, including "Kerrang!" in 1981 and "Metal Hammer" in 1984, as well as a host of fan journals. In 1985, "Billboard" declared: "Metal has broadened its audience base. Metal music is no longer the exclusive domain of male teenagers. The metal audience has become older (college-aged), younger (pre-teen), and more female."


title: Heavy metal music

text: By the mid-1980s, glam metal was a dominant presence on the U.S. charts, music television and the arena concert circuit. New bands such as L.A.'s Warrant and acts from the East Coast like Poison and Cinderella became major draws, while Mötley Crüe and Ratt remained very popular. Bridging the stylistic gap between hard rock and glam metal, New Jersey's Bon Jovi became enormously successful with its third album, "Slippery When Wet" (1986). The similarly styled Swedish band Europe became international stars with "The Final Countdown" (1986), whose title track hit No. 1 in 25 countries. In 1987, MTV launched "Headbangers Ball", a show devoted exclusively to heavy metal videos. However, the metal audience had begun to factionalize, with those in many underground metal scenes favoring more extreme sounds and disparaging the popular style as "light metal" or "hair metal".


title: Heavy metal music

text: One band that reached diverse audiences was Guns N' Roses. In contrast to their glam metal contemporaries in L.A., they were seen as much more raw and dangerous. With the release of their chart-topping album "Appetite for Destruction" in 1987, they "recharged and almost single-handedly sustained the Sunset Strip sleaze system for several years". The following year, Jane's Addiction emerged from the same L.A. hard-rock club scene with their major-label debut, "Nothing's Shocking". Reviewing the album, Steve Pond of "Rolling Stone" declared, "As much as any band in existence, Jane's Addiction is the true heir to Led Zeppelin." The group was one of the first to be identified with the "alternative metal" trend that would come to the fore in the next decade. Meanwhile, new bands like New York City's Winger and New Jersey's Skid Row sustained the popularity of the glam metal style.


title: Heavy metal music

text: Many subgenres of heavy metal developed outside of the commercial mainstream during the 1980s, such as crossover thrash. Several attempts have been made to map the complex world of underground metal, most notably by the editors of AllMusic, as well as critic Garry Sharpe-Young. Sharpe-Young's multivolume metal encyclopedia separates the underground into five major categories: thrash metal, death metal, black metal, power metal and the related subgenres of doom and gothic metal.


title: Heavy metal music

text: In 1990, a review in "Rolling Stone" suggested retiring the term "heavy metal" as the genre was "ridiculously vague". The article stated that the term only fueled "misperceptions of rock & roll bigots who still assume that five bands as different as Ratt, Extreme, Anthrax, Danzig and Mother Love Bone" sound the same.


title: Heavy metal music

text: Thrash metal emerged in the early 1980s under the influence of hardcore punk and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, particularly songs in the revved-up style known as speed metal. The movement began in the United States, with Bay Area thrash metal being the leading scene. The sound developed by thrash groups was faster and more aggressive than that of the original metal bands and their glam metal successors. Low-register guitar riffs are typically overlaid with shredding leads. Lyrics often express nihilistic views or deal with social issues using visceral, gory language. Thrash has been described as a form of "urban blight music" and "a palefaced cousin of rap".


title: Heavy metal music

text: The subgenre was popularized by the "Big Four of Thrash": Metallica, Anthrax, Megadeth and Slayer. Three German bands, Kreator, Sodom and Destruction, played a central role in bringing the style to Europe. Others, including the San Francisco Bay Area's Testament and Exodus, New Jersey's Overkill, and Brazil's Sepultura and Sarcófago, also had a significant impact. Although thrash metal began as an underground movement, and remained largely that for almost a decade, the leading bands of the scene began to reach a wider audience. Metallica brought the sound into the top 40 of the "Billboard" album chart in 1986 with "Master of Puppets", the genre's first Platinum record. Two years later, the band's album "...And Justice for All" hit No. 6, while Megadeth and Anthrax also had top 40 records on the American charts.


title: Heavy metal music

text: Though less commercially successful than the rest of the Big Four, Slayer released one of the genre's definitive records: "Reign in Blood" (1986) was credited for incorporating heavier guitar timbres and including explicit depictions of death, suffering, violence and occult into thrash metal's lyricism. Slayer attracted a following among far-right skinheads, and accusations of promoting violence and Nazi themes have dogged the band. Even though Slayer did not receive substantial media exposure, their music played a key role in the development of extreme metal.


title: Heavy metal music

text: In the early 1990s, thrash metal achieved breakout success, challenging and redefining the metal mainstream. Metallica's self-titled 1991 album topped the "Billboard" chart, as the band established an international following. Megadeth's "Countdown to Extinction" (1992) debuted at No. 2, Anthrax and Slayer cracked the top 10, and albums by regional bands such as Testament and Sepultura entered the top 100.


title: Heavy metal music

text: Thrash metal soon began to evolve and split into more extreme metal genres. "Slayer's music was directly responsible for the rise of death metal," according to MTV News. The NWOBHM band Venom was also an important progenitor. The death metal movement in both North America and Europe adopted and emphasized the elements of blasphemy and diabolism employed by such acts. Florida's Death, San Francisco Bay Area's Possessed and Ohio's Necrophagia are recognized as seminal bands in the style. All three have been credited with inspiring the subgenre's name. Possessed in particular did so via their 1984 demo, "Death Metal", and their song "Death Metal", which came from their 1985 debut album, "Seven Churches". In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Swedish death metal became notable and melodic forms of death metal were created.


title: Heavy metal music

text: Death metal utilizes the speed and aggression of both thrash and hardcore, fused with lyrics preoccupied with Z-grade slasher movie violence and Satanism. Death metal vocals are typically bleak, involving guttural "death growls", high-pitched screaming, the "death rasp" and other uncommon techniques.<ref name="Genre—Death Metal/Black Metal">[ "Genre—Death Metal/Black Metal"]. AllMusic. Retrieved on 27 February 2007</ref> Complementing the deep, aggressive vocal style are down-tuned, heavily distorted guitars and extremely fast percussion, often with rapid double bass drumming and "wall of sound"–style blast beats. Frequent tempo and time signature changes and syncopation are also typical.


title: Heavy metal music

text: Death metal, like thrash metal, generally rejects the theatrics of earlier metal styles, opting instead for an everyday look of ripped jeans and plain leather jackets. One major exception to this rule was Deicide's Glen Benton, who branded an inverted cross on his forehead and wore armor on stage. Morbid Angel adopted neo-fascist imagery. These two bands, along with Death and Obituary, were leaders of the major death metal scene that emerged in Florida in the mid-1980s. In the U.K., the related style of grindcore, led by bands such as Napalm Death and Extreme Noise Terror, emerged from the anarcho-punk movement.


title: Heavy metal music

text: The first wave of black metal emerged in Europe in the early and mid-1980s, led by the United Kingdom's Venom, Denmark's Mercyful Fate, Switzerland's Hellhammer and Celtic Frost, and Sweden's Bathory. By the late 1980s, Norwegian bands such as Mayhem and Burzum were heading a second wave. Black metal varies considerably in style and production quality, although most bands emphasize shrieked and growled vocals, highly distorted guitars frequently played with rapid tremolo picking, a dark atmosphere and intentionally lo-fi production, often with ambient noise and background hiss.