text: This is a cross posting of a message on the listserv ERECS-L, a narrative written by NARA Center for Electronic Records staff From: Tom Ruller <email@example.com> To: Multiple recipients of list ERECS-L <ERECS-L@CNSIB... Date: 4/15/96 12:27pm Subject: 1960 Census Myths and Facts--Explained (fwd) Date: Mon, 15 Apr 96 12:11:47 EDT From: Peter Graham, RUL <firstname.lastname@example.com> To: firstname.lastname@example.com Subject: 1960 Census Myths and Facts--Explained From: Peter Graham, Rutgers University Libraries The following is forwarded with the kind permission of Margaret Adams, arranged by Don Waters. --pg *********************************************************************** Date: 4/3/96 7:34 PM From: Margaret Adams As I wrote to you yesterday, Thomas Brown and I have collaborated to prepare a narrative that describes what happened to data from the 1960 Census. It follows. It is based upon our review of correspondence, memoranda, and records schedules that are on file at the Center for Electronic Records, National Archives and Records Administration. All of this material is open for public inspection. Thank you again for following up on the comments I sent last November on the draft CPA/RLG Task Force Report on Digital Archiving. Your questions provided us with an opportunity to prepare this narrative. By so doing we hope that we have laid to rest the questions that abound about data from the 1960 Census. Please feel free to contact me again with any further questions. I look forward to the final CPA/RLG Task Force Report on Digital Archiviging. M.O. Adams (301-713-6645, x228) *************************************************************************************** To prepare a historical narrative on data from the 1960 Census, Margaret O. Adams and Thomas E. Brown, Assistant Chief and Chief, respectively, Archival Services Branch, Center for Electronic Records, National Archives and Records Administration reviewed correspondence, memoranda, and records schedules at the Center. This material is open for public inspection. Among the records we consulted is correspondence between the Chief of the Administrative Services Division at the Bureau of the Census and the Director of the [then] Machine Readable Archives Division at the National Archives during the 1970s, and related memoranda. In addition, a transcript of an April 1961 "training lecture" by Richard A. Jacobs, reporting on a National Archives study of practices of agencies of the federal government regarding their use of electronic data processing equipment and the records disposition problems which arise from these operations, provides further background. By 1961 staff at the National Archives knew that the Bureau of the Census had used a computer for tabulating the 1960 Census and that summary tape files from this activity were a basic product of the Census. They also knew that the Bureau microfilmed the original Census schedules and were preserving them. Jacobs' lecture mentions that the Bureau planned to retain 1960 summary tape files (i.e., microaggregation files) for, among other reasons, statistical comparison with the 1970 Census. He adds "...presumably, like the punch cards for earlier censuses, [these tapes] will lose their usefulness in time." (Jacobs, p. 5) This reflects a general practice at the time in many agencies of the federal government. In 1939, an advisory committee at the National Archives had determined that in the case of punch card records, federal agencies (rather than archivists) could determine whether the records had historical value and should be preserved. Following this decision, few agencies retained any punch card records for historical purposes. At the Bureau of the Census, the practice became one of disposing of basic microdata records on punch cards once derivative data were produced. (Adams discusses this issue in a forthcoming article in the American Archivist.) An internal 1963 Bureau of the Census technical memorandum listed tape files produced in connection with the 1960 Census of Population and Housing that the Bureau was retaining in "permanent data storage." It did not list any files with basic microdata records from the 100 percent Census. This seems consistent with Jacobs' assessment. It is also not surprising, given what National Archives staff had learned when they interviewed Bureau of the Census personnel for the study mentioned above. The Bureau's records officer mentioned that he considered that both punch cards and magnetic tapes were "non-record," but he also described tape files that the Bureau was retaining because of potential need for them for programmatic purposes. Thus the discussion of any loss of 1960 Census data must focus on the tape files reported in 1963 to have been in "permanent data storage." In 1975, another internal Bureau of the Census technical memorandum indicated that the Bureau had retained data files from the 1960 Census on 7,297 tapes "readable" with UNIVAC II-A tape drives, 1,678 "readable" with UNIVAC III-A tape drives, and 146 tapes "readable" with [industry] compatible tape drives. Following consultation with staff of the National Archives, the Bureau outlined in August 1975 a plan to provide for the "adequate retention of the 1960 data." The Census Bureau would retain 132 of the [industry] compatible tapes and would copy the tape files on 1,273 of the III-A tapes onto [industry] compatible tapes. National Archives staff informally agreed to the plan. The issue was the 7,297 II-A tapes. All of the aprochyrphal stories about loss of 1960 Census data have to do with the 1960 derivative data that the Bureau stored on tapes readable only by UNIVAC II-A tape drives, II-A (or, 2A) tapes. During 1975 and 1976, a member of the National Archives' Machine Readable Archives Division reviewed the microaggregation or derivative files that the Bureau of the Census had preserved from the 1960 Census on these II-A tapes. This review identified seven series of low-level microaggregations as having long-term value to compensate for the lack of basic microdata records from the 100 percent Census. The seven series resided on 642 of the II-A tapes which the Census Bureau agreed to migrate to [industry] compatible tapes. But by this time, the Univac II-A tape drives were obsolete, and thus the preservation of these tapes presented a major engineering challenge. Despite the challenge, the Census staff prevailed. By 1979, the Census Bureau had successfully completed the copying of 640 of the 642 II-A tapes onto 178 [industry] compatible tapes. The two II-A tapes not copied could not be found. The missing tapes had 7,488 records, or about .5 percent of the total of approximately 1.5 million records on all II-A tapes that had been identified as having long-term value. Of the 640 tapes which were located, only 1,575 records (or less than .2 percent of the total number of valuable records on II-A tapes) could not be copied because of deterioration. Hence a small volume of records from the 1960 Census was lost, and this occurred because of inadequate inventory control and because of the physical deterioration of a minuscule number of records. Most of the data extant from the 1960 Census, even in the microaggregations, are restricted from public disclosure for 72 years (or until 2032) by Title 13, U.S. Code. Because of this reason, the Census Bureau has not formally transferred to the National Archives data from the 1960 Census, excepting the 1960 public use microdata sample files. Consequently, inquiries into the current technological status of the microaggregations from the 1960 Census should be directed to the Census Bureau. Margaret O. Adams Thomas E. Brown April 3, 1996 Date: Wed, 03 Apr 1996 18:39:17 -0400 From: Margaret Adams <firstname.lastname@example.com> To: email@example.com Subject: Re: Comments on draft report -Reply Peter Graham firstname.lastname@example.com Rutgers University Libraries 169 College Ave., New Brunswick, NJ 08903 (908)445-5908; fax (908)445-5888 <URL:http://aultnis.rutgers.edu/pghome.html> __________________________________________________________________________ This message was posted through the Stanford campus mailing list server. If you wish to unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message body of "unsubscribe bap" to email@example.com


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Weymouth Chrome Posi-Temp® tub/shower
Weymouth's gracious Victorian details include percelain inlays with antiqued decorative script and a refined shepherd's spout. Elegant, traditional design details and distinctive finishing touches present a sense of uncommon luxury in the Weymouth collection. Distinctive accents include porcelain inlays that feature Euro-influenced decorative script and signature styling elements to make an extravagant statement in your traditional bath. Coordinated lighting and accessories make an extravagant design statement.
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- install with Posi-Temp® pressure balancing control valve to maintain water temperature control in the shower
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The Weymouth Collection
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Coordinating Collection Items
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Replacement Parts for this product may be covered by the Lifetime Limited Warranty

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Find hotels & motels in White Lake using the list below. Find discounted hotel accommodations in or close to White Lake, MI for your upcoming personal or group travel. We provide the best White Lake, Michigan motel and hotel rooms. Browse the White Lake area hotels to find the perfect lodging! Please use the provided map of the White Lake hotels.
The White Lake center is about 4 miles west of Oakland County International Airport and 9 miles northeast of General Motors.
How should we direct your call?


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What is a high-performance data structure? To answer that question, we're used to applying normal considerations like Big-Oh complexity, and memory overhead, locality, and traversal order. All of those apply to both sequential and concurrent software.
But in concurrent code, we need to consider two additional things to help us pick a data structure that is also sufficiently concurrency-friendly:
- In parallel code, your performance needs likely include the ability to allow multiple threads to use the data at the same time. If this is (or may become) a high-contention data structure, does it allow for concurrent readers and/or writers in different parts of the data structure at the same time? If the answer is, "No," then you may be designing an inherent bottleneck into your system and be just asking for lock convoys as threads wait, only one being able to use the data structure at a time.
- On parallel hardware, you may also care about minimizing the cost of memory synchronization. When one thread updates one part of the data structure, how much memory needs to be moved to make the change visible to another thread? If the answer is, "More than just the part that has ostensibly changed," then again you're asking for a potential performance penalty, this time due to cache sloshing as more data has to move from the core that performed the update to the core that is reading the result.
It turns out that both of these answers are directly influenced by whether the data structure allows truly localized updates. If making what appears to be a small change in one part of the data structure actually ends up reading or writing other parts of the structure, then we lose locality; those other parts need to be locked, too, and all of the memory that has changed needs to be synchronized.
To illustrate, let's consider two common data structures: linked lists and balanced trees.


text:
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Wite 1805a/wt delite knit. Fabric: cotton and polyester. Care label: cold hand wash separately. Occasion: casual style: yummy mummy,everyday girl,arty chick,minimalista,animal print suits shape: pear,hourglass,curvy,rectangle,apple


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Recall she was due in Court on Monday for custody of her 9 month old daughter. He fixed it alright-- like so many DADDY's do- Just kill mom.
Amplify'd from www.click2houston.com
OUSTON -- Authorities in Harris County said they have arrested the boyfriend of a missing area woman.The Harris County Sheriff's Office said 31-year-old James David Clarke was charged with murder in the case of 20-year-old Amber Chantel Elkins, who was last seen July 24.Investigators said Elkins was the victim of foul play and has not been located.Detectives said Elkins' vehicle, a dark green 2004 Chevrolet Trailblazer with Georgia license plates, was found abandoned in a vacant business parking lot in the 13900 block of Homestead Road, just north of Greens Bayou, about 2:45 p.m. Tuesday.The front passenger window was broken out and a substantial amount of blood was found inside the vehicle, investigators said.Elkins' mother, Shani Kilpatrick, said her daughter would never go a day without letting someone know where she was. Kilpatrick said her phone rang at 3:30 a.m. Sunday, but she missed the call because she was sleeping. When she woke up later that morning, she realized it was her daughter, so she called her back."I called her back and a guy answered. I asked where Amber was, and he hung up," said Kilpatrick. "She would only call me at 3:30 in the morning if something was wrong. That's why I know something was wrong."Kilpatrick also said Elkins was due in court on Monday for a custody hearing regarding her 9-month-old daughter, who is staying with relatives."I don't think it looks good," Kilpatrick said. "I'm trying to keep the faith. I don't want to say that she's gone. I just know that she can't call me."Frank Ferrata is the father of Elkins' daughter, Ava. He said it's heartbreaking because the baby is too young to understand what's going on."Ava says 'Mama' all the time, and it breaks my heart," he said.Ferrata said he and Elkins were living in Midway, Texas, together, but recently she moved back to the Houston area. He called her a kind, loving person and said they just want to know what happened to her.Elkins' father, Mike Elkins, flew in Friday night from Atlanta. He said he felt helpless being so far away and wanted to come to Texas to help search for his daughter. But he admitted the evidence doesn't look good, and now the family is fearing the worst."I feel in my heart that my daughter's gone. I've accepted that. I just want to find her," said Mike Elkins. "My daughter had a heart of gold. She would do anything for anybody."About 70 volunteers scoured more than 150 acres looking for signs of Amber Elkins."We're not going to sugarcoat anything. This looks bad," Texas EquuSearch Founder Tim Miller said. "We're going to hold on to that tiny miracle, but the reality is we've got a big problem here. We got a 20-year-old that's got to be found."Amber Elkins is white, 5 feet 8 inches to 5 feet 9 inches tall with black hair and brown eyes. She has two stars tattooed on her wrist and the word "ACE" tattooed on an ankle.Anyone with information regarding Amber Elkins' disappearance is asked to call the HCSO Homicide Unit at 713-967-5810, or Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS.Clark is being held at the Harris County jail.Read more at www.click2houston.com
Previous Stories:
- July 28, 2011: Foul Play Suspected In Woman's Disappearance
See this Amp at http://bit.ly/pfXCFd


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HP aims to fuse performance and value in the HP Pavilion p6367c-b by pairing a quad-core Intel processor with 8GB of RAM. That's a nice start but the p6367, available for $999.99 at Costco, HP would have done well to include an inexpensive discrete graphics card, as it did with the HP Pavilion p6267c-b ($999 list at Costco, ). While the p6367c-b is a capable performer in most categories, it is hobbled by weak integrated graphics. And that's particularly disappointing considering the included 25-inch widescreen LCD, which deftly handles full 1080p high definition video and offers what could have been a great platform for gaming. While it's possible to play 3D shooters on this machine, it will disappoint the hardcore.
If the p6367c-b looks familiar, that's because it follows HP's standard design scheme. The matte-black mid-tower is fronted by a glossy black panel outlined in chrome trim. The grille's rounded edges are echoed in the 25-inch monitor, which has a glossy black bezel trimmed in silver, and the design of the keyboard. The overall design is handsome and consistent. It's not the snazziest we've seen but it's attractive for a budget system.
A 15-format memory card reader sits at the top of the front panel. Directly below is the DVD ±RW drive, which has a button at the side to open and close the drawer. An enclosure for a second optical drive is underneath. At the middle of the panel you'll find a door that slides down to reveal two USB ports and mic and headphone jacks. The jacks fall halfway down the face of the machine, which could be a stretch for some USB cords.
The most noteworthy component of the bundle is the HP 2509m monitor, a 25-inch widescreen LCD with a native resolution of 1,920 by 1,080. The display's resolution and 16:9 aspect ratio makes it great for screening HD video. The monitor, which sells for $349.99 on HP's Website, also provides an excellent venue for multitasking, since its size enables you to view multiple documents and applications at once. The 2509m has VGA, DVI, and HDMI input connectors that enable you to connect several different devices at once. It's a shame that HP doesn't include an HDMI port on the p6367c-b, however.
The monitor has built-in 2-watt stereo speakers that deliver satisfying sound with a fair amount of volume. Anyone who listens to music, plays games or watches a lot of video will probably want to add stand-alone speakers. The monitor tilts 25 degrees up and 5 degrees down, and its construction feels sturdy as you adjust it.
The p6367c-b also includes a USB keyboard with a matching design and a USB mouse. Both work fine, although they feel a bit flimsy. The keyboard has a dedicated numeric pad and hardware buttons for mute and volume up and volume down.
The p6367, which runs Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit), employs a capable Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 processor running at 2.5GHz and a whopping 8GB of memory. HP doesn't follow through with graphics, however, opting for an Intel GMA X4500 (32MB) integrated solution. Previous models we've testing, including the Editors' Choice-winning HP p6267c-b, used an entry-level discrete graphics card to boost video performance. While the p6367 can quite capably handle tasks like word processing, Web browsing, and photo editing, its integrated graphics will choke on demanding 3D games. On the upside, it offers a generous 1TB of storage space on its hard drive.
At the rear of the machine you'll find a decent array of connectors. HP includes four USB 2.0 ports and the standard Ethernet jack (dial-up users should note that this model doesn't include a modem). The p6367 offers VGA and DVI ports for connecting a monitor but no HDMI port. The system supports up to 7.1 surround sound audio and includes a digital audio out port for Dolby Digital.
HP makes it easy to access the interior components: Simply turn a screw and slide off the side panel. Inside you'll find room to add another hard drive, a second optical drive, and a 3.5-inch device. All four DIMM slots are populated, but with an ample 8GB of RAM you probably won't need to add memory. An open PCI Express x16 slot enables you to add a discrete graphics card (but mind the limitations of the 300-watt power supply), and three available PCI Express x1 slots can accommodate cards for audio, TV tuner, and FireWire adapter.
As for software, HP bundles a few useful titles that include Microsoft Works 9.0, HP MediaSmart Software Suite for working with photos, videos, and music, and CyberLink's DVD Suite for burning CDs and DVDs. Where there is a desktop, you'll also find bloatware and the p6367c-b is no exception. HP loads the machine with eBay, a 60-day trial for Norton Internet Security and a 60-day trial (uninstalled) for Microsoft Office, as well as pointers to Snapfish, Hulu, HP games, and more.
Costco offers a two-year limited warranty on the PC hardware, which is nice but the monitor comes with only a one-year warranty. The system also comes with Costco's Concierge Services, a free service to Costco members who purchase electronics at the store. The service gives you access to technicians to walk you system setup, product use, and for troubleshooting. Lastly, the store accepts returns within 90 days.
The p6367c-b performed well in most of our performance testing, although its integrated graphics yielded low scores for 3D gaming. The p6367's PCMark Vantage score of 5,366 falls 1,134 points behind the HP p6267c-b, which also employs a 2.5GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 processor, but beats the similarly priced Dell Inspiron 546 (i546-4354nbk) ($600 list, ) and Gateway SX2800-01 ($499 list, ). The HP p6367c-b could not run the 3DMark Vantage test, owing to its integrated graphics. It also failed to load our Crysis 3D test but managed to eke out a result of a still unplayable 8 frames per second in our World in Conflict test.
In other benchmark tests, however, the p6367c-b did very well. It completed our Windows Media Encoder test in a swift 41 seconds, only 1 second slower than the HP p6267c-b. The p6367c-b completed the Photoshop CS4 test in 1:36, again just 1 second behind the HP p6267 and considerably faster than the Dell Inspiron 546 (2:50) and HP Pavilion p6247c-b ($800 list, ) (2:09). The p6367c-b topped its competitors in the CineBench R10 test with a score of 10,780, 140 points higher than the Editors' Choice HP p6267c-b. It was at the top of the charts in the Windows Media Encoder test with a score of 41 seconds, again trailing the HP Pavilion p6267c-b by a single second.
The 25-inch monitor displayed crisp, smooth 1080p video with correct and pleasing color. At one point during testing, however, the monitor could not detect the DVI connection. We repeatedly reconnected the monitor but it wouldn't recognize the connection until we rebooted both the monitor and the PC.
If you're looking for a home system that can handle multimedia chores and everyday tasks like Web browsing, e-mail, and word processing, the HP Pavilion p6367c-b is worth considering. Its 15-inch monitor provides an outstanding platform for multitasking and watching video, although the omission of an HDMI port on the PC is regrettable. The p6367c-b also offers an ample 8GB of memory and a roomy 1TB hard drive. In any case, the p6367c-b does have much to recommend it. The system is very similar to the Editors' Choice-winning HP Pavilion p6267c-b, and even offers a larger hard drive. The p6267c-b has a discrete graphics card, however, and that enabled it to turn in better graphics performance than the p6367c-b.


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|Heavy metal
|Stylistic origins
|Blues-rock, psychedelic rock
|Cultural origins
|Late 1960s, United Kingdom and United States
|Typical instruments
|Electric guitar • bass guitar • drums • vocals • keyboards
|Mainstream popularity
|Worldwide, late 1960s–present
|Avant-garde metal • black metal • classic metal • death metal • doom metal • glam metal • gothic metal • groove metal • power metal • progressive metal • speed metal • stoner rock • symphonic metal • thrash metal • viking metal
(complete list)
|Fusion genres
|Alternative metal • Christian metal • crust punk • drone metal • folk metal • funk metal • grindcore • industrial metal • metalcore • neo-classical metal • nu metal • post-metal • rap metal • sludge metal
|Regional scenes
|Australia • Bay Area • Brazil • Britain − Germany • Gothenburg • New Orleans • United States
|Other topics
|Fashion • bands • umlaut • blast beat • subgenres
Heavy metal (often referred to simply as metal) is a genre of rock music[1] that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the United Kingdom and the United States.[2] With roots in blues-rock and psychedelic rock, the bands that created heavy metal developed a thick, massive sound, characterized by highly amplified distortion, extended guitar solos, emphatic beats, and overall loudness. Heavy metal lyrics and performance styles are generally associated with masculinity and machismo.[3]
The first heavy metal bands such as Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple attracted large audiences, though they were often critically reviled, a status common throughout the history of the genre. In the mid-1970s Judas Priest helped spur the genre's evolution by discarding much of its blues influence; Motörhead introduced a punk rock sensibility and an increasing emphasis on speed. Bands in the New Wave of British Heavy Metal such as Iron Maiden followed in a similar vein. Before the end of the decade, heavy metal had attracted a worldwide following of fans known as "metalheads" or "headbangers".
In the 1980s, glam metal became a major commercial force with groups like Mötley Crüe. Underground scenes produced an array of more extreme, aggressive styles: thrash metal broke into the mainstream with bands such as Metallica, while other styles like death metal and black metal remain subcultural phenomena. Since the mid-1990s, popular styles such as nu metal, which often incorporates elements of grunge and hip hop; and metalcore, which blends extreme metal with hardcore punk, have further expanded the definition of the genre.
Heavy metal is traditionally characterized by loud distorted guitars, emphatic rhythms, dense bass-and-drum sound, and vigorous vocals. Metal subgenres variously emphasize, alter, or omit one or more of these attributes. New York Times critic Jon Pareles writes, "In the taxonomy of popular music, heavy metal is a major subspecies of hard-rock—the breed with less syncopation, less blues, more showmanship and more brute force."[4] The typical band lineup includes a drummer, a bassist, a rhythm guitarist, a lead guitarist, and a singer, who may or may not be an instrumentalist. Keyboard instruments are sometimes used to enhance the fullness of the sound.[5]
The electric guitar and the sonic power that it projects through amplification has historically been the key element in heavy metal.[6] The lead role of the guitar in heavy metal often collides with the traditional "frontman" or bandleader role of the vocalist, creating a musical tension as the two "contend for dominance" in a spirit of "affectionate rivalry".[5] Heavy metal "demands the subordination of the voice" to the overall sound of the band. Reflecting metal's roots in the 1960s counterculture, an "explicit display of emotion" is required from the vocals as a sign of authenticity.[7] Critic Simon Frith claims that the metal singer's "tone of voice" is more important than the lyrics.[8] Metal vocals vary widely in style, from the multioctave, theatrical approach of Judas Priest's Rob Halford and Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson, to the gruff style of Motörhead's Lemmy and Metallica's James Hetfield, to the growling of many death metal performers.
The prominent role of the bass is also key to the metal sound, and the interplay of bass and guitar is a central element. The bass guitar provides the low-end sound crucial to making the music "heavy".[9] Metal basslines vary widely in complexity, from holding down a low pedal point as a foundation to doubling complex riffs and licks along with the lead and/or rhythm guitars. Some bands feature the bass as a lead instrument, an approach popularized by Metallica's Cliff Burton in the early 1980s.[10]
The essence of metal drumming is creating a loud, constant beat for the band using the "trifecta of speed, power, and precision".[11] Metal drumming "requires an exceptional amount of endurance", and drummers have to develop "considerable speed, coordination, and dexterity...to play the intricate patterns" used in metal.[12] A characteristic metal drumming technique is the cymbal choke, which consists of striking a cymbal and then immediately silencing it by grabbing it with the other hand (or, in some cases, the same striking hand), producing a burst of sound. The metal drum setup is generally much larger than those employed in other forms of rock music.[9]
In live performance, loudness—an "onslaught of sound," in sociologist Deena Weinstein's description—is considered vital.[6] In his book Metalheads, psychologist Jeffrey Arnett refers to heavy metal concerts as "the sensory equivalent of war."[13] Following the lead set by Jimi Hendrix, Cream and The Who, early heavy metal acts such as Blue Cheer set new benchmarks for volume. As Blue Cheer's Dick Peterson put it, "All we knew was we wanted more power."[14] A 1977 review of a Motörhead concert noted how "excessive volume in particular figured into the band's impact."[15] Weinstein makes the case that in the same way that melody is the main element of pop and rhythm is the main focus of house music, powerful sound, timbre, and volume are the key elements of metal. She argues that the loudness is designed to "sweep the listener into the sound" and to provide a "shot of youthful vitality."[6]
The rhythm in metal songs is emphatic, with deliberate stresses. Weinstein observes that the wide array of sonic effects available to metal drummers enables the "rhythmic pattern to take on a complexity within its elemental drive and insistency."[9] In many heavy metal songs, the main groove is characterized by short, two-note or three-note rhythmic figures—generally made up of 8th or 16th notes. These rhythmic figures are usually performed with a staccato attack created by using a palm-muted technique on the rhythm guitar.[16]
Brief, abrupt, and detached rhythmic cells are joined into rhythmic phrases with a distinctive, often jerky texture. These phrases are used to create rhythmic accompaniment and melodic figures called riffs, which help to establish thematic hooks. Heavy metal songs also use longer rhythmic figures such as whole note- or dotted quarter note-length chords in slow-tempo power ballads. The tempos in early heavy metal music tended to be "slow, even ponderous."[9] By the late 1970s, however, metal bands were employing a wide variety of tempos. In the 2000s, metal tempos range from slow ballad tempos (quarter note = 60 beats per minute) to extremely fast blast beat tempos (quarter note = 350 beats per minute).[12]
One of the signatures of the genre is the guitar power chord.[17] In technical terms, the power chord is relatively simple: it involves just one main interval, generally the perfect fifth, though an octave may be added as a doubling of the root. Although the perfect fifth interval is the most common basis for the power chord,[18] power chords are also based on different intervals such as the minor third, major third, perfect fourth, diminished fifth, or minor sixth.[19] Most power chords are also played with a consistent finger arrangement that can be slid easily up and down the fretboard.[20]
Heavy metal is usually based on riffs created with three main harmonic traits: modal scale progressions, tritone and chromatic progressions, and the use of pedal points. Traditional heavy metal tends to employ modal scales, in particular the Aeolian and Phrygian modes.[21] Harmonically speaking, this means the genre typically incorporates modal chord progressions such as the Aeolian progressions I-VI-VII, I-VII-(VI), or I-VI-IV-VII and Phrygian progressions implying the relation between I and ♭II (I-♭II-I, I-♭II-III, or I-♭II-VII for example). Tense-sounding chromatic or tritone relationships are used in a number of metal chord progressions.[22][23] The tritone, an interval spanning three whole tones—such as C and F#—was a forbidden dissonance in medieval ecclesiastical singing, which led monks to call it diabolus in musica—"the devil in music."[24] Because of that original symbolic association, it came to be heard in Western cultural convention as "evil". Heavy metal has made extensive use of the tritone in guitar solos and riffs, such as in the beginning of "Black Sabbath".
Heavy metal songs often make extensive use of pedal point as a harmonic basis. A pedal point is a sustained tone, typically in the bass range, during which at least one foreign (i.e., dissonant) harmony is sounded in the other parts.[25]
Robert Walser argues that, alongside blues and R&B, the "assemblage of disparate musical styles known...as 'classical music'" has been a major influence on heavy metal since the genre's earliest days. He claims that metal's "most influential musicians have been guitar players who have also studied classical music. Their appropriation and adaptation of classical models sparked the development of a new kind of guitar virtuosity [and] changes in the harmonic and melodic language of heavy metal."[26] The Grove Music Online states that the "1980s brought on ...the widespread adaptation of chord progressions and virtuosic practices from 18th-century European models, especially Bach and Vivaldi, by influential guitarists such as Van Halen, Randy Rhoads and Yngwie Malmsteen".[27]
Although a number of metal musicians cite classical composers as inspiration, classical and metal are rooted in different cultural traditions and practices—classical in the art music tradition, metal in the popular music tradition. As musicologists Nicolas Cook and Nicola Dibben note, "Analyses of popular music also sometimes reveal the influence of 'art traditions.' An example is Walser's linkage of heavy metal music with the ideologies and even some of the performance practices of nineteenth-century Romanticism. However, it would be clearly wrong to claim that traditions such as blues, rock, heavy metal, rap or dance music derive primarily from 'art music.'"[28]
Black Sabbath and the many metal bands they inspired have concentrated lyrically "on dark and depressing subject matter to an extent hitherto unprecedented in any form of pop music," according to scholars David Hatch and Stephen Millward. They take as an example Sabbath's 1970 album Paranoid, which "included songs dealing with personal trauma—'Paranoid' and 'Fairies Wear Boots' (which described the unsavoury side effects of drug-taking)—as well as those confronting wider issues, such as the self-explanatory 'War Pigs' and 'Hand of Doom.'"[29] Nuclear annihilation was addressed in later metal songs such as Iron Maiden's "2 Minutes to Midnight" and Ozzy Osbourne's "Killer of Giants". Death is a predominant theme in heavy metal, routinely featuring in the lyrics of bands as otherwise widely different as Slayer and W.A.S.P. The more extreme forms of death metal and grindcore tend to have aggressive and gory lyrics.
Deriving from the genre's roots in blues music, sex is another important topic—a thread running from Led Zeppelin's suggestive lyrics to the more explicit references of glam and nu metal bands.[30] Romantic tragedy is a standard theme of gothic and doom metal, as well as of nu metal, where teenage angst is another central topic. Heavy metal songs often feature outlandish, fantasy-inspired lyrics, lending them an escapist quality. Iron Maiden's songs, for instance, were frequently inspired by mythology, fiction, and poetry, such as "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," based on the Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem. Led Zeppelin lyrics often reference Lord of the Rings as well as other mythology and folklore, such as in the songs "The Battle of Evermore", "Immigrant Song", "Ramble On", "No Quarter", and "Achilles Last Stand". Other examples include Black Sabbath's "The Wizard," Megadeth's "The Conjuring" and "Five Magics," and Judas Priest's "Dreamer Deceiver". Since the 1980s, with the rise of thrash metal and songs such as Metallica's "...And Justice for All" and Megadeth's "Peace Sells", more metal lyrics have included sociopolitical commentary. Genres such as melodic death metal, progressive metal, and black metal often explore philosophical themes.
The thematic content of heavy metal has long been a target of criticism. According to Jon Pareles, "Heavy metal's main subject matter is simple and virtually universal. With grunts, moans and subliterary lyrics, it celebrates...a party without limits.... [T]he bulk of the music is stylized and formulaic."[4] Music critics have often deemed metal lyrics juvenile and banal, and others have objected to what they see as advocacy of misogyny and the occult. During the 1980s, the Parents Music Resource Center petitioned the U.S. Congress to regulate the popular music industry due to what the group asserted were objectionable lyrics, particularly those in heavy metal songs. In 1990, Judas Priest was sued in American court by the parents of two young men who had shot themselves five years earlier, allegedly after hearing the subliminal statement "do it" in a Priest song. While the case attracted a great deal of media attention, it was ultimately dismissed.[31] In some predominantly Muslim countries, heavy metal has been officially denounced as a threat to traditional values. In countries including Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon, and Malaysia, there have been incidents of heavy metal musicians and fans being arrested and incarcerated.[32]
As with much popular music, visual imagery plays a large role in heavy metal. In addition to its sound and lyrics, a heavy metal band's "image" is expressed in album sleeve art, logos, stage sets, clothing, and music videos.[33] Some heavy metal acts such as Alice Cooper, Kiss, and Gwar have become known as much for their outrageous performance personas and stage shows as for their music.
Down-the-back long hair, according to Weinstein, is the "most crucial distinguishing feature of metal fashion."[34] Originally adopted from the hippie subculture, by the 1980s and 1990s heavy metal hair "symbolised the hate, angst and disenchantment of a generation that seemingly never felt at home," according to journalist Nader Rahman. Long hair gave members of the metal community "the power they needed to rebel against nothing in general."[35]
The classic uniform of heavy metal fans consists of "blue jeans, black T-shirts, boots and black leather or jeans jackets.... T-shirts are generally emblazoned with the logos or other visual representations of favorite metal bands."[36] Metal fans also "appropriated elements from the S&M community (chains, metal studs, skulls, leather and crosses)." In the 1980s, a range of sources, from punk and goth music to horror films, influenced metal fashion.[37] Many metal performers of the 1970s and 1980s used radically shaped and brightly colored instruments to enhance their stage appearance. Fashion and personal style was especially important for glam metal bands of the era. Performers typically wore long, dyed, hairspray-teased hair (hence the nickname, "hair metal"); makeup such as lipstick and eyeliner; gaudy clothing, including leopard-skin-printed shirts or vests and tight denim, leather, or spandex pants; and accessories such as headbands and jewelry.[38] Pioneered by the heavy metal act X Japan in the late 1980s, bands in the Japanese movement known as visual kei—which includes many nonmetal groups—emphasize elaborate costumes, hair, and makeup.[39]
Many metal musicians when performing live engage in headbanging, which involves rhythmically beating time with the head, often emphasized by long hair. The corna, or devil horns, hand gesture, also widespread, was popularized by vocalist Ronnie James Dio while with Black Sabbath and Dio.[23] Gene Simmons of Kiss claims to have been the first to make the gesture in concert.[40]
Attendees of metal concerts do not dance in the usual sense; Deena Weinstein has argued that this is due to the music's largely male audience and "extreme heterosexualist ideology." She identifies two primary body movements that substitute for dancing: headbanging and an arm thrust that is both a sign of appreciation and a rhythmic gesture.[41] The performance of air guitar is popular among metal fans both at concerts and listening to records at home.[42] Other concert audience activities include stage diving, crowd surfing, pushing and shoving in a chaotic mêlée called moshing, and displaying the corna hand symbol.
Deena Weinstein argues that heavy metal has outlasted many other rock genres largely due to the emergence of an intense, exclusionary, strongly masculine subculture.[43] While the metal fanbase is largely young, white, male, and blue-collar, the group is "tolerant of those outside its core demographic base who follow its codes of dress, appearance, and behavior."[44] Identification with the subculture is strengthened not only by the shared experience of concert-going and shared elements of fashion, but also by contributing to metal magazines and, more recently, websites.[45]
The metal scene has been characterized as a "subculture of alienation", with its own code of authenticity.[46] This code puts several demands on performers: they must appear both completely devoted to their music and loyal to the subculture that supports it; they must appear disinterested in mainstream appeal and radio hits; and they must never "sell out".[47] For the fans themselves, the code promotes "opposition to established authority, and separateness from the rest of society."[48] Scholars of metal have noted the tendency of fans to classify and reject some performers (and some other fans) as "posers" "who pretended to be part of the subculture, but who were deemed to lack authenticity and sincerity."[46][49]
The origin of the term heavy metal in a musical context is uncertain. The phrase has been used for centuries in chemistry and metallurgy. An early use of the term in modern popular culture was by countercultural writer William S. Burroughs. His 1962 novel The Soft Machine includes a character known as "Uranian Willy, the Heavy Metal Kid." Burroughs's next novel, Nova Express (1964), develops the theme, using heavy metal as a metaphor for addictive drugs: "With their diseases and orgasm drugs and their sexless parasite life forms—Heavy Metal People of Uranus wrapped in cool blue mist of vaporized bank notes—And The Insect People of Minraud with metal music."[50]
Metal historian Ian Christe describes what the components of the term mean in "hippiespeak": "heavy" is roughly synonymous with "potent" or "profound," and "metal" designates a certain type of mood, grinding and weighted as with metal.[51] The word "heavy" in this sense was a basic element of beatnik and later countercultural slang, and references to "heavy music"—typically slower, more amplified variations of standard pop fare—were already common by the mid-1960s. Iron Butterfly's debut album, released in early 1968, was titled Heavy. The first recorded use of heavy metal is a reference to a motorcycle in the Steppenwolf song "Born to Be Wild," also released that year:[52] "I like smoke and lightning/Heavy metal thunder/Racin' with the wind/And the feelin' that I'm under." A late, and disputed, claim about the source of the term was made by "Chas" Chandler, former manager of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. In a 1995 interview on the PBS program Rock and Roll, he asserted that heavy metal "was a term originated in a New York Times article reviewing a Jimi Hendrix performance," in which the author likened the event to "listening to heavy metal falling from the sky." A source for Chandler's claim has never been found.
The first documented use of the phrase to describe a type of rock music identified to date appears in a review by Barry Gifford. In the May 11, 1968, issue of Rolling Stone, he wrote about the album A Long Time Comin' by U.S. band Electric Flag: "Nobody who's been listening to Mike Bloomfield—either talking or playing—in the last few years could have expected this. This is the new soul music, the synthesis of white blues and heavy metal rock."[53] Other early documented uses of the phrase are from reviews by critic Mike Saunders. In the November 12, 1970, issue of Rolling Stone, he commented on an album put out the previous year by the British band Humble Pie: "Safe As Yesterday Is, their first American release, proved that Humble Pie could be boring in lots of different ways. Here they were a noisy, unmelodic, heavy metal-leaden shit-rock band with the loud and noisy parts beyond doubt. There were a couple of nice songs...and one monumental pile of refuse." He described the band's latest, self-titled release as "more of the same 27th-rate heavy metal crap."[54] In a review of Sir Lord Baltimore's Kingdom Come in the May 1971 Creem, Saunders wrote, "Sir Lord Baltimore seems to have down pat most all the best heavy metal tricks in the book."[55] Creem critic Lester Bangs is credited with popularizing the term via his early 1970s essays on bands such as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.[56] Through the decade, heavy metal was used by certain critics as a virtually automatic putdown. In 1979, lead New York Times popular music critic John Rockwell described what he called "heavy-metal rock" as "brutally aggressive music played mostly for minds clouded by drugs,"[57] and, in a different article, as "a crude exaggeration of rock basics that appeals to white teenagers."[58]
Coined by Black Sabbath drummer, Bill Ward, "downer rock" was one of the earliest terms used to describe this style of music and was applied to such acts as Sabbath and Bloodrock. Classic Rock magazine described the downer rock culture revolving around the use of Quaaludes and the drinking of wine.[59] Later the term would be replaced by "heavy metal."[60]
The terms "heavy metal" and "hard rock" have often been used interchangeably, particularly in discussing bands of the 1970s, a period when the terms were largely synonymous.[61] For example, the 1983 Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll includes this passage: "known for its aggressive blues-based hard-rock style, Aerosmith was the top American heavy-metal band of the mid-Seventies."[62]
While heavy metal's quintessential guitar style, built around distortion-heavy riffs and power chords, traces its roots to the late 1950s instrumentals of American Link Wray,[63] the genre's direct lineage begins in the mid-1960s. American blues music was a major influence on the early British rockers of the era. Bands like The Rolling Stones and The Yardbirds developed blues-rock by recording covers of many classic blues songs, often speeding up the tempos. As they experimented with the music, the UK blues-based bands—and the U.S. acts they influenced in turn—developed what would become the hallmarks of heavy metal, in particular, the loud, distorted guitar sound.[14] The Kinks played a major role in popularizing this sound with their 1964 hit "You Really Got Me."[64] A significant contributor to the emerging guitar sound was the feedback facilitated by the new generation of amplifiers.
In addition to The Kinks' Dave Davies, other guitarists such as The Who's Pete Townshend and the Tridents' Jeff Beck were experimenting with feedback.[65] Where the blues-rock drumming style started out largely as simple shuffle beats on small kits, drummers began using a more muscular, complex, and amplified approach to match and be heard against the increasingly loud guitar.[66] Vocalists similarly modified their technique and increased their reliance on amplification, often becoming more stylized and dramatic. In terms of sheer volume, especially in live performance, The Who's "bigger-louder-wall-of-Marshalls" approach was seminal.[67] Simultaneous advances in amplification and recording technology made it possible to successfully capture the power of this heavier approach on record.
The combination of blues-rock with psychedelic rock formed much of the original basis for heavy metal.[68] One of the most influential bands in forging the merger of genres was the British power trio Cream, who derived a massive, heavy sound from unison riffing between guitarist Eric Clapton and bassist Jack Bruce, as well as Ginger Baker's double bass drumming.[69] Their first two LPs, Fresh Cream (1966) and Disraeli Gears (1967), are regarded as essential prototypes for the future style. The Jimi Hendrix Experience's debut album, Are You Experienced (1967), was also highly influential. Hendrix's virtuosic technique would be emulated by many metal guitarists and the album's most successful single, "Purple Haze," is identified by some as the first heavy metal hit.[14] Vanilla Fudge, whose first album also came out in 1967, have been called "one of the few American links between psychedelia and what soon became heavy metal."[70]
In 1968, the sound that would become known as heavy metal began to coalesce. That January, the San Francisco band Blue Cheer released a cover of Eddie Cochran's classic "Summertime Blues," from their debut album Vincebus Eruptum, that many consider the first true heavy metal recording.[71] The same month, Steppenwolf released its self-titled debut album, including "Born to Be Wild," which refers to "heavy metal" in the lyrics. In July, another two epochal records came out: The Yardbirds' "Think About It"—B-side of the band's last single—with a performance by guitarist Jimmy Page anticipating the metal sound he would soon make famous; and Iron Butterfly's In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, with its 17-minute-long title track, a prime candidate for first-ever heavy metal album. In August, The Beatles' single version of "Revolution," with its redlined guitar and drum sound, set new standards for distortion in a top-selling context.
The Jeff Beck Group, whose leader had preceded Page as The Yardbirds' guitarist, released its debut record that same month: Truth featured some of the "most molten, barbed, downright funny noises of all time," breaking ground for generations of metal ax-slingers.[72] In October, Page's new band, Led Zeppelin, made its live debut. The Beatles' so-called White Album, which also came out that month, included "Helter Skelter," then one of the heaviest-sounding songs ever released by a major band.[73] The Pretty Things' rock opera S.F. Sorrow, released in December, featured "proto heavy metal" songs such as "Old Man Going."[74]
In January 1969, Led Zeppelin's self-titled debut album was released and reached number 10 on the Billboard album chart. In July, Zeppelin and a power trio with a Cream-inspired, but cruder sound, Grand Funk Railroad, played the Atlanta Pop Festival. That same month, another Cream-rooted trio led by Leslie West released Mountain, an album filled with heavy blues-rock guitar and roaring vocals. In August, the group—now itself dubbed Mountain—played an hour-long set at the Woodstock Festival.[75] Grand Funk's debut album, On Time, also came out that month. In the fall, Led Zeppelin II went to number 1 and the album's single "Whole Lotta Love" hit number 4 on the Billboard pop chart. The metal revolution was under way.
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Led Zeppelin defined central aspects of the emerging genre, with Page's highly distorted guitar style and singer Robert Plant's dramatic, wailing vocals.[77] Other bands, with a more consistently heavy, "purely" metal sound, would prove equally important in codifying the genre. The 1970 releases by Black Sabbath (Black Sabbath and Paranoid) and Deep Purple (In Rock) were crucial in this regard.[66] Black Sabbath had developed a particularly heavy sound in part due to an industrial accident guitarist Tony Iommi suffered before cofounding the band. Unable to play normally, Iommi had to tune his guitar down for easier fretting and rely on power chords with their relatively simple fingering.[78] Deep Purple had fluctuated between styles in its early years, but by 1969 vocalist Ian Gillan and guitarist Ritchie Blackmore had led the band toward the developing heavy metal style.[79] In 1970, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple scored major UK chart hits with "Paranoid" and "Black Night," respectively.[80][81] That same year, two other British bands released debut albums in a heavy metal mode: Uriah Heep with Very 'eavy... Very 'umble and UFO with UFO 1. Budgie brought the new metal sound into a power trio context.[82] The occult lyrics and imagery employed by Black Sabbath and Uriah Heep would prove particularly influential; Led Zeppelin also began foregrounding such elements with its fourth album, released in 1971.[83]
On the other side of the Atlantic, the trend-setting group was Grand Funk Railroad, "the most commercially successful American heavy-metal band from 1970 until they disbanded in 1976, [they] established the Seventies success formula: continuous touring."[84] Other bands identified with metal emerged in the U.S., such as Dust (first LP in 1971), Blue Öyster Cult (1972), and Kiss (1974). In Germany, the Scorpions debuted with Lonesome Crow in 1972. Blackmore, who had emerged as a virtuoso soloist with Deep Purple's Machine Head (1972), quit the group in 1975 to form Rainbow. These bands also built audiences via constant touring and increasingly elaborate stage shows.[66] As described above, there are arguments about whether these and other early bands truly qualify as "heavy metal" or simply as "hard rock." Those closer to the music's blues roots or placing greater emphasis on melody are now commonly ascribed the latter label. AC/DC, which debuted with High Voltage in 1976, is a prime example. The 1983 Rolling Stone encyclopedia entry begins, "Australian heavy-metal band AC/DC..."[85] Rock historian Clinton Walker writes, "Calling AC/DC a heavy metal band in the seventies was as inaccurate as it is today.... [They] were a rock 'n' roll band that just happened to be heavy enough for metal."[86] The issue is not only one of shifting definitions, but also a persistent distinction between musical style and audience identification: Ian Christe describes how the band "became the stepping-stone that led huge numbers of hard rock fans into heavy metal perdition."[87]
In certain cases, there is little debate. After Black Sabbath, the next major example is Britain's Judas Priest, which debuted with Rocka Rolla in 1974. In Christe's description, Black Sabbath's
audience was...left to scavenge for sounds with similar impact. By the mid-1970s, heavy metal aesthetic could be spotted, like a mythical beast, in the moody bass and complex dual guitars of Thin Lizzy, in the stagecraft of Alice Cooper, in the sizzling guitar and showy vocals of Queen, and in the thundering medieval questions of Rainbow.... Judas Priest arrived to unify and amplify these diverse highlights from hard rock's sonic palette. For the first time, heavy metal became a true genre unto itself.[88]
Though Judas Priest did not have a top 40 album in the U.S. until 1980, for many it was the definitive post-Sabbath heavy metal band; its twin-guitar attack, featuring rapid tempos and a nonbluesy, more cleanly metallic sound, was a major influence on later acts.[89] While heavy metal was growing in popularity, most critics were not enamored of the music. Objections were raised to metal's adoption of visual spectacle and other trappings of commercial artifice,[90] but the main offense was its perceived musical and lyrical vacuity: reviewing a Black Sabbath album in the early 1970s, leading critic Robert Christgau described it as "dull and decadent...dim-witted, amoral exploitation."[91]
Punk rock emerged in the mid-1970s as a reaction against contemporary social conditions as well as what was perceived as the overindulgent, overproduced rock music of the time, including heavy metal. Sales of heavy metal records declined sharply in the late 1970s in the face of punk, disco, and more mainstream rock.[90] With the major labels fixated on punk, many newer British heavy metal bands were inspired by the movement's aggressive, high-energy sound and "lo-fi", do it yourself ethos. Underground metal bands began putting out cheaply recorded releases independently to small, devoted audiences.[92] Motörhead, founded in 1975, was the first important band to straddle the punk/metal divide. With the explosion of punk in 1977, others followed. British music papers such as the NME and Sounds took notice, with Sounds writer Geoff Barton christening the movement the "New Wave of British Heavy Metal."[93] NWOBHM bands including Iron Maiden, Saxon, and Def Leppard reenergized the heavy metal genre. Following the lead set by Judas Priest and Motörhead, they toughened up the sound, reduced its blues elements, and emphasized increasingly fast tempos.[94] In 1980, NWOBHM broke into the mainstream, as albums by Iron Maiden and Saxon, as well as Motörhead, reached the British top 10. Though less commercially successful, other NWOBHM bands such as Venom and Diamond Head would have a significant influence on metal's development.[95] In 1981, Motörhead became the first of this new breed of metal bands to top the UK charts with No Sleep 'til Hammersmith.
The first generation of metal bands was ceding the limelight. Deep Purple had broken up soon after Blackmore's departure in 1975, and Led Zeppelin broke up following drummer John Bonham's death in 1980. Black Sabbath was routinely upstaged in concert by its opening act, the Los Angeles band Van Halen.[96] Eddie Van Halen established himself as one of the leading metal guitar virtuosos of the era—his solo on "Eruption," from the band's self-titled 1978 album, is considered a milestone.[97] Randy Rhoads and Yngwie Malmsteen also became famed virtuosos, associated with what would be known as the neoclassical metal style. The adoption of classical elements had been spearheaded by Blackmore and the Scorpions' Uli Jon Roth; this next generation progressed to occasionally using classical nylon-stringed guitars, as Rhoads does on "Dee" from former Sabbath lead singer Ozzy Osbourne's first solo album, Blizzard of Ozz (1980).
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Inspired by Van Halen's success, a metal scene began to develop in Southern California during the late 1970s. Based around the clubs of L.A.'s Sunset Strip, bands such as Quiet Riot, Ratt, Mötley Crüe, and W.A.S.P. were influenced by traditional heavy metal of the earlier 1970s[98] and incorporated the theatrics (and sometimes makeup) of glam rock acts such as Alice Cooper and Kiss.[99] The lyrics of these glam metal bands characteristically emphasized hedonism and wild behavior. Musically, the style was distinguished by rapid-fire shred guitar solos, anthemic choruses, and a relatively pop-oriented melodic approach. The glam metal movement—along with similarly styled acts such as New York's Twisted Sister—became a major force in metal and the wider spectrum of rock music.
In the wake of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and Judas Priest's breakthrough British Steel (1980), heavy metal became increasingly popular in the early 1980s. Many metal artists benefited from the exposure they received on MTV, which began airing in 1981—sales often soared if a band's videos screened on the channel.[100] Def Leppard's videos for Pyromania (1983) made them superstars in America and Quiet Riot became the first domestic heavy metal band to top the Billboard chart with Metal Health (1983). One of the seminal events in metal's growing popularity was the 1983 US Festival in California, where the "heavy metal day" featuring Ozzy Osbourne, Van Halen, Scorpions, Mötley Crüe, Judas Priest, and others drew the largest audiences of the three-day event.[101] Between 1983 and 1984, heavy metal went from an 8 percent to a 20 percent share of all recordings sold in the U.S.[102] Several major professional magazines devoted to the genre were launched, including Kerrang! (in 1981) and Metal Hammer (in 1984), as well as a host of fan journals. In 1985, Billboard declared, "Metal has broadened its audience base. Metal music is no longer the exclusive domain of male teenagers. The metal audience has become older (college-aged), younger (pre-teen), and more female."[103]
By the mid-1980s, glam metal was a dominant presence on the U.S. charts, music television, and the arena concert circuit. New bands such as L.A.'s Warrant and acts from the East Coast like Poison and Cinderella became major draws, while Mötley Crüe and Ratt remained very popular. Bridging the stylistic gap between hard rock and glam metal, New Jersey's Bon Jovi became enormously successful with its third album, Slippery When Wet (1986). The similarly styled Swedish band Europe became international stars with the The Final Countdown (1986). Its title track hit number 1 in 25 countries.[104] In 1987, MTV launched a show, Headbanger's Ball, devoted exclusively to heavy metal videos. However, the metal audience had begun to factionalize, with those in many underground metal scenes favoring more extreme sounds and disparaging the popular style as "lite metal" or "hair metal."[105]
One band that reached diverse audiences was Guns N' Roses. In contrast to their glam metal contemporaries in L.A., they were seen as much rawer and more dangerous. With the release of their chart-topping Appetite for Destruction (1987), they "recharged and almost single-handedly sustained the Sunset Strip sleaze system for several years."[106] The following year, Jane's Addiction emerged from the same L.A. hard-rock club scene with its major label debut, Nothing's Shocking. Reviewing the album, Rolling Stone declared, "as much as any band in existence, Jane's Addiction is the true heir to Led Zeppelin."[107] The group was one of the first to be identified with the "alternative metal" trend that would come to the fore in the next decade. Meanwhile, new bands such as New York's Winger and New Jersey's Skid Row sustained the popularity of the glam metal style.[108]
Many subgenres of heavy metal developed outside of the commercial mainstream during the 1980s.[109] Several attempts have been made to map the complex world of underground metal, most notably by the editors of Allmusic, as well as critic Garry Sharpe-Young. Sharpe-Young's multivolume metal encyclopedia separates the underground into five major categories: thrash metal, death metal, black metal, power metal, and the related subgenres of doom and gothic metal.
Thrash metal emerged in the early 1980s under the influence of hardcore punk and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal,[110] particularly songs in the revved-up style known as speed metal. The movement began in the United States, with Bay Area thrash metal being the leading scene. The sound developed by thrash groups was faster and more aggressive than that of the original metal bands and their glam metal successors.[110] Low-register guitar riffs are typically overlaid with shredding leads. Lyrics often express nihilistic views or deal with social issues using visceral, gory language. Thrash has been described as a form of "urban blight music" and "a palefaced cousin of rap."[111]
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The subgenre was popularized by the "Big Four of Thrash": Metallica, Anthrax, Megadeth, and Slayer.[112] Three German bands, Kreator, Sodom, and Destruction, played a central role in bringing the style to Europe. Others, including San Francisco Bay Area's Testament and Exodus, New Jersey's Overkill, and Brazil's Sepultura, also had a significant impact. While thrash began as an underground scene, and remained largely that for almost a decade, the leading bands in the movement began to reach a wider audience. Metallica brought the sound into the top 40 of the Billboard album chart in 1986 with Master of Puppets; two years later, the band's ...And Justice for All hit number 6, while Megadeth and Anthrax had top 40 records.[113]
Though less commercially successful than the rest of the Big Four, Slayer released one of the genre's definitive records: Reign in Blood (1986) was described by Kerrang! as the "heaviest album of all time."[114] Two decades later, Metal Hammer named it the best album of the preceding twenty years.[115] Slayer attracted a following among far-right skinheads, and accusations of promoting violence and Nazi themes have dogged the band.[116] In the early 1990s, thrash achieved breakout success, challenging and redefining the metal mainstream.[117] Metallica's self-titled 1991 album topped the Billboard chart[118], Megadeth's Countdown to Extinction (1992) hit number 2[119], Anthrax and Slayer cracked the top 10[120], and albums by regional bands such as Testament and Sepultura entered the top 100.[121]
Thrash soon began to evolve and split into more extreme metal genres. "Slayer's music was directly responsible for the rise of death metal," according to MTV News.[123] The NWOBHM band Venom was also an important progenitor. The death metal movement in both North America and Europe adopted and emphasized the elements of blasphemy and diabolism employed by such acts. Florida's Death and the Bay Area's Possessed are recognized as seminal bands in the style. Both groups have been credited with inspiring the subgenre's name, the latter via its 1984 demo Death Metal and the song "Death Metal," from its 1985 debut album Seven Churches (1985).
Death metal utilizes the speed and aggression of both thrash and hardcore, fused with lyrics preoccupied with Z-grade slasher movie violence and Satanism.[124] Death metal vocals are typically bleak, involving guttural "death growls," high-pitched screaming, the "death rasp,"[125] and other uncommon techniques.[126] Complementing the deep, aggressive vocal style are downtuned, highly distorted guitars[124][125] and extremely fast percussion, often with rapid double bass drumming and "wall of sound"–style blast beats. Frequent tempo and time signature changes and syncopation are also typical.
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Death metal, like thrash metal, generally rejects the theatrics of earlier metal styles, opting instead for an everyday look of ripped jeans and plain leather jackets.[127] One major exception to this rule was Deicide's Glen Benton, who branded an inverted cross on his forehead and wore armor on stage. Morbid Angel adopted neo-fascist imagery.[127] These two bands, along with Death and Obituary, were leaders of the major death metal scene that emerged in Florida in the mid-1980s. In the UK, the related style of grindcore, led by bands such as Napalm Death and Extreme Noise Terror, emerged out of the anarcho-punk movement.[124] A large Scandinavian death metal scene, with bands such as Sweden's Entombed and Dismember, began to develop as well. Out of this evolved a melodic death metal sound, typified by Swedish bands such as In Flames and Dark Tranquillity and Finland's Children of Bodom and Kalmah.[citation needed]
The first wave of black metal emerged in Europe in the early and mid-1980s, led by Britain's Venom, Denmark's Mercyful Fate, Switzerland's Hellhammer and Celtic Frost, and Sweden's Bathory. By the late 1980s, Norwegian bands such as Mayhem and Burzum were heading a second wave.[128] Black metal varies considerably in style and production quality, although most bands emphasize shrieked and growled vocals, highly distorted guitars frequently played with rapid tremolo picking, a "dark" atmosphere[126] and intentionally lo-fi production, with ambient noise and background hiss.[129] Satanic themes are common in black metal, though many bands take inspiration from ancient paganism, promoting a return to pre-Christian values.[130] Numerous black metal bands also "experiment with sounds from all possible forms of metal, folk, classical music, electronica and avant-garde."[125] Darkthrone drummer Fenriz explains, "It had something to do with production, lyrics, the way they dressed and a commitment to making ugly, raw, grim stuff. There wasn't a generic sound."[131]
By 1990, Mayhem was regularly wearing corpsepaint; many other black metal acts also adopted the look. Bathory inspired the Viking metal and folk metal movements and Immortal brought blast beats to the fore. Some bands in the Scandinavian black metal scene became associated with considerable violence in the early 1990s,[132] with Mayhem and Burzum linked to church burnings. Growing commercial hype around death metal generated a backlash; beginning in Norway, much of the Scandinavian metal underground shifted to support a black metal scene that resisted being co-opted by the commercial metal industry.[133] According to former Gorgoroth vocalist Gaahl, "Black Metal was never meant to reach an audience.... [We] had a common enemy which was, of course, Christianity, socialism and everything that democracy stands for."[131]
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By 1992, black metal scenes had begun to emerge in areas outside Scandinavia, including Germany, France, and Poland.[134] The 1993 murder of Mayhem's Euronymous by Burzum's Varg Vikernes provoked intensive media coverage.[131] Around 1996, when many in the scene felt the genre was stagnating,[135] several key bands, including Burzum and Finland's Beherit, moved toward an ambient style, while symphonic black metal was explored by Sweden's Tiamat and Switzerland's Samael.[136] In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Norway's Dimmu Borgir brought black metal closer to the mainstream,[137] as did Cradle of Filth, which Metal Hammer calls England's most successful metal band since Iron Maiden.[138]
During the late 1980s, the power metal scene came together largely in reaction to the harshness of death and black metal.[139] Though a relatively underground style in North America, it enjoys wide popularity in Europe, Japan, and South America. Power metal focuses on upbeat, epic melodies and themes that "appeal to the listener's sense of valor and loveliness."[140] The prototype for the sound was established in the mid- to late 1980s by Germany's Helloween, which combined the power riffs, melodic approach, and high-pitched, "clean" singing style of bands like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden with thrash's speed and energy, "crystalliz[ing] the sonic ingredients of what is now known as power metal."[141]
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Traditional power metal bands like Sweden's HammerFall, England's DragonForce, and Florida's Iced Earth have a sound clearly indebted to the classic NWOBHM style.[142] Many power metal bands such as Florida's Kamelot, Finland's Nightwish, Italy's Rhapsody of Fire, and Russia's Catharsis feature a keyboard-based "symphonic" sound, sometimes employing orchestras and opera singers. Power metal has built a strong fanbase in Japan and South America, where bands like Brazil's Angra and Argentina's Rata Blanca are popular.
Closely related to power metal is progressive metal, which adopts the complex compositional approach of bands like Rush and King Crimson. This style emerged in the United States in the early and mid-1980s, with innovators such as Queensrÿche, Fates Warning, and Dream Theater. The mix of the progressive and power metal sounds is typified by New Jersey's Symphony X, whose guitarist Michael Romeo is among the most recognized of latter-day shredders.[143]
Emerging in the mid-1980s with such bands as California's Saint Vitus, Maryland's The Obsessed, Chicago's Trouble, and Sweden's Candlemass, the doom metal movement rejected other metal styles' emphasis on speed, slowing its music to a crawl. Doom metal traces its roots to the lyrical themes and musical approach of early Black Sabbath[144] and Sabbath contemporaries such as Blue Cheer, Pentagram, and Black Widow.[145] The Melvins have also been a significant influence on doom metal and a number of its subgenres.[146] Doom emphasizes melody, melancholy tempos, and a sepulchral mood relative to many other varieties of metal.[147]
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The 1991 release of Forest of Equilibrium, the debut album by UK band Cathedral, helped spark a new wave of doom metal. During the same period, the doom-death fusion style of British bands Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride, and Anathema gave rise to European gothic metal,[148] with its signature dual-vocalist arrangements, exemplified by Norway's Theatre of Tragedy and Tristania. New York's Type O Negative introduced an American take on the style.[149]
In the United States, sludge metal, mixing doom and hardcore, emerged in the late 1980s—Eyehategod and Crowbar were leaders in a major Louisiana sludge scene. Early in the next decade, California's Kyuss and Sleep, inspired by the earlier doom metal bands, spearheaded the rise of stoner metal,[150] while Seattle's Earth helped develop the drone metal subgenre.[151] The late 1990s saw new bands form such as the Los Angeles–based Goatsnake, with a classic stoner/doom sound, and Sunn O))), which crosses lines between doom, drone, and dark ambient metal—the New York Times has compared their sound to an "Indian raga in the middle of an earthquake".[147]
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The era of metal's mainstream dominance in North America came to an end in the early 1990s with the emergence of Nirvana and other grunge bands, signaling the popular breakthrough of alternative rock.[152] Grunge acts were influenced by the heavy metal sound, but rejected the excesses of the more popular metal bands, such as their "flashy and virtuosic solos" and "appearance-driven" MTV orientation.[108]
Glam metal fell out of favor due not only to the success of grunge,[153] but also because of the growing popularity of the more aggressive sound typified by Metallica and the post-thrash groove metal of Pantera and White Zombie.[154] A few new, unambiguously metal bands had commercial success during the first half of the decade—Pantera's Far Beyond Driven topped the Billboard chart in 1994—but, "In the dull eyes of the mainstream, metal was dead."[155] Some bands tried to adapt to the new musical landscape. Metallica revamped its image: the band members cut their hair and, in 1996, headlined the alternative musical festival Lollapalooza founded by Jane's Addiction singer Perry Farrell. While this prompted a backlash among some long-time fans,[156] Metallica remained one of the most successful bands in the world into the new century.[157]
Like Jane's Addiction, many of the most popular early 1990s groups with roots in heavy metal fall under the umbrella term "alternative metal."[158] Bands in Seattle's grunge scene such as Soundgarden, credited as making a "place for heavy metal in alternative rock",[159] and Alice in Chains were at the center of the alternative metal movement. The label was applied to a wide spectrum of other acts that fused metal with different styles: Faith No More combined their alternative rock sound with punk, funk, metal, and hip hop; Primus joined elements of funk, punk, thrash metal, and experimental music; Tool mixed metal and progressive rock; bands such as Fear Factory and Ministry began incorporating metal into their industrial sound, and vice versa, respectively; and Marilyn Manson went down a similar route, while also employing shock effects of the sort popularized by Alice Cooper. Alternative metal artists, though they did not represent a cohesive scene, were united by their willingness to experiment with the metal genre and their rejection of glam metal aesthetics (with the stagecraft of Marilyn Manson and White Zombie—also identified with alt-metal—significant, if partial, exceptions).[158] Alternative metal's mix of styles and sounds represented "the colorful results of metal opening up to face the outside world."[160]
In the mid- and late 1990s came a new wave of U.S. metal groups inspired by the alternative metal bands and their mix of genres.[161] Dubbed "nu metal", bands such as P.O.D., Korn, Papa Roach, Limp Bizkit, Slipknot, and Linkin Park incorporated elements ranging from death metal to hip hop, often including DJs and rap-style vocals. The mix demonstrated that "pancultural metal could pay off."[162] Nu metal gained mainstream success through heavy MTV rotation and Ozzy Osbourne's 1996 introduction of Ozzfest, which led the media to talk of a resurgence of heavy metal.[163] That year, Korn released Life Is Peachy, the first nu metal album to reach the top 10; two years later, the band's Follow the Leader hit number 1. In 1999, Billboard noted that there were more than 500 specialty metal radio shows in the U.S., nearly three times as many as ten years before.[164] While nu metal was widely popular, traditional metal fans did not fully embrace the style.[165] By early 2003, the movement's popularity was on the wane, though several nu metal acts such as System of a Down retained substantial followings.[166]
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Metalcore, an originally American hybrid of thrash metal and hardcore punk,[167] emerged as a commercial force in the mid-2000s. It is rooted in the crossover thrash style developed two decades earlier by bands such as Suicidal Tendencies, Dirty Rotten Imbeciles, and Stormtroopers of Death.[168] Through the 1990s, metalcore was mostly an underground phenomenon. By 2004, melodic metalcore—influenced as well by melodic death metal—was popular enough that Killswitch Engage's The End of Heartache and Shadows Fall's The War Within debuted at numbers 21 and 20, respectively, on the Billboard album chart.[169] Bullet for My Valentine, from Wales, broke into the top 5 in both the U.S. and British charts with Scream Aim Fire (2008). In recent years, metalcore bands have received prominent slots at Ozzfest and the Download Festival. Lamb of God, with a related blend of metal styles, hit the Billboard top 10 in 2006 with Sacrament. The success of these bands and others such as Trivium, which has released both metalcore and straight-ahead thrash albums, and Mastodon, which plays in a progressive/sludge style, has inspired claims of a metal revival in the United States, dubbed by some critics the "New Wave of American Heavy Metal."[170]
The term "retro-metal" has been applied to such bands as England's The Darkness[171] and Australia's Wolfmother and Airbourne.[172] The Darkness's Permission to Land (2003), described as an "eerily realistic simulation of '80s metal and '70s glam,"[171] topped the UK charts, going quintuple platinum. One Way Ticket to Hell... and Back (2005) reached number 11.[173] Wolfmother's self-titled 2005 debut album had "Deep Purple-ish organs," "Jimmy Page-worthy chordal riffing," and lead singer Andrew Stockdale howling "notes that Robert Plant can't reach anymore."[172] "Woman," a track from the album, won for Best Hard Rock Performance at the 2007 Grammy Awards. Slayer's "Eyes of the Insane" won for Best Metal Performance in 2007; their "Final Six" won the same award in 2008. Metallica took the honor in 2009 for "My Apocalypse".[174]
In continental Europe, especially Germany and Scandinavia, metal continues to be broadly popular. Well-established British acts such as Judas Priest and Iron Maiden continue to have chart success on the continent, as do a range of local groups. In Germany, Western Europe's largest music market, several continental metal bands placed multiple albums in the top 20 of the charts between 2003 and 2009, including the long-running German thrash metal band Kreator, Finnish melodic death metal act Children of Bodom, Norwegian symphonic extreme metal group Dimmu Borgir, and two power metal bands, Germany's Blind Guardian and Sweden's HammerFall.[175] The Swedish melodic death metal act In Flames took both Come Clarity (2006) and A Sense of Purpose (2008) to number 6 in Germany;[175] each album topped the Swedish charts.[176]
|Heavy metal
|Stylistic origins
Blues rock
Psychedelic rock
Hard rock
|Cultural origins
|Late 1960s/Early 1970s United Kingdom and United States
|Typical instruments
|Guitar, bass, drums, vocals
|Mainstream popularity
Black metal - death metal - doom metal - speed metal - thrash metal
(complete list)
|Fusion genres
|Nu metal
|Other topics
|Glam metal
Heavy metal is a loud, aggressive style of rock music. The bands who play heavy-metal music usually have one or two guitars, a bass guitar and drums. In some bands, electronic keyboards, organs, or other instruments are used. Heavy metal songs are loud and powerful-sounding, and have strong rhythms that are repeated. There are many different types of heavy metal, some of which are described below.
Heavy metal bands sometimes dress in jeans, leather jackets, and leather boots, and have long hair. Heavy metal bands sometimes behave in a dramatic way when they play their instruments or sing. However, many heavy metal bands do not like to do this.
In the very late 1960s and 1970s, rock and roll turned into a harder, louder form of music called rock. In the 1970s, rock music bands played huge, loud concerts in outdoor stadiums. In the early 1970s, many rock bands played psychedelic rock, a type of rock music with lyrics and sounds that were intended to give the listener some idea of what it felt like to be on so-called "mind-expanding" (and usually illegal) drugs, and which some believe even enhanced the experience of being on the drugs themselves. Many bands from Britain played blues music mixed with rock music, such as The Animals, The Kinks, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, the Jeff Beck Group.
In the late 1960s, a harder form of rock music called "heavy metal" was invented. The first use of the term was in a 1968 song by Steppenwolf, "Born to be Wild"[1], and other early heavy metal bands appeared in the same year, such as Blue Cheer. Bands from Britain such as Cream and Led Zeppelin played loud, heavy rock music based on blues music. Heavy metal music was mostly based on the sounds of the electric guitar. The electric guitar in heavy metal is always amplified through powerful amplifiers so that it has a loud, distorted, angry sound. Other bands such Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Eric Burdon and Alice Cooper played even louder, harder forms of heavy metal rock music.
Next, the "New Wave of British Heavy Metal" came along. This style of heavy metal includes bands such as Iron Maiden and Motörhead playing faster and with more anger in the music. Heavy metal bands from the United States made heavy metal music popular in the late 1970s. Bands such as Kiss, Aerosmith and Van Halen put on large stadium concerts and attracted many fans.
In the 1980s some heavy metal bands started a fashion trend called glam metal. Bands such as Mötley Crüe, W.A.S.P. and Ratt became popular. Glam metal rock bands had long hair and the men wore make up (lipstick and eyeshadow) and tight leather pants and boots. Many glam metal songs were about sex, illegal drug use, and drinking alcohol. In the late 1980s, groups such as Poison and Warrant were very successful. Glam metal is also known as 'hair metal.'
Another type of heavy metal in the 1980s was called "thrash metal" or "thrash." Thrash metal bands played a faster, more aggressive type of heavy metal rock. Thrash metal bands such as Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer had many fans.
In the 1990s, a new form of heavy metal developed, called alternative metal. Alternative metal combined thrash metal and grunge rock with hip-hop music and industrial music. Also in the 1990's was nu metal, a shortening of "new metal". Nu metal mixed rap and hip hop style singing with metal music. Nu metal bands also often include DJ decks, synthesizers and other electronic instruments. Nu metal was very successful and made a lot of money, especially bands such as Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit and Slipknot as well as Disturbed.
Two other styles of heavy metal music, "death metal" and "black metal" are very angry, fast music. A person who does not like heavy metal at all will have a much harder time listening to death metal or black metal because it is much faster, louder, and more aggressive than other types of music. The singers usually do not sing, but instead they growl or roar to make the songs more intense. This makes it harder to hear the lyrics (words) and most people are not used to singers who use their voice in this way. The lyrics often tell stories from the view of people who are suffering and dying, or people who are hurting others. The guitars are usually distorted. The drums also use very fast beats with double bass pedals (AKA two kick pedals, double peds, etc.)
Other important styles of metal are: power metal, a style whose music often is about fiction and epics like The Lord of the Rings, and gothic metal, which has melancholy songs about abstract subjects like pain, life, death, faith and religion.


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In 1970, debris from the 1908 Tunguska "meteor" are found which turn out to be recordings from a spaceship crashed there. The ship's origin is determined to be Venus, and an international team sets out with their spaceship "Kosmokrator" to visit the "Silent Planet", which is shrouded in clouds, and doesn't respond to contact attempts. While the "Kosmokrator" is in flight, the record is decoded and it turns out that the Venusians seemingly planned to invade Earth in 1908. Should the "Kosmokrator" still attempt to get in touch with the Aliens? And why are they silent now? IMDB
First Spaceship on Venus (1960)
CategoriesFree Classic Movies Sci-Fi
Readers Comments (4)
Hi, last night I watched this East German Sci-Fi. Funny even in 60's standards. Why in a "sophisticated" spaceship to Venus the crew needs to use ropes, glass tubes and ordinary collage microscope but non of them took camera to the journey?
Who do you thing is left to on Venus when they are rushing back to earth?
– Today this will not pass.
Yes Hans. We will all live together in perfect harmony in our idyllic socialist state.
Ok, tell me why I should watch this. Ten minutes in and I couldn't stand it anymore. Bad lighting, fading in and out from bright light to shadows. The acting? Hard to tell because the dubbing is so bad it detracts from everything. No matter how much "tech" they are trying to get in ( a little talking robot). Yuk.


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Following the successful discovery of the family of Johann Colberg, after many, many years of research, cousin, Gerhard Kolberg and myself had now successfully traced the descendants of 6 of the 7 Colberg brothers...August, Heinrich, Johann, Otto, Paul and Ferdinand. We were pleased with our success and pleased with the shared connection between ourselves.
The question remained, however? What happened to any descendants of the eldest sibling of the 6 Colberg brothers? Where had these descendants ended up? How would we begin to learn anything new about this family?
Gerhard and I compared our records and pooled our information. What we knew was the following:
(1) Friedrich-Wilhelm Colberg, Jr. had been the second son of Friedrich-Wilhelm, Sr. & Henriette Amalie Colberg. He was, though, the first son to survive to adulthood.
(2) We had the following photo of Friedrich-Wilhelm, Jr. and his wife:
Henriette Amalie (Kautz) & Friedrich-Wilhelm Colberg (sitting)
Friedrich-Wilhelm, Jr. & Hermine (Melchert) Colberg (standing)
ca 1899
Bütow, Pommern
Friedrich-Wilhelm, Jr. & Hermine (Melchert) Colberg (standing)
ca 1899
Bütow, Pommern
(3) Friedrich-Wilhelm, Jr. had been born September 28, 1852 in Klein Tuchen, Bütow, Pommern and he was christened at the Evangelical church in Groß Tuchen on October 3, 1852.
(4) He and his wife supposedly had had at least 6 children, whose names were unknown.
(5) He was to have stayed on the family farm in Klein Tuchen when brother, Johann, relocated to Berlin and his other 5 brothers immigrated to the US.
(5) He died in 1918.
This was the extent of our shared information and was not much to go on.
Over the course of the next several years we both did some research in the LDS microfilms both here in Michigan and in Berlin. With this research, we did discover some further data:
Friedrich-Wilhelm, Jr.'s wife was named Hermine Melchert. Together they had at least 6 children that we discovered, namely:
(1) Martha Maria Franziska Colberg, born May 28, 1882 in Klein Tuchen.
(2) Paul Willi Colberg born December 25, 1883 in Klein Tuchen.
Then the family must have relocated to the nearby village of Zemmen in Kreis Bütow because the next 4 children were born there:
(3) Fritz Wilhelm Colberg, born May 27, 1885 and died April 21, 1886, both in Zemmen.
(4) Erich Ernst Franz Colberg, born November 12, 1886 and died January 24, 1887 in Zemmen.
(5) Ernst Friedrich Paul Colberg, born January 17, 1888 and died February 11, 1888 in Zemmen
(6) Max Friedrich Adam Colberg, born November 1, 1889 and died November 20, 1889 in Zemmen.
This information opened up new possibilities for us:
(1) With 4 of their 6 children dying in infancy, was it possible that the oldest two died as well before having any children of their own? We could find no records of that happening.
(2) If the 2 oldest children DID marry and have children, is it possible they died during WWI or even WWII when many German people were killed while fleeing from what became Poland?
(3) Was it even possible that there were NO descendants remaining from the family of Friedrich-Wilhelm, Jr. & Hermine?
It became evident that we had reached a brick wall. However, I have learned more times than not that one should "never say never". There is always hope of learning something new.
A few years ago something fell in my lap that I hope proves to be a connection to any descendants still remaining today from the family of Friedrich-Wilhelm, Jr. & Hermine Colberg. A cousin here in Berrien County contacted me and explained that she was a granddaughter of younger brother, Ferdinand Kolberg. She and her husband were involved in genealogy as well and wanted to meet with me. They came to my home for some discussions and to my surprise brought with them the German photo album of her grandfather, Ferdinand. They explained that when Ferdinand Kolberg and his family came to the US in 1910 that Ferdinand had carried with him this old photo album. Growing up she had seen this album many times and the family here always referred to it as "Grandpa's German album of his Kolberg family".
There were 21 photos contained in this album. All were professional cabinet photos and were in mint condition. They were all taken in Germany, some listed the photographer's name and location, some were taken in Bütow, some in Stolp (a neighboring county), some in Berlin and other areas as well. They allowed me to borrow the album and I scanned all 21 photos into my computer and then returned the album to them.
There were no identifications on any of these 21 photos. I e-mailed the 21 photos to Gerhard Kolberg in Berlin and he immediately responded that 4 of the photos were from the family of his grandfather, Johann Colberg. There was a photo of Johann in his military uniform, another photo of the wedding of Gerhard's parents and two other photos of daughters of Johann Colberg. The other 17 photos were unknown to Gerhard as well as the other Johann Colberg cousins he shared them with.
This led us to wonder - IF some of the photos were from the family of Johann Colberg, was it possible that the rest were from the family of Friedrich-Wilhelm, Jr.? Is it possible that the two first born children of Friedrich-Wilhelm & Hermine DID marry, have children, grandchildren, etc and that they had shared their photos with "Uncle" Ferdinand? We don't know but there was no other explanation we could think of for the identity of these 21 photos given the album was always known as Ferdinand's German family album.
The 17 photos follow. It is my hope that by posting these photos here, that perhaps someone will recognize one and we can move closer to learning more about brother, Friedrich-Wilhelm Colberg, Jr.
And, the search continues!
Above photos personal collection of Cheryl Schulte


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Holmes, Watson and Captain Gregson
Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller, right), Watson (Lucy Liu, middle) and Captain Gregson (Aidan Quinn, left) investigate the murder of a man in charge of running a Ponzi scheme, on ELEMENTARY, Thurs. Dec. 12 (10:01 – 11:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Also pictured far left Richard Masur as Jacob Weiss Photo: Jeff Neumann/ ©2013 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved


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When riding a bike uphill or running you are working to overcome gravity. For the bike I'm sure that's obvious. Riding up a hill means that gravity is trying to pull you back down. That's what makes climbing on a bike so challenging. Running probably doesn't seem as difficult because when running there is only a little bit of vertical movement occurring with each stride. While it's not great it's happening about 170 times per minute. That's a lot of times. If the vertical displacement with each stride is only one inch (many age group runners bounce up and down much more than an inch with each step) that means you are lifting your body's center of gravity 170 inches – 14 feet (425cm) – every minute. If running for an hour you've produced 283 yards (257m) of vertical displacement. That's an 85-story skyscraper you've climbed. Huge!
Now imagine that you are riding your bike up a steep hill or running along a flat road as usual, only this time you're wearing a backpack filled with 10 pounds (4.5kg) of rocks. It's obviously far more difficult when wearing the backpack. But why is that? It's because as the mass of an object (you, your equipment and the backpack with rocks) increases, the pull of gravity also increases. That's why you have bathroom scales – to measure the pull of gravity on your body. We refer to that as your weight. So increases in weight result in your having to use more energy to lift it while riding uphill or running. Notice that there was no change in your power when you put on the weighted backpack; only a change in weight.
Now imagine the opposite. You've got a new bike that weighs 10 pounds less than your old clunker. It's easier to ride up the hill, isn't it? Or imagine that you've been losing excess body fat and your bathroom scales now say you are 10 pounds lighter. What will happen to your running? You'll run faster at the same energy rate. Again, no change in power; only a change in weight.
Every extra pound (450g) added to your body and equipment "costs" you about one-and-a-half watts of power on a steep hill climb on your bike and about two seconds per mile when running. A few extra pounds one way or the other directly impacts how fast your race times are.
There's no doubt that what your body and equipment combined weigh has a lot to do with how well you perform in triathlon. If we can reduce your weight without changing your power you will go faster. Or, conversely, if we can increase your muscular power with weight remaining the same you will also go faster. The best combination is to increase power and reduce weight. Much faster!
Here's a simple guide for determining what your body weight means to performance. Divide your weight in pounds (kilograms) by your height in inches (centimeters). The typical, high-performance, male triathlete is in the range of 2.1 to 2.3 pounds per inch (0.38-0.41 kg/cm) with high-performance female triathletes generally being 1.9 to 2.1 pounds per inch (0.34-0.38 kg/cm). In road racing the best male climbers are typically 2.0 pounds per inch (0.36 kg/cm) or less. Top female climbers are under 1.8 (0.32 kg/cm). Of course, there are always exceptions such as Lance Armstrong who is about 2.1 pounds per inch (0.38 kg/cm). He overcomes his greater weight by having even greater power.
This doesn't mean that you can't excel if above these common ranges. It simply means that you must also have a higher-than-normal power output per pound (kilogram) to overcome the greater weight as Lance does.
Reducing your excess body weight and the weight of your bike and running shoes will potentially pay off with faster race times. But there's risk associated with such weight reductions. If you lose muscle, especially the muscles that are used for swimming, biking or running, you are likely to be slower. Replacing heavy components on your bike with the lightest (and most expensive) equipment available raises the risk of that component failing during a race. For example, lightweight tires are one of the most effective weight reducing changes you can make since they lower rotating weight. The downside is that they are more likely to have a puncture. A super-lightweight saddle is more likely to break when you hit a pothole. Featherweight handlebars have been known to snap with a powerful rider is climbing out of the saddle. Running in racing flats may increase your risk of injury. Lowering your racing weight provides both reward and risk.
Of course, for riding a bike on a flat road or indoor trainer (regardless if the front wheel is raised or not) and for swimming, mass is not critical. The tug of gravity on your body and equipment is not as great. In fact, a big triathlete riding a bike on a flat course is generally faster than a small triathlete since being big usually means having more power. That's why if your weight is above the pounds-per-inch ranges suggested above it's best to select flat race courses when possible.