New wave of British heavy metal

The new wave of British heavy metal (commonly abbreviated as NWOBHM) was a nationwide musical movement that began in England in the mid-1970s and achieved international attention by the early 1980s. Editor Alan Lewis coined the term for an article by Geoff Barton in a May 1979 issue of the British music newspaper Sounds to describe the emergence of heavy metal bands in the mid-to-late 1970s, as punk rock declined amid the dominance of new wave music.

Quotes about the NWOBHM

  • Heavy metal slammed into the 1980s at full force, with clean lines and no hesitation. While hard-rock forebears like Aerosmith and Kiss struggled during the tail of the 1970s against disco headwinds and the mockery of three-chord punk, fledgling heavy-metal bands cut their teeth in the shadows and prepared for a big takeover. Then, boom: 1980 exploded with debuts from Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, Diamond Head and Angel Witch — pillars of the so-called New Wave of British Heavy Metal, or NWOBHM — as well as career-high shock treatments by elders Judas Priest, Saxon and Motörhead.
This article is issued from Wikiquote. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.