I know.
According to Wiki
The
new wave of British heavy metal (commonly abbreviated as
NWOBHM) was a nationwide musical movement that started in the
United Kingdom in the late 1970s and achieved international attention by the early 1980s. Journalist
Geoff Barton coined the term in a May 1979 issue of the British music newspaper
Sounds to describe the emergence of new
heavy metal bands in the mid to late 1970s, during the period of
punk rock's decline and the dominance of
new wave music.
Although encompassing diverse mainstream and underground styles, the music of the NWOBHM is best remembered for drawing on the heavy metal of the 1970s and infusing it with the intensity of punk rock to produce fast and aggressive songs. The
DIY attitude of the new metal bands led to the spread of raw-sounding, self-produced recordings and a proliferation of
independent record labels. Song lyrics were usually about escapist themes such as mythology, fantasy, horror and the rock lifestyle.
The NWOBHM began as an
underground phenomenon growing in parallel to punk and largely ignored by the media. It was only through the promotion of rock DJ
Neal Kay and
Sounds' campaigning that it reached the public consciousness and gained radio airplay, recognition and success in the UK. The movement involved mostly young, white, male and working-class musicians and fans, who suffered the hardships brought on by rising unemployment for years after the
1973–75 recession. As a reaction to their bleak reality, they created a community separate from mainstream society to enjoy each other's company and their favourite loud music. The NWOBHM was heavily criticised for the excessive hype generated by local media in favour of mostly talentless musicians. Nonetheless, it generated a renewal in the genre of heavy metal music and furthered the progress of the
heavy metal subculture, whose updated behavioural and visual codes were quickly adopted by metal fans worldwide after the spread of the music to continental Europe, North America and Japan.
The movement spawned perhaps a thousand heavy metal bands, but only a few survived the advent of
MTV and the rise of the more commercial
glam metal in the second half of the 1980s. Among them,
Iron Maiden and
Def Leppard became international stars, and
Motörhead and
Saxon had considerable success. Other groups, such as
Diamond Head,
Venom and
Raven, remained underground, but were a major influence on the successful
extreme metal subgenres of the late 1980s and 1990s. Many bands from the NWOBHM reunited in the 2000s and remained active through live performances and new studio albums.
