Heavy: The Story of Metal

2006
8.3| 0h30m| en
Synopsis

Heavy: The Story of Metal is a four-part documentary special that aired on VH1 in 2006. The series focuses on the origins, subgenres, and the bands of heavy metal music, paying close attention to influential bands like Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest, and Iron Maiden, who helped to define heavy metal in its early years. Other bands on the program include, Alice Cooper, Kiss, AC/DC, Van Halen, Def Leppard, Quiet Riot, Mötley Crüe, Megadeth, Metallica, Anthrax, Guns N' Roses, and Marilyn Manson. However, the documentary notably passes over lower profile metal sub-genres such as death metal, black metal, doom metal, progressive metal, power metal and many others considered core elements of today's metal pantheon, focusing mostly on hard rock & traditional heavy metal. In Canada, the documentary aired on MuchMoreMusic and on C4 in New Zealand. It is not available on DVD or video.

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441 Productions

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Reviews

Softwing Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??
Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.
Aspen Orson There is definitely an excellent idea hidden in the background of the film. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find it.
Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.
jabmap Power ballad- Home sweet home was early[85] but Still loving you[84] was one of the first. Why was this overlooked? Another missed fact, PMRC-Al Gore's wife, Tipper. The show talks about the big bad evil *conservatives*- this is pure BS. It was the democrats, liberals and leftists that ran that group of hags and the democrat congressional censorship board. Deliberate misinformation by liberals that created the show? The only censor loving republican involved was Bill Bennet, a former democrat turned republican and he's a class A hypocrite. If you look at the facts, it was democrats that pushed for censorship in music led by Gore and Rockerfeller, hypocritical crooks like TV evangelists like Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson tarnish the right. Being a lifelong Catholic and a 30 year metal head, I've never had a priest give me crap about my musical taste. Protestants preachers don't seem to know that Rob Zombie is a musical horror show and not the devil. This part of the show always has me change the channel-there are no facts to back up-conservatives always go after heavy metal. Anyway that's my 2 cents-other than that, I always watch the show when it's on.
trevor_jones13 This was clearly made by people who were completely uneducated on metal. Watch "A Headbangers Journey" if you want real metal information. This only touches on mainstream bands, which completely misrepresents the metal genre. There is almost nothing on black, death, doom, etc. In fact, there isn't anything that hasn't been given MTV airplay. Sure its always great to see the bands like metallica, maiden, priest, slayer, megadeth etc. represented, and they are good bands who deserve it, but for every one of those there's an entire section dedicated to nu-metal or glam. On top of that, when they decided to talk about a good band such as anthrax, they concentrate on "Bring the Noise" rather than their earlier, much more "Metal" (for lack of a better word) stuff. Just because it has the word in the name doesn't make it metal. Nu-metal, Glam/Hair Metal and most recently metalcore are simply examples of the mainstream music industry trying to tap into the metal cashcow by watering down the original product in attempt to attract a bigger audience.There are some good moments, but for the most part this series completely missed the mark. If you are a true metal fan, avoid this or you will find yourself angry at this representation, and if you are a new fan, please do not watch this movie or you will be grossly misinformed on what metal is.
drd233 This is a really good doco that suffers from the way Heavy Metal is defined and (re)interpreted. It does a good job of exploring the birth and pivotal moments of metal, such as the first No 1 album, rise of the power-ballad, PMRC hearings, etc. However, it loses a lot of it's objectivity as it tracks metal's push into mainstream music. While the bands under focus are worthy metal ambassadors, the bands that barely get more than a mention unjustly lose their place in the evolution of metal (and Megadeth deserves more than a one-sentence mention!!!). The value of this doco to the viewer is directly influenced by how broadly the viewer defines metal. Bare in mind that what was metal then was defined by it's proximity to acts like Wham!, Prince and Madonna, and as such, what was metal then may not sound like it now. This doco also seems to gloss-over current metal trends (SOAD!) and end its examination at the early 90's (perhaps, again, because of exactly how metal is currently defined).However, it is still a good watch, well presented and produced, with heaps of TOP METAL NAMES discussing the music. This doco is flawed, but most definitely a must-see for fans of any-or-all metal.