The Songs That Invented Thrash (w/Martin Popoff)

Join Pete Pardo & Martin Popoff for a discussion of songs recorded between 1970-1983 that helped shape & invent thrash metal. #thrashmetal #thrash #earlythrashmetal

[DokkenSabbath]

Deep Purple - Fireball
Motorhead - Overkill
KISS - Parasite
Queen - Stone Cold Crazy
Aerosmith - Rats in the Cellar
Aerosmith - Toys in the Attic
Black Sabbath - Symptom of the Universe
Judas Priest - Exciter
Judas Priest - Dissident Aggressor
Blast - Damned Flame
The Sweet - Set Me Free
Exciter - Cry of the Banshee
Accept - Fast as a Shark
Motley Crue - Live Wire
Twisted Sister - Tear It Loose
Motorhead - Ace of Spades
Riot - Fire Down Under
Scorpions - Virgin Killer
KISS - Makin' Love
Discharge - Hear Nothing, See Nothing, Say Nothing
AC/DC - Let There Be Rock
Saxon - 20, 000 Feet
Iron Maiden - Purgatory, Drifter, Killers
Rainbow - Kill the King
Queen - Sheer Heart Attack
Judas Priest - Rapid Fire
Van Halen - Loss of Control
Diamond Head - Helpless
Anvil - 666
Venom - Live Like an Angel, Die Like a Devil

[macseinchin]

Secret of the Dance - Gillan
Purgatory - Iron Maiden
Red and the Black - Blue Oyster Cult
Let us Prey - Judas Priest
Kill the King - Rainbow

[pvdguitars]

From the seventies, we have to include:
Sweet : Set me free and Sweet FA
Uriah Heep : bird of prey
UFO : lights out and rock bottom
Foghat : honey hush
Ram Jam : runway runaway
Deep Purple: Highway star and speed king

[godetonter]

Dust - Learning To Die and Nazareth - Night Woman were 2 of the first Thrash Metal songs.
My 1970s Proto Thrash Metal list
Amboy Dukes - Prodigal Man 1969
Sir Lord Baltimore - Pumped Up 1970
Pink Floyd - the Nile Song 1969
UFO - 🛸 Silver Bird 1971
the Doors - Not to Touch the Earth 1968
Led Zeppelin - Achilles Last Stand 1977
Montrose - I've Got the Fire
- Matriarch
Rush - What You Doing 1974
Legs Diamond - Underworld King 1979
Riot - Warrior 1977
Dirty Tricks - Night Man 1976
Rainbow - Tarot Woman
- Kill the King
- Danger Zone
- Snakecharmer
Budgie - Nude Dissintigrating Parachute Woman

[ilovevinyl]

Accept - Fast as a Shark
Saxon - Heavy Metal Thunder
Black Sabbath - Symptom of the Universe
Motörhead - The Hammer
Judas Priest - Rapid Fire
Venom - Don't burn the Witch
Mercyful Fate- - Evil

[bubbadagger]

There was a NY hard-core compilation from 1981 called NEW YORK THRASH which had Bad Brains, Beastie Boys etc on it, and I would argue early Bad Brains had fully formed thrash metal songs by that point

[tonyn]

No one mentioned speed king Intro and speed king, from deep purple in rock cd. That is pure thrash from 1970.

[stephenbrown]

I had the chance to be a Roadie for the day for Motorhead back in the early eighties. After seven hours of hauling and setting up the gear, Eagle told me and another guy to hang around. Sure enough Lemmy walks in, gets the bar open and asks us to join him for a pint or four. During the conversation he starts talking about some bands he liked. He told us to watch out for a band that were louder and faster than Motorhead and he predicted they would be bigger than them. That band was Metallica

[heavenhelp]

ACCEPT - Fast As a Shark. That one always comes to mind and preceded the Thrash movement by at least a year.

[independenceltd.]

Sweet - Set Me Free
Rainbow - Kill the King

[gilesglossop]

I love Martin's analogy of thrash being like lifting up the bonnet of a car and admiring the intricacies of the engine. He is quite possibly the only ever existing example of the 'heavy metal intellectual' or even a philospher on the subject! Magnificent.

[elimalinsky]

Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax were considered part of the U.S. Power Metal wave of the early to mid 1980s. It was only when thrash metal was established as a separate sub-genre in 1985 that these bands were retroactively moved to the thrash section. The German scene called it speed metal until they started to be lumped together with the American bands by around 1986 and also started to call it thrash.

The term thrash metal originates with the hardcore punk scene and refers to crowd behaviour such as mosh pits and fist pumping (hardcore punk gigs were often called thrash gigs). Anthrax had a song called Metal Thrashing Mad, Destruction had a song called Thrash Attack and Metallica refers to "thrashing all around" in their song Whiplash. Due to these references this type of music came to be known as Thrash Metal.

I think that thrash metal was born not by fusing hardcore punk with heavy metal but as a reaction to punk becoming really heavy and intense between 1980 and 1982 (hence the "hardcore" part). Punk was arguably heavier than metal for that short period of time, so the metal kids wanted to bring the heaviness crown back from punk by introducing the "thrashing" into heavy metal.

[petebrown]

Punk had a good influence on early thrash like Black Flag, G.B.H., Suicidal Tendencies, Dead Kennedys, , Discharge, Exploited.
For 70's metal don't forget Scorpions, UFO ( with Michael Schenker) etc.
Great episode gents. I so look forward to this each week.

[alternativepreacher]

Bad Brains's first album definitely influenced thrash. Discharge as well. And of course Damaged by Black Flag. Hardcore punk is essential to thrash.

[markc.]

Would also say Hardcore Punk def had an influence in the Thrash Metal sound. Discharge, Exploited, MDC, to name just a few...Great show, as always.

[jasonrandell]

Set Me Free by Sweet. The tempo and riffs...actually the whole song.

[kamranmalik]

Stone Cold Crazy
Fireball
Symptom of the Universe

[tmc]

Blackmore played a role with Speed King and again later with Kill the King.

[mrbrick]

I would throw in Van Halen's 'Loss of control'

[xTheSpoilerx]

Just look at any thrash metal magazine in the 80s and you can see hardcore punk's influence just based on apparel alone haha. Just a quick glance at old Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax and Slayer photos from their golden years and you will see them wearing shirts of Discharge, The Misfits, Mass Appeal, English Dogs, Septic Death, Life Sentence, GBH, Gastunk, SNFU, DRI, Dead Kennedys, Necros, MDC, Broken Bones etc etc...and we're talking some pretty obscure bands to have shirts of today, let alone be sporting them around in the early 80's. I think i saw them wearing shirts of hardcore punk bands more than i did of early heavy metal or NWOBHM bands.