Author: Ian Christie
Published by: Harper Collins Publishers in 2003 - 386 Pages
ISBN: 006052362X
It's very rare that we get books about Heavy Metal written from the point of view of a real Metalhead that documents the whole spectrum of the music regarding the business and the musicianship, while defining the culture.
Sounds of the Beast is one book that defines generation after generation of Headbangers without skipping a beat, providing an unbiased view of all things Heavy Metal from the past several decades.
Without being your typical culture guide to Heavy Metal,
Sounds of the Beast is not filled with your typical dry news commentary, biased opinions, and insults. Ian Christie writes from a more open perspective covering all the bases, explaining the rise, the popularity, and the mainstream fall while comparing and contrasting other music related cultures such as Hip Hop, Grunge (the culture/music that was blamed for killing Metal in North America), Punk, and even Disco. When reading this book, I get the notion that a lot of the sources for this book are from Christie's mind (with the occasional research), who lived and breathed Heavy Metal as a journalist. It is defiantly not one of those books where some psychologist or your typical
Rolling Stone or
Spin Editor, who really doesn't give a shit about Metal, did nothing but research. This book is for Metalheads by a Metalhead; not to mention the music connoisseur will enjoy it as well. Ian Christie speaks in terms that might be only familiar to Metalheads as well, and does well explaining his terms to non-Metalheads.
From Christie, we get the view from the underground all the way to the top of the mainstream; he mentions everything from the early underground days of Heavy Metal with bands like Venom and Voivod to the massive commercial success of AC/DC to Def Leppard. Every chapter is introduced with the appropriate key events at the top of the page, giving you an idea of what is to come in the chapter. The bases that are covered in the book include everything from Satanism, court cases, parent groups, NWOBHM, the Los Angeles Glam scene, to Death Metal among many others.
He makes the point that metal was never dead, even when MTV and radio turned their back on it, giving some interesting facts as proof. Did you know that Quiet Riot's
Metal Health sold an additional two million copies in the 1990's alone, not their total album sales combined, that album alone, even before it was remastered. That is just one the facts that Christie puts forth to prove that Metal is one force to be reckoned with.
Sound of the Beast is also filled with many photos and illustrations of fans, concert posters, band members and logos. There are also pages dedicated to lists of top albums of a certain sub-genre, videos, demo trading, and sadly even a list of deaths that have occurred in the metal community.
Lots of mention on Metallica (of course), covering the different phases of their career with out too much overkill. The only thing that the book does not mention are some of the modern day bands, believe it or not neither Dream Theater nor Stratovarious (among many others) are nor even mentioned, but you can only cover so many bases.
Sounds of the Beast covers all the bases in general; you almost get the notion that you are there back in time and throughout out the journey, when it all happened while it continues to happen.
Rating: 9 / 10
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