mikedonn71's profile

To me Black Sabbath was the true beginning of heavy metal. Deep Purple, Zeppelin, Iron Butterfly, Steppenwolf and other hard rockers had metal moments, but Black Sabbath crystallized and codified the metal genre. Great bands like Dust, Pentagram, Motorhead, MC5, the Stooges, Venom and Cirith Ungol never got their proper due, while other legends like KISS, Judas Priest and Iron Maiden entered the early 80s as huge stars. The 80s were the great, golden age of thrash metal with the Big Four, Exodus, Testament, Kreator, SOD and DRI carrying the torch of metal for a new generation. Today's metal bands like Messugah, Amon Amarth, Probot and Red Fang rock my socks off as well proving that metal's far from dead after 40 plus years.