Best-Favorite NWOBHM LPs ?

Recommendations, discussions, questions & debates regarding the godly Metal of olde...
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rumblefist
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Re: Best-Favorite NWOBHM LPs ?

Post by rumblefist »

NWOBHM has nothing to do with a "musical style"...

On it's peak - garage, power-pop, prog-rock, bluesy hard-rock, post-punk (some bands playing each of this) - all of these were also popular on the same circuits as the most traditional heavy-rock/heavy-metal bands. Specially with fan-base locally.

Also - most of bands only recorded a demo and a 7''.

The scene was so obscure that even today it stays Dark.

To know really how strong it was - you must read Kerrang, Sounds and local multi-genre zines.
For example - i know 3 different bands using as name - Omen.
All of them around 1980 and 1982.
All of them released Demo tapes.
Numbers like 50 that were sold on 1 of their 3 or 4 gigs before they disbanded.
This was normal. Some tapes to a radio or to clubs (shows organizers) or school masters for shows on the local school pavillion and not even 20 tapes to their (small) fan-club.
If you stay only with vinyl you won't get a close idea.

If today you get on sites dedicated to the Pop/Rock scenes of early 80's, i mean sites dedicated to their scenes back then - like Stoke-On-Trent, Wales, Manchester, Liverpool, Leicester etc etc. you will find bands that took promotional pictures, that released demo tapes and that played live - sometimes a lot.

I can say it ended around 1983/1984.

After this period most bands "specialized" - ones going Prog, others Pop, others more Power-Metal others more AOR and then it was there also the rise of Speed/Thrash...

It was the end of a scene.
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Avenger
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Re: Best-Favorite NWOBHM LPs ?

Post by Avenger »

nightsblood wrote:
Avenger wrote:
Metallica already had 3 records released at that point. The NWOBHM scene was long dead by then.
The number of Metallica records released by a given year has nothing to do with when the NWOBHM movement ended. Sure, thrash was huge by '86, but that doesn't mean other styles were not also active in '86. And I said '86 was a stretch so as to include some latecomers; no one's trying to carve that date onto the NWOBHM headstone.

*****

If someone wants to copy/paste/move the stuff below into the other thread Avenger mentioned, that's fine.

If someone wants to try to select a NWOBHM end date, without being rather subjective, here are some ideas:

1- define a baseline for how many new bands must enter the scene by releasing a vinyl item in a given year for the scene to still be active, then see which year in the 80s saw NWOBHM new bands' 1st releases fall below that given line.
Example: If a scene needs 12 new bands per year to break through with their first vinyl release (avg 1/month), then find the year when less than 12 NWOBHM bands released their first vinyl offering.
Rationale: once you stop seeing enough new bands enter the scene, it's a good indication that new bands are instead playing different styles and your old scene is no longer growing (though older bands may keep it afloat for awhile, so #2 below may work better).

2- define a baseline for how many vinyl releases a scene should produce each year by all bands involved, then see which year missed the mark.
Example: If a scene should produce at least 24 new vinyl offerings a year to be considered viable (avg = 2/month), then find the year in the 80s when there were fewer than 24 NWOBHM vinyl releases.
Rationale: A dearth of releases indicates new and old bands aren't very active and/or they are changing direction musically (e.g., some glam bands quit in the early 90s following the grunge explosion of 91-92, while others tried reinventing themselves as grunge or some other style, like SHOTGUN MESSIAH did with their 'Violent New Breed' album in '93).

Defining the baseline could be tricky, though you could start by setting the baseline as some percentage of the number of NWOBHM vinyl releases put out in the year that saw the most NWOBHM vinyl released.
Example: We decide the scene will be considered 'over' once the number of vinyl releases falls below 20% the amount released in the peak year. Let's imagine that 1981 saw the most NWOBHM vinyl releases with 100. We would then identify which year after 1981 saw fewer than 20 NWOBHM vinyl releases.

In theory, the number of releases per year should follow a bell-shaped curve.

To be clear, I ain't gonna do any of this! Or at least not until the next time I'm confined to bed rest for a week following surgery! :)

(Vinyl release chosen as the unit of measurement b/c CDs weren't a thing through much of the 80s, demo tapes can be churned out by almost any basement act, and bands who played live without releasing a record would be hard to get a tally for. Counting vinyl releases could accurately be done, though likely with some disagreements over which releases qualify as NWOBHM).
Don't really see it as necessary to go through that monumental task to male that determination. All that's needed is an objective look at where the Metal scene was during the time period by bands at the forefront.


The reason I mention Metallica is because they were a mainstream band that's almost universally cited as a historical measuring stick not only by fans but also pundits.

With that being said, the Metal landscape had shifted dramatically by 1986. With Thrash being a prominent sub-genre at that time, Metal had evolved to a point where most of the elements from the NWOBHM were buried.

One of the most important words in the NWOBHM acronym is "new" and by 1986 there was nothing new about the stylistic leanings of that movements sound. It was essentially bands that although part of the movement with demo offerings couldn't get their shit together to release a full length effort.

Most had dropped any 70's tinged Hard Rock and/or punk elements as well. By 1986 these were just British Metal albums. They were no longer NWOBHM.
Last edited by Avenger on Fri Jan 12, 2018 2:54 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Zanker
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Re: Best-Favorite NWOBHM LPs ?

Post by Zanker »

Avenger wrote:
nightsblood wrote:
Avenger wrote:
Metallica already had 3 records released at that point. The NWOBHM scene was long dead by then.
One of the most important words in the NWOBHM acronym is "new" and by 1986 there was nothing new about the stylistic leanings of that movements sound. .
They were no longer NWOBHM.
Very true! I don't like the phrase "post-NWOBHM" neither that some dealers would use to describe a record. Everything after the initial NEWwobhm is post and are just regular albums.
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nightsblood
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Re: Best-Favorite NWOBHM LPs ?

Post by nightsblood »

I agree circa '84 is a better ending date, but for a thread just aimed at mentioning people's favorite albums I didn't wanna disqualify anything that people chose just b/c it came out in '85 or '86 (e.g., 'Son of Odin').
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Re: Best-Favorite NWOBHM LPs ?

Post by wicked keeper »

Well clearly those later records are just more of those time travellers.... :lol:
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ION BRITTON
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Re: Best-Favorite NWOBHM LPs ?

Post by ION BRITTON »

Since 1988 and 1989 are obviously too late to be considered as part of NWOBHM I replace the two Cloven Hoofs on my list with Clover Hoof - s/t and Grim Reaper's See You In Hell.
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Shimrod
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Re: Best-Favorite NWOBHM LPs ?

Post by Shimrod »

Diamond Head - Lightning to the Nations
Iron Maiden - s/t
Tygers of Pan - Spellbound
Angel Witch - s/t
Saracen - Heroes Saints and Fools
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rumblefist
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Re: Best-Favorite NWOBHM LPs ?

Post by rumblefist »

But you still have several bands not fitting in

there was no "movement" anymore.
(in Spain there was something symilar with Pop/Rock in Madrid with "La Movida" and here in Portugal we called "The Boom Of Portuguese Rock". It's ok - most of bands have disbanded or were signed by big labels and specialized into Melodic-Metal/AOR others went Speed/Thrash.

But when i say - Post-NWOBHM bands what do you call to a band that started on the peak of the NWOBHM and that kept more of less their sound and atittude through all the 80's not changing up much ?

1985 - [youtube]0M74meHltCo[/youtube]

1986 - [youtube]G6w_DWe8B6Y[/youtube]
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Khnud
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Re: Best-Favorite NWOBHM LPs ?

Post by Khnud »

I'd like to call Mournblade bloody awesome music, but I wouldn't call them nwobhm. That metal/new wave combo always generate a serious 80's cold war feeling in my soul. And I fucking love it.
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Re: Best-Favorite NWOBHM LPs ?

Post by Ernest Thesiger »

A girl friend at school once told me her older sister was going out with one of Mournblade.

Fascinating!
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Avenger
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Re: Best-Favorite NWOBHM LPs ?

Post by Avenger »

rumblefist wrote:But when i say - Post-NWOBHM bands what do you call to a band that started on the peak of the NWOBHM and that kept more of less their sound and atittude through all the 80's not changing up much ?
There's a difference between a NWOBHM band and a NWOBHM album. If a band released a demo in 1981 then they are a NWOBHM band. If they didn't release their first record until 1984 then that's just a British Metal album.

Examples of bands that fit this criteria:

Cloven Hoof
Avenger
Blackmayne
Chariot
Satan
etc..
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rumblefist
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Re: Best-Favorite NWOBHM LPs ?

Post by rumblefist »

Avenger wrote:
rumblefist wrote:But when i say - Post-NWOBHM bands what do you call to a band that started on the peak of the NWOBHM and that kept more of less their sound and atittude through all the 80's not changing up much ?
There's a difference between a NWOBHM band and a NWOBHM album. If a band released a demo in 1981 then they are a NWOBHM band. If they didn't release their first record until 1984 then that's just a British Metal album.

Examples of bands that fit this criteria:

Cloven Hoof
Avenger
Blackmayne
Chariot
Satan
etc..
So, let's see if i get it :

According to what you state :

Seducer pre-LP is NWOBHM
and LP and after is British Metal

even if there are almost no musical differences between each period....

??? is It ????
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Avenger
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Re: Best-Favorite NWOBHM LPs ?

Post by Avenger »

rumblefist wrote:
Avenger wrote:
rumblefist wrote:But when i say - Post-NWOBHM bands what do you call to a band that started on the peak of the NWOBHM and that kept more of less their sound and atittude through all the 80's not changing up much ?
There's a difference between a NWOBHM band and a NWOBHM album. If a band released a demo in 1981 then they are a NWOBHM band. If they didn't release their first record until 1984 then that's just a British Metal album.

Examples of bands that fit this criteria:

Cloven Hoof
Avenger
Blackmayne
Chariot
Satan
etc..
So, let's see if i get it :

According to what you state :

Seducer pre-LP is NWOBHM
and LP and after is British Metal

even if there are almost no musical differences between each period....

??? is It ????
NWOBHM is an era, it's not a sub-genre.
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Re: Best-Favorite NWOBHM LPs ?

Post by Khnud »

Ok, so by that definition British Steel and Overkill were both nwobhm albums.
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rumblefist
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Re: Best-Favorite NWOBHM LPs ?

Post by rumblefist »

Avenger wrote: NWOBHM is an era, it's not a sub-genre.
Just for the record - it's your own opinion or something you did read somewhere ?
For me - and i've total right in affirming it because i didn't stand only with the albuns neither the 7''s and because i listened a lot, I've studied it deeply and keep studing it because metal lessons are always welcome.
And because i discussed this with some of the biggest NWOBHM collectors in the world - It's surely not a genre. I already said that on previous times on previous threads here on Corro - It featured Punk Rock bands that didn't please any punk rockers (and the biggest part of the local metalheads as well hahaha), Power-Pop, Space-Rock, Garage Rock, Blues-Rock, Boogie, Prog and Neo-Prog and even Hard-Rock (which isn't really Heavy-Metal).
Probably more close of an Era as you state, it's a a historic fact indeed - but where do you put a band that started let's say around 1982 and kept it going until 1988 not changing almost nothing on their music neither or on their atittude ? (i'm repeating myself - but a reply like yours "It's Not A Sub-Genre" it's not enough)....where did i say it was a sub-genre ?
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