Who Invented Black Metal? (Metal Documentary)

Nothing comes close to Venom's black metal album. I had to purchase it as an import in 1982. There was absolutely nothing like it. I only found out about it by reading a Sounds article where they described Motorhead as a grasshopper fart compared to this album. They also described it as Sabbath on angel dust. What I rarely seen mentioned is how well it was produced. At the time, even heavy metal fans were a bit unnerved as in "what the hell are you playing?" At the time, hardcore was popular with bands like Black Flag and Discharge and alot of hardcore fans dug it.

Venom was such an important band for extreme metal in general. Honestly I think you can trace almost all forms of extreme metal subgenres to them. Obviously if you REALLY wanna you could go back further to stuff like you mentioned in the beginning but Venom is really the band that was the "prototype" esp for Speed metal, thrash metal and black metal

I think Fenriz from Darkthrone would approve of your video. 🤘🤘🤘

It seems strange to me that when talking about the first wave of black metal, no one mentions Slayer, especially their first two albums.

Bathory is black metal and Black metal is Bathory

Venom may have invented extreme metal, but none of their songs are “black metal” they were a speed metal band, I think Bathory and other bands like that started black metal

Previous comment was a joke…tho I grew up with metal,since mid eighties…I considered “black metal” earlier hellhammer,bathory…messiah…….

I believe the movie The Exorcist and the recordings of Annelies Michel had an influence on vocal style.

Bathory

Was witchfynde the first band ever to use baphoment in their album cover? I always thought it was venom but I never bothered to check the release year of give em hell, that’s dope!

The big question is: who really influence venom?

Just because you have dark themed lyrics doesn't make you Black Metal.
Venom did not start Black Metal.
It was just a coincidence that they used it and named their sophomore ablum.
Bathory specifically created the true sound and life style with their 2nd and 3rd albums.

Heavy Metal is General is Black Sabbath
Black Metal Speed Metal and even Thrash metal is Venom

Looks like a fair enough documentary on the subject to me - can't think of too much to argue with, and I usually find myself arguing with these things. There's a pretty clear difference between rock, hard rock, and metal bands that incidentally sing songs referring to hell and the devil, bands that actually promote (or pretend to promote) satanism, and black metal as a genre - it's impossible not to point to shock rockers and occult hippie bands from the '60s and '70s as the first hints of what was to come, and it's impossible to imagine what black metal would look and sound like without Alice Cooper, Arthur Brown, KISS, Coven, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Pentagram, Manowar, Motorhead, and so on to test the waters, but those bands are pretty clearly not black metal. The ingredients, mostly packaging and costumes, are worth mentioning:

- Screamin' Jay Hawkins' bizarre voodoo-themed novelty horror rock and so on certainly opened the door
- Arthur Brown (and later Alice Cooper and King Diamond, openly referencing Arthur Brown) provided the makeup and bizarre shock-rock stage show
- KISS (and later Judas Priest) provided the costumes
- Coven did the explicitly occult rock lyrics first full-time, and couldn't possibly have been far off the radar of shock-rockers and metal bands
- Howlin' Wolf and other blues bands provided the first extreme vocals (via Hendrix and Black Sabbath)
- Manowar provided the distinctly dark, violent viking sword-and-sorcery angle popular with the Norwegian bands (via Bathory)
- Discharge would provide the rapid-fire drums, distorted guitars, and shouted, nihilistic vocals of "proto-grindcore" and first-wave black metal
- Motorhead mixed gravelly heavy metal and punk rock into more or less the formula that Venom would adopt

BUT, Venom was quite definitely the first band to assemble most of those ingredients from previous decades together - the raw noise, speed, growled vocals, satanic lyrics, bizarre costumes, image, simple and shocking album covers and titles littered with occult and satanic references, and so on.

Pretty much everyone else in the "first wave" of black metal directly copied Venom, with most freely admitting to it, only adding a few of those ingredients that Venom hadn't already touched: Hellhammer/Celtic Frost, Bathory (denied it, but come on!), Mayhem, Sepultura, Sodom, Destruction, Kreator, Possessed, etc., all borrowed pretty directly from Venom's template, with only Mercyful Fate really standing out as doing something distinctly different from Venom on their early albums (though borrowing from many of the same shock rock, punk, and British heavy metal influences....)

Other bands going back to the '50s had employed the ingredients for what would become black metal as we know it first, but it was Venom that assembled those ingredients together to invent the recipe we'd recognize today as their full-time shtick!

Holy Moses have a demo called Black Metal Masters which was appareantly released in 1980. Sabina have some really shrieaking vocals here, i dont think anyone sounded like that before.
I must say i didnt know about this demo but i wonder what do you think about it?
Cheers!

I think that the bands who first made Black Metal were Kreator, Sodom and Destruction. Before them it was not really black metal, more like nwobhm and speed

Q: Who Invented Black Metal?
A: Venom (the Visigoths of black metal)

Amebix invented BM they crossed the motorhead/hawkwind influences with killing joke and joy division, lyrically they went down a occult road. Their winter and No sanctury eps is more atmospheric and savage than anything venom or bathory were putting out.

Cromagnon Caldonia 1st black metal 1968

🤘VENOM🤘, thats who!!

Cromagnon

Rock&roll was "invented" by black people/musicians, blues musicians &a lot of other styles sing/write about Satan/the Devil. Blacks used to be referred to or seen as beasts, like Satan. Metal is just an evolution of those musics which are also evolutions of other styles of music, just other people's/cultures interpretations & adjustments to something previous. So Black Metal was really invented whenever music itself was. Euronymous&Mayhem were the ones who took the values that everyone was singing about & applied them to the real world to the best of their abilities, life imitating art but art is already an imitation of life so it's just a cycle of impressionism. Venom invented the term Black Metal& Euronymous &the bands around him exhibited the actions of it. But those actions go across the board of musical genres, hip hop has a lot of lyrical content about the devil/Satan/hell but with some of the genres/artists it's more of an atheists expression of those ideas/beliefs, not a theistic expression which i personally feel is more important because of the actions related to the beliefs expressed in opposing belief systems, christian/love/theism based. More people who are influenced by christian style belifes tend to be more action oriented, just like Vikings & other invasive cultures they rape&pillage. I think it's more a God aspect that's displayed that's been twisted to be attributes of Satan. Satan has become a God in Its own respect but when you look at the Bible&the things God inspired people to do, sacrifice children&animals/impregnate a teen to sacrifice It's own child/kill entire cities of people etc.., compared to what Satan/fallen angels have inspired by sharing knowledge&procreating etc..Satan worship&the actions of the beliefs are supposed to be the opposite of those of God. People have to examine the actions of God&the people inspired by it to know what the opposite of It is. people would also have to believe that God is a thing/force etc.. for any of it to really mean anything more then just some aesthetic sounds to go along with a set of ideas, whixh is really all everyrhing really is anyway.

there is no such thing as black metal......ray charles didnt even play metal.

Sarcófago ivented black metal

Every early black metal band worth its salt points to Venom as the single point of origin…period. I’m cool with all the early black metal bands, many may have had more talent…but Venom was as much the original black metal band as Black Sabbath is the original doom metal band (and frankly invented the downtune sound due to Iommis finger issues)

venom created extreme metal, but bathory created black metal.

to me god and satan no exist as hell and paradise too no exist. Band prist used the Devil for obter fama and money.

3.8k+

Imo darkthrones blaze in the northen sky was the proto blueprint.

Just like Possessed, Venom coined the term, but not the sound. Bathory was the main reason for the black metal we all know and love. Closely followed by Celtic Frost/Hellhammer.

I invented black metal.

video ended with Venom, 1982. would have been cool to end it on Hellhammer's "Triumph Of Death" 1983. the vocals in that are insane.

Well, Blacks did😂🤣😂🤣😂

Alot of those early Venom songs were actually written in 1979/80

Death SS (1979) And The Wizard-Twitch (1973)

VENOM punk black metal

We got
Metal, Rock , Pop. Is there any WOOD music? Blackwood, Nu Wood, Rap Wood

I dunno😅

Venom. End of discussion.

Too much focus on the LYRICS ... Its about the music...
Alot of black metal has nothing to do with the Devil or Satan,,, its just intense emotions,,,
Lost at sea , or in space... Crushing sadness or anger ~

Venom of corse them create the name and the concept with the song die hard and. Black metal

When it comes to the music itself, to my ears either the 2nd or 3rd Bathory album is the first BM album.

Led Zeppelin was deep into the occult and paganism, when you talk of occult rock.

Thanks, amazing documentary! Surprised to see no mention of Cromagnon's Caledonia in the video. I think Cromagnon invented a lot of sonic features that bm bands use without knowing this. I don't think they had direct influence on bm, but still they invented (maybe discovered, who knows) a lot of features.

wtf? And Samantha Fox invented death metal😂😂😂

As a 62 year old English metalhead in my opinon it was VENOM! Saw them many times in very late 70's very early 80's=Cronos and the boys! f*****g blindin!!🤘👍👍😀😀

Venom created Black Metal 100%. To say that because somebody else took the basis of the idea and (Fictional characters and backstory, satanic lyrics, satanic imagery and rough vocals) and the fact that Venom were the first to actively sell and promote themselves as Black Metal, is just plain truth. These days people want to take what’s not theirs and call it their own. People that are inventors and avant guard musicians always have to deal with people trying to say they didn’t do what they did. It’s because people find it hard to believe that others are more creative than themselves. Even more to the point people want to steal the perception of monetary value from the actual artists. Anybody who says they created black metal other than venom are fucking posers. Still venom’s first album cover is modeled after the Witchfinder General album art and their logo is literally traced from the YES artist Roger Dean. But that’s black metal in general. It’s making fictional stories and cleaning ideas from others. And that makes it endearing.

Thanks for the reminder on Coven - cool female singer and decent band actually... there lyrics seem mostly a parody or humour imo... like many BM bands (most famous example Immortal) they dont take this shit serisusly but it was certainly good for attention/marketing and having a party :)) I mean the satan/occult and kill/death/gore (of DM) themes too. Seems for me the occult theme works still much better then the "gore" crap of cannibal corpse /& co. Btw I think postpunk and EARLY gothrock / Bauhaus, Siouxie, X-mal, SIsters .../ needs a mention too here (for sure more then motörhead)