We can blame Gustav Holst and his work "The Planets" for Black Sabbath.
That was 1970 but you could argue that the Kinks did the heavy riff first with You Really Got Me in 1964 which is really based on the jazz song, 1957 The Train and the River by Jimmy Giuffre.
By 1968 everyone was playing some form of "heavy" guitar lick. One of my faves was Inna Gadda Da Video and Summertime Blues which was originally done in 1958 by Eddie Cochran. But they didn't have the amps to make it "heavy". Just loud.
In 1968 Paul McCartney wanted to write the "dirtiest filthiest loudest song" ever after reading Pete Townsend bragging about his new album. He had no idea what song Pete was talking about.
The Hendrix cover song of Bob Dylan's All Along the Watchtower in 1968 was probably the best example of the shift to loud music. Not technically heavy metal but stacked and dimed Marshalll Super Lead 100 Watt full-stacks made it loud.
The use of Marshall's and Fenders were started by the Beatles and the Who who went with Marshall Major's before switching to Sound City and the Hiwatt DR103. In 1976 the Who was pushing 76,000 watts at 120 decibels. udiscovermusic.com/stories/loudes…
All this to say that some of the hardest hit from the pandemic are the multi millionaires who rely on noisy concerts to keep the cash flow going. Like zombies who never die.. 70's bands are back this year: Eagles, Journey, Rod Stewart, Eagles and more. concertful.com/tour-dates/2021
Music is so messed up I can't tell what decade is "hip" or "oldies" anymore.
Thankfully Boomers still worship the "riff"
"[Songwriting is] an impersonal, assembly-line-driven process that would make Henry Ford proud.” nypost.com/2015/10/04/you…
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