Andrew O'Neill

A History of Heavy metal is a well researched, comprehensive, humorous, and deeply opinionated look into the history of the heavy metal genre of music, from its influences (garage rock, Beatles, Hendricks, etc.) and beginnings (BLACK SABBATH) to Death metal and Black metal right up until the current day with the almost infinite number of sub-genres that seem to exist (including a look into Post-Metal). Andrew is a very funny musical commentators but he isn't brilliant. Sometimes his jokes rely too heavily on crass observations to be considered intelligent humor. Andrew can be quite opinionated but that comes with the territory. For the most part, they managed to present a fairly evenhanded history of metal.… (mehr)

Fun, but somehow lacking.

This is definitely a fun read. The humour is great and there’s also some very good journalistic points. However, the history is very much incomplete. The part dedicated to proto-metal and its beginnings is completely Brit-centric, ignoring what was happening on the side of the ocean. It’s great that it mentions bands like The Who and Cream, not so great that Blue Cheer and Mountain are considered not worth of any importance. While the NWOBHM was raging, there were bands in the States that were carrying the underground flag of US Metal: what about Mark Reale’s Riot, for instance? Fire Down Under is as seminal as any Saxon record. How could the author forgot to mention Accept, who basically kickstarted the huge German power metal scene? And Queensrÿche, the forefathers of the whole prog metal movement, movement which is basically completely ignored? Some of the authors opinions I agree with, some I really don’t, but that’s perfectly fine and I have no issues with.
Anyway, despite the problems I mentioned, I still consider this book worth its money, hilarious to read and definitely recommended! Just keep in mind that it’s far from being a complete history of heavy metal (which, I agree, would have been an impossible mission).… (mehr)

This is a very personal overview of British comedian Andrew O’Neal’s favorite music genre and as such is less an academic journey and more an anecdotal one. It’s full of frank opinions and some excellent amusing asides and footnotes. Some of the chapters on the many splinter sub-genres of metal lost me in a plethora of band names and albums I’ve never heard of, but the discussions of more mainstream metal and its roots provide both some previously unappreciated insights, and some new bands to go and discover.… (mehr)