Bang Your Head: The Rise and Fall of Heavy Metal

by David Konow

Book Overview

"Bang your head Metal Health'll drive you mad " -- Quiet Riot Like an episode of VH1's Behind the Music on steroids, Bang Your Head is an epic history of every band and every performer that has proudly worn the Heavy Metal badge. Whether headbanging is your guilty pleasure or you firmly believe that this much-maligned genre has never received the respect it deserves, Bang Your Head is a must-read that pays homage to a music that's impossible to ignore,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0609807323
• ISBN13: 9780609807323
• Release Date: November 2002
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 496 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

easily the GREATEST book ever written about heavy metal

this guy has nailed it, no need to go into huge detail simply put this is a book on a par with Motley Crue's The Dirt. The 70s part is great but when Konow hits the 80s, chuff me in was in heaven. Buy this book, you'll love it.

ALL THE OTHER REVIEWERS ARE MORONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is an amazing book. If you like heavy metal, this book has inside information on all of the important events and the motivations behind them. I have other books on this subject, documentaries, behind the music episodes, music magazines, and there is info in here that you simply cannot find elsewhere, such a description of a fistfight between George Lynch and Don Dokken in a limo. If you like Heavy Metal, YOU WILL LOVE THIS BOOK. I have loaned it to 4 people, and they all loved it. The people who do not like this book simply do not like 80s metal, and they are the fools for buying a book on a genre that they do not enjoy. No one who likes this music would be shallow and pretentious enough to call it "hair metal" when hair had nothing to do with the music. Notice the negative reviews below are from people who use the term. Go figure.

A Must Read For Metal Fans!

A must read for metal fans! A very funny and knowledgeable book about the most famous bands of metal and heavy metal itself. It features bands such as Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Alice Cooper, KISS, Van Halen, Ozzy Osbourne, Def Leppard, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Metallica, Dokken, Ratt, Motley Crue, Bon Jovi, Exodus, Skid Row, Warrant, Winger and More! As well it talks about Knac, MTV, the NWOBHM and the beginning of heavy metal and fall during the Grunge era.

Entertaining and Provocative

Konow's exploration of the rise and fall of the heavy metal scene is a rich social and cultural exploration that reads like an oral history, which, in many respects, is exactly what the book is, given the voluminous musicians and social observers that Konow had access to in preparing his opus. It's fascinating to see how metal became, in the 80s, a parody of itself with the emergence of the "hair bands". And, as if that wasn't enough to ensure the demise of the metal sound,the Seattle grunge musicians were lurking in the background, about to unleash their own musical revolution with a little help from MTV. A swift read that should appeal to any reader with an interest in the pop culture of the 1980s.

From Kirkus Reviews, October 1, 2002

Appealing history of the genre that offended critics, moved millions of units, and thrilled adolescents of all ages. Konow's debut follows a straightforward thesis: heavy metal maintained enormous and under-acknowledged worldwide popularity from the 1970s through approximately 1992, when many factors, particularly the Seattle "alternative" explosion, consigned most bands to the cut-out bin. He identifies metal's crucial elements-multi-guitar power chords, energized vocals, rebellious occult trappings, elaborate stage productions-and traces their almost accidental coalescence during the `70's as pioneers like Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper, KISS, and Queen toured constantly. By the decade's end, economic malaise compelled a young generation to hurry into bands, resulting in the New Wave of British Heavy Metal: Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, and Judas Priest. In turn, these groups inspired an explosion in American "underground metal," most prominently Metallica, while pop-metal acts like Bon Jovi and the infinitely sleazier (hence authentic-seeming) Guns N' Roses dominated record sales in the late `80s. A fan first and critic second, Konow discusses the laughable (W.A.S.P., Motley Crue, Poison) and the venerable (Black Sabbath, Motorhead, Slayer, AC/DC) with the same lucid enthusiasm. He attributes metal's commercial dominance to grassroots fan loyalty, MTV's marketing savvy, and major labels' deep pockets, which enabled the profligate "hair bands" to consume huge sums while recording and touring. The ludicrous side of metal, immortalized in the seminal "mockumentary" This Is Spinal Tap, emerges in numerous hilarious anecdotes concerning the awesome egotism of figures like Axl Rose or David Lee Roth and the myopia of bands like Dokken or Quiet Riot, which expected to remain popular forever. Konow's discussion of metal's commercial decline offers shrewd analysis of cultural shifts: MTV and major labels happily dropped the metal bands once profitablility waned, while embittered musicians blamed fair-weather fans and alternative rock "nerds" rather than examining their own sordid histories (herein documented) of misogyny, thuggishness, substance abuse, and uninspired recordings. Even non-headbangers may enjoy this engaging account of an improbable musical watershed.