its name, thus creating a myth that one film had de-
stroyed a movie studio. It also ended the so-called
second golden era of Hollywood filmmaking, dur-
ing which directors were allowed to make big-budget
films with minimal studio interference. Instead,
movie companies shifted creative control away from
directors and toward studio executives, who were of-
ten less willing to produce films whose subject mat-
ter was either unfamiliar or controversial.
Further Reading
Bach, Steven.Final Cut: Art, Money, and Ego in the
Making of “Heaven’s Gate,” the Film That Sank United
Artists. New York: Newmarket Press, 1999.
Wood, Robin.Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan...
and Beyond.New York: Columbia University Press,
2003.
Richard Rothrock
See also Bridges, Jeff; Epic films; Film in the
United States.
Heavy metal
Identification Rock music genre
Heavy metal achieved mainstream success in the 1980’s. It
both appealed to a wide range of the decade’s listeners and
influenced a generation of musicians.
The term “heavy metal” was derived from Steppen-
wolf ’s 1968 hit song “Born to Be Wild,” but Black
Sabbath’s 1970 eponymous album served as the
starting point of the new music genre. The album’s
dark tone, guitar riffs, and haunting vocals captured
not only Black Sabbath’s industrial roots in working-
class Birmingham, England, but also the morose
mood of many Americans at the end of the 1960’s.
Subsequent bands expanded Black Sabbath’s sound,
but at the end of the 1970’s, many listeners aban-
doned hard rock music. Years of over-production,
unrealized expectations, and internal discord had
led to the declining popularity of bands such as
Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, and Kiss. These influ-
ential bands survived the decade in one form or an-
other, but the following generation of musicians
in the 1980’s crafted a harder and more powerful
sound than their predecessors.
Growth and Maturity In the early 1980’s, American
listeners embraced British heavy metal groups such
as Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Motörhead, and Def
Leppard. This second wave led to the founding and
success of fledgling American heavy metal groups,
including Metallica, Mötley Crüe, Van Halen, and
Quiet Riot. Exposure on cable television channel
MTV, especially through its weekly programHead-
bangers Ball, and extensive touring allowed these
groups to achieve commercial success. Alienated
youth, working-class Americans, and white teenage
males in particular found refuge in the themes and
sounds of heavy metal. Long hair, often in the form
of mullets, made heavy metal fans easy to identify.
Throughout the 1980’s, as the genre proliferated
it also fragmented. The styles, sounds, and subject
matter of the various heavy metal groups diverged.
Groups such as Van Halen and Def Leppard typified
pop, or light, metal, which mixed heavy guitar riffs
and melodic lyrics with themes of love, happiness,
and sexual gratification. Glam, or hair, metal bands
such as Poison and Mötley Crüe mixed these themes
with androgyny, initially dressing themselves to re-
semble women. Speed, or thrash, metal bands such
as Metallica and Slayer accelerated the tempo of the
music and focused on themes of destruction, reli-
gion, and death. Speed metal groups appeared in
concerts wearing simple street clothes, thus better
connecting to their fans. Finally, despite their chang-
ing sounds, 1970’s groups such as Judas Priest and
Deep Purple became known as classic metal groups.
Some other groups were harder to classify, including
perhaps the most controversial heavy metal group of
the 1980’s, Guns n’ Roses. The group’s 1987 debut
albumAppetite for Destruction, sold over 15 million
copies, surpassing all other heavy metal albums, ex-
cept for AC/DC’s 1980 albumBack in Black, which
sold over 21 million records.Criticism and Decline Heavy metal music was not
well received by fundamentalist religious groups,
concerned parents, and politicians. Many Ameri-
cans saw it as a corrupter of youth; it was blamed for
inciting murder, encouraging suicide, and promot-
ing Satanism. In 1985, Tipper Gore, the wife of fresh-
man senator Al Gore of Tennessee, cofounded the
Parents’ Music Resource Center to protect youth
from offensive music. The group charged that listen-
ing to heavy metal music led teens to sex, violence,
drug and alcohol use, and the occult. Following con-
gressional hearings, record companies agreed to put
warning stickers on potentially offensive albums.The Eighties in America Heavy metal 455