Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal [Hardcover]

Ian Christe (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2003

The definitive history heavy metal, with over 100 interviews with members of Black Sabbath, Metallica, Judas Priest, Twisted Sister, Slipknot, Kiss, Megadeth, Public Enemy, Napalm Death, and more. With hundreds of platinum albums to date, heavy metal CDs and ticket sales continue to dominate Billboard and Pollstar charts. More than 30 years after Black Sabbath released the first complete heavy metal album, its founder, Ozzy Osbourne, is the star of THE OSBOURNES, MTV's hippest new reality show. Contrary to popular belief, headbangers and the music they love are more alive than ever. Yet there has never been a comprehensive book on the history of heavy metal - until now. Featuring interviews with members of the biggest bands in the genre, SOUND OF THE BEAST gives an overview of the past thirty-plus years of heavy metal, delving into the personal details of those who created it. Everything is here, from the bootlegging beginnings of fans like Lars Ulrich (future founder of Metallica) to the sold-out stadiums and personal excess of the biggest groups. From heavy metal's roots in the work of breakthrough groups such as Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin to MTV hair metal, courtroom controversies, black metal murderers, and Ozzfest, SOUND OF THE BEAST offers the final word on this elusive, extreme, and far-reaching form of music. Finally longtime fans of the genre have a true history of their music, and younger fans of groups such as Slipknot and System of a Down can learn where it all began.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Few books on heavy metal music can compare to Christe's thoughtful and passionate history of the music of the beast. There is little argument that heavy metal began in earnest with Black Sabbath (though the Beatles' "Helter Skelter" is considered by some to be the first heavy metal song), and Christe holds to convention and begins his metal timeline in early 1970. Following in the jamming, bluesy tradition of the Yard Birds and Cream, Sabbath (then called Earth) wrote "Black Sabbath"-a song that changed not only the band's name, but the face of rock and roll. Black Sabbath set the pace, but bands like Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple "fleshed out the edges and gave it sex appeal." The next wave, the new wave of British heavy metal, saw the emergence of Motorhead, Saxon and Iron Maiden among many others. The movement then spread through America and found most bands cropping up out of L.A. (although many migrated from the Midwest). Van Halen, Ratt and Motley Crue grew out of the then underground club scene. Christe doesn't get bogged down in anecdotes about bands and their groupies, but instead documents the music and its different genres. Each chapter contains helpful "genre boxes" giving a brief description of the style (e.g., Power Metal, Death Metal and Nu Metal). If Christe is to be faulted, it is on the grounds of hero worship: he's a metal fan, scribe (a music writer living in Brooklyn) and practitioner (in a digital metal band called Black Noerd), and readers might wish for more critical analysis about the culture of fans. But this is a minor point in a book otherwise worthy of having its dog-eared and beer-stained pages passed among friends and placed in motel-room bedside drawers. 94 b&w photos, and 16-page color insert not seen by PW.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School-MTV's Headbanger's Ball, which debuted in 1987, was canceled in 1995-metal was officially "over." But it has returned to the schedule, and metal is making a comeback. In Christe's exhaustive history, readers watch metal rise, fall, change, and splinter into a massive number of genres (death metal, black metal, thrash metal, and more). As in David Konow's Bang Your Head (Three Rivers, 2002), the story begins with Black Sabbath (as if there would be any other choice); but while Konow kept to the well known, Christe gives just as much attention to the fringes. Also unlike Konow, he eschews gossip for almost scholarly explanations of the musicians' creative process and their works. Through it all, he shows the impact of competing forces (like punk, grunge, and rap). Chapters are arranged chronologically but also by genre, and each one is packed with black-and-white photographs and "genre boxes" that list the definitive recordings, ending with the author's choice for the 25 best metal albums of all time. The book is well indexed. New metal fans will run to the music store not only because of the knowledge gained from this volume, but also because of the enthusiastic (though sometimes a little overwrought) way the author shares it.
Jamie Watson, Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: HarperEntertainment; 1st edition (April 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 006052362X
• ISBN-13: 978-0060523626
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (64 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #988,816 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

The author of Sound of the Beast and Everybody Wants Some: The Van Halen Saga is also a Sirius XM radio host and the publisher of Bazillion Points Books (home to Hellbent for Cooking, Touch and Go, Metalion, Swedish Death Metal, Mellodrama: The Mellotron Movie, Once Upon a Nightwish, Dirty Deeds: My Life Inside/Outside of AC/DC, and other deep music-related books and DVDs). He lives in New York City.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ian Christe: Master of Reality, May 4, 2003

By 

Paul Mcdonough (Irving, Texas United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal (Hardcover)

Having read quite a few music histories and biographies, the one thing that really stands out about Ian Christe's book is the writing; in a word, superb! Many of the reviews of this book that I've read miss this and gripe, simply because their favorite bands did not get enough coverage. Sure I could complain that Black Flag or the Obsessed or Corrosion of Conformity doesn't get enough coverage, but that wouldn't change the fact that Metallica is simply the most important band in metal. Doesn't mean they are the best, but they, more than any other band, are responsible for metal being as popular as it is today. Christe nails it on the head that heavy metal really started with Sabbath (I like Zeppelin, the Who and Hendrix too, but they were rock bands and spawned an entirely different generation of music). EVERY metal band around owes a debt to Sabbath (for the heaviness, the look, and the orchestration). In addition, he does an excellent job of covering the whole metal scene and a brilliant job in breaking down the genre by sub-genre. The fact that bands such as the Accused, Die Kreuzen and Exodus are mentioned is awesome and the depth and breadth of metal knowledge that Christe has accumulated over the years is impressive. If you are interested in the hard rock-punk evolution, read Rock and the Pop Narcotic (Joe Carducci). For metal, this is the book. Hats off to you Ian! Great book!

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Rich and Detailed Tapestry / A Heavy Metal Treasure, April 19, 2003

By 

Miss Banger (KC * MO * USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal (Hardcover)

Having heard that there was an author out there attempting to summarize the past 33 years of metal in a single volume, I was shocked and awed at the superb quality of the outcome. Christe begins with Black Sabbath I and quickly moves forward with his battle plan -- almost nothing escapes his field of vision along the way. The pop culture moments -- like Van Halen's arrival on the scene, MTV's discovery of metal, Crue's Shout at the Devil, and Metallica's big crossover in the 90s -- float like beacons above a morass of fascinating detail on bands like Celtic Frost, Napalm Death, Sepultura, and the creepy crawlers of Norway. Nobody has done better at depicting the difference between Stryper and Deicide, two bands at the opposite poles of planet metal. If your idea of heavy metal is Guns N Roses, you will enjoy this book immensely -- if you swear by Slayer, Metallica, and Megadeth, Sound of the Beast will outright be your Bible, read and re-read until its pages are tattered and torn.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Impressive tome for an impressive music, June 6, 2003

By 

AliGhaemi (Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal (Hardcover)

Sound Of The Beast is an impressive book. Wisely aligning itself, title-wise, with the quintessential heavy metal album of all time, Iron Maiden's Number Of The Beast, Ian Christe's take on thirty-odd years of metal high art accomplishes a lot.
Sound Of The Beast successfully covers the basics and many of the sub-genres of metal. It incorporates literate, yet fluid, writing with a plethora of facts, trivia and lists to make for a compelling read for metal fans old and new. Simultaneously, Christe tackles - albeit superficially given space considerations - the musical movement from several tangents. In this manner, he introduces both a diversion to the purely chronological take on the music and injects something of a discourse into the book. As with most claims, the author's assertion of a 'completeness' to his book is false, but that is par for the course, one supposes. After all, and realistically, no one body of work will ever completely cover 30-plus years of musical and cultural history.
Having said that, the book does stumble more than it needs to. The inordinate amount of space granted Metallica only serves to demonstrate the author's devotion to this band. Otherwise if ever there was a band which had betrayed the ideals of the book's subject-matter, that band would be the aforementioned California metallers-gone-corporate minion. Sound Of... also has its share of mistakes (Metallica fact on page 88, calling AC/DC NWOBHM, etc.), irrelevant features (discussion on non-metal music like punk, mallcore, etc.) and obligatory self-referencing conflict-of-interest (mentioning past and current employers of the author without disclosure).
Be that as it may, Christe has done as good, if not better, a job as any of his peers. The book is well-written and balances the need for information with the necessity to keep the pace congruous with the readers' need for dispatch.
All in all then, Sound Of The Beast is impressive - that is, once one gets past the biography's ludicrous notion that "Ian Christe is the recognized voice of heavy metal."