In the latest issue of Revolver magazine, to celebrate their 50th issue, they have a list of The 50 Heaviest Hitters of Heavy Metal, which documents all the things, musical or otherwise that make heavy metal what it is!! It can either be bands, persons, places, or things that make up the world's greatest and most influential music! Let us start with #50:

50

BEAVIS AND BUTTHEAD!!!!


Heavy metal tastemakers come in all shapes and sizes, and as Beavis and Butthead demonstrated in its mid-Nineties MTV heyday, they didn't even need to be real. Not only did the show make us laugh at (and love) two poor,
cretinous, white-trash cartoon stereotypes of ourselves, but it brought us the idea that glam metal was not cool ("Those chicks are hot!!!!") while "true metal" trends--Crowbar and Unsane, for instance--absolutely were.

Related: Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure; Metalocalypse

49

HORROR MOVIES

If it weren't for a few splatter flicks and creature features, Cannibal Corpse, Necrophagia, Rob Zombie, and thousands of other gore-grind and spookycore Munsters would have nothing to sing about; metal wouldn't be on any film soundtracks; and all of us headbangers would only have The Lord of the Rings trilogy and porn left in our movie collections.

See also: Comic books, video games, CNN

(Actually, I just noticed that this should be #49, but who's counting?)

48

FLORIDA

It's brutally hot, humid, and full of people who are soon to be corpses, so it's only appropriate that the the Sunshine State is the birthplace of U.S. death metal--home to such seminal offenders as Death, Obituary, Deicide, Morbid Angel (via North Carolina), and Cannibal Corpse (via Buffalo, New York). Not to mention Tampa's legendary Morrisound Studios.

See Also: Birmingham; Gothenburg; Norway

Pictured: Obituary; Trey Azagthoth of Morbid Angel live; Deicide; Chuck Schuldiner of Death; Cannibal Corpse

47

NAPALM DEATH

Some say Venom created extreme metal, but let's face it, they werew a joke band. Napalm Death, which formed in 1982, were--and are--dead serious. While the group's alumni went on to start such trailblazing outfits as Carcass (original guitarist Bill Steer), Cathedral (original vocalist Lee Dorrian), and Godflesh and Jesu (original guitaristJustin Broadrick), Napalm invented grindcore and truly opened the floodgates for everything black, death, and extreme.

They begat: Slipknot, the Black Dahlia Murder, Nile, the Red Chord, Pig Destroyer, etc., etc....

46

THE BLAST BEAT

It was the logical culmination of the dick-waving velocity-boy speed contests of the Eighties: a beat so brisk that it's physically impossible to play faster. Punx like Siege and D.R.I. did sloppy versions, and S.O.D. drummer Charlie Benante made taut and deadly. But it wasn't until 1985, when Mick Harris got behind Napalm Death's drum kit, that the blast beat became the official signifier of the most brutal planet.

See also: drop-D tuning; the power chord; sweep picking

Below: Charlie Benante, drummer for Anthrax whose side project was S.O.D. (Stormtroopers of Death) in the 80's:

45

THE UMLAUT

um-laut \'oom-"luat\ n.

1: a mark used as a diacritic over a vowel, as ä,ö, or ü, to indicate a more central or front articulation 2: a mark used over a vowel r consonant in a rock and roll band name to indicate a propensity for balls-to-the-wall, maximum heavy rocking. Ex: Mötley Crüe, Motörhead, Queensrÿche, Spınal Tap (used dots over the "n"), The Accüsed, Blue Öyster Cult, Infernäl Mäjesty, Green Jellÿ, Deströyer 666, Leftöver Crack.

44

SEX!!!!!!!

Some chicks rol around atop gleaming Jaguars, flash their boobs from the front row, or do lap dances just because they like it. Some take hold of your heart, betray your trust, and crush your manhood like it's a sand flea. Most won't even speak to you. But no matter which of these scenarios he encounters, man's burning desire to touch a lady's "na-na" with his "Woodrow" will always be reason one for picking up a guitar, getting a bitchin' tat, and starting a band--whether it's Motley Crue or The Butthole Surfers.

See also: groupies; "show your boobs" chants; porn star; strippers


Tommy Lee and Pamela vid; Lita Ford; Coffin Case pinup ad (I have a Coffin Case for my guitar!!); KISS groupies featuring model Stacey E. Walker; Former David Coverdale flame Tawny Kitaen; Warrant's Cherry Pie cover with model Bobby Brown; Bret Michaels with bevy of girls:

43

H.P. LOVECRAFT

Not only did Howard Phillips Lovecraft write stories that still terrify people 70 years after his death, he also created both the mythical text the Necronomicon and the elder god Cthulhu, both of which who provide today's teenagers with the sort of dark mysticism that wigs out priests and Satanists alike. Metallica wrote songs like "The Call of Ktulu" and "The Thing That Should Not Be" based on the author's short stories. And with everyone from Iron Maiden to Electric Wizard to GWAR dropping them, Lovecraftian references have become de rigueur for any metal band looking to spread evil vibes.

See also: J. R. R. Tolkien

42

THE MELVINS

Before there was grunge, Seattle had The Melvins, the kings of coffee country's incipient hard-rock scene and a band that one Kurt Cobain worshipped and worked with (drummer Dale Crover on Nirvana's '88 demo, and Cobain produced The Melvin's major label debut, 1993's Houdini) on his way to flannel generation martyrdom. Buzz Osbourne (pictured here) and his bandmates went on to inspire sludge metal--bands like Eyehategod and Boris (the latter take their name from the Melvins' 1991 album Bullhead's lead track)--with their punk-meets-Sabbath lurch, as well as todayts's avant-metal movement (everyone from Isis, Mastodon, and Sunn O))) to label Southern Lord). And with a second drummer in their lineup and a new album, A Senile Animal (Ipecac), The Melvins are poised to inspire another generation of artists.

Memrable mentions: Neurosis; St. Vitus; Godflesh; Meshuggah

41

DEATH

While some of us prefer to deny the inevitable, there are otheres who--lifting a page from the Blue Oyster Cult playbook--simply "(Don't Fear) The Reaper".
Which might as well be a metal credo: From Led Zeppelin ("In My Time of Dying") to Lamb of God ("Beating On Death's Door"), grim riffers have been staring that skull-headed dude in the face without blinking. Possessed's 1985 song "Death Metal" gave birth to a subgenre of the smae name--which, despite what some misguided souls have insisted, is less about embracing death and more about gearing up for it. But the aptly named Florida band Death, with their scythe-wielding logo and albums like Scream Bloody Gore, were equally important in framing this unflinching style of music. Alas, on December 13, 2001, Death founder/singer-guitarist Chuck Schuldiner succumbed to a brain tumor at the age of 34, joining a long line of metal elite who hav gone before their time. Becaase, as befits a scene obsessed with mortality, metal has been cursed with premature death: Just think of Bon Scott, Randy Rhoads, Cliff Burton, and, of course, Dimebag, to name a few. So perhaps we should fear the reaper--if only a little--after all.

See also: war; pestilence; famine

Bon Scott of AC/DC; Randy Rhoads of Ozzy Osbourne; Cliff Burton of Metallica; Kurt Cobain of Nirvana; Chuck Schuldiner of Death; Layne Staley of Alice In Chains; Dimebag Darrell of Pantera and DamagePlan:

40

THE POINTY GUITAR

Is it a battle-axe? A giant insect carapace? The wing of an alien battle cruiser? Nope. It's just a f:censored:in' badass weapon of sonic mass destruction, whose shocking, angular profile is as integral to heavy metal's pageantry as pyro, fake blood, and, of course, maximum volume.

See also: seven-string guitar; eight-string guitar; cowbell; gong; the Marshall
stack; whammy bar

39

J.R.R. TOLKIEN

Before you beat up that kid for wearing his One Ring T-shirt, check out the lyrics to Led Zeppelin's "Ramble On", in which Robert Plant describes Gollum stealing away with his girl in "the darkest depths of Mordor". Long before they became the stuff of box-office magic, Tolkien's books were making a major impact on heavy music. Without the high wizard of D & D, half the world's black and death-metal bands wouldn't have names (Burzum, Amon Amarth, Gorogoth, Ephet Duath, et al), and power-metal and self-proclaimed
"Tolkien-metal" bands (like Australia's Summoning) wouldn't exist at all. So pay some respect--then beat up the geek.

See also: H.P. Lovecraft