Anybody else watching Heavy: The Story of Metal on VH1?

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4 part documentary, it's not bad.

Pros: Weighted towards bands' early years (e.g. as much time is spent covering Soundhouse/Dianno-era Maiden as Dickinson-era Maiden), approaches topic with proper balance of seriousness and disbelief

Cons: Glosses over a lot (no Blue Cheer, no BOC), 3 hours devoted to '69-'86, 1 hour on '86 to present

1: Welcome To My Nightmare - Sabbath, Zepp, AC/DC
2: British Steel - New Wave of BHM
3: Looks That Kill - 80s glam & hair
4: Seek and Destroy - Metallica and so on

I think it was aired last year, but I couldn't find a thread on it.

― Edward III (edward iii), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 19:47 (nineteen years ago)

I think I saw a bunch of this last year but didn't make it to part 3 - pretty good for a VH1 doc, but also has all the failings of VH1 docs (no surprising interviews, no extended footage of anything, no real narrative arc, etc.)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 19:52 (nineteen years ago)

I watched this on a plane which had a VH1 channel. It was soothing.

― Drew Daniel (Drew Daniel), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 20:02 (nineteen years ago)

it skips over death/black so it sucks

― latebloomer needs to be less creepy (latebloomer), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 20:10 (nineteen years ago)

I'm pretty sure VH1 makes this type of show to be watched by people who will already know most of what they're being shown, kind of like comfort food. That's why there's only 1 hour devoted to post-'86 metal and no coverage of Death/Black metal. It's created with a very populist mentality.

That said, they nailed it for what it was.

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 20:16 (nineteen years ago)

They frequently pair the showing of this series with an airing of that documentary A Headbanger's Journey, which has plenty of death/black artists in it, though.

― pdf (Phil Freeman), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 20:17 (nineteen years ago)

didn't make it to part 3

Part 3 was enjoyable, from a grade-school-flashback-ohmygod-did-I-really-own-Metal-Health perspective. Plus, Crue.

no surprising interviews

It was kind of cool when Iommi started waving his mangled fingers around!

no extended footage of anything

Yeah, this was frustrating but par for the course. I love that '70 Sabbath footage from Belgium TV, hippie Priest, and the DiAnno Maiden. YouTube's cool and all but it's nice to be reminded this stuff exists somewhere sans pixelation. The Chris Holmes pool interview left me with a hankering to see Decline of Western Civ II again.

no real narrative arc, etc.

Really? I thought it followed an early days/decline/NWOBHM/hair/thrash timeline pretty closely. Maybe a little too well, that kind of arc-cutting invariably leaves out bands that don't fit. But it was some tasty junk food.

I'll have to keep an eye out for A Headbanger's Journey.

― Edward III (edward iii), Thursday, 18 January 2007 14:29 (nineteen years ago)

I'm quite glad to hear that A Headbanger's Journey is being shown on TV, in that it partly strikes out one of my main problems with it, the likelihood that it was mostly gonna only ever be preaching to the converted

― Feargal Hixxy (DJ Mencap), Thursday, 18 January 2007 14:32 (nineteen years ago)

good until it gets to modern day--ignores nu-metal almost completely, and concludes that these days are exciting times for metal because you can still see Twisted Sister in their 50s live or something.

― The Good Dr. Bill (The Good Dr. Bill), Thursday, 18 January 2007 16:23 (nineteen years ago)

He was metal first

VH1: Heavy is the new lite

Here's some stuff that pertained to it when it originally aired.

― Dick Destiny (Dick Destiny), Thursday, 18 January 2007 18:55 (nineteen years ago)

You're right about Dee Snider, but there were a couple of other snarkers - Kerry King from Slayer and Scott Ian from Anthrax threw in a couple slams here and there. I appreciated the lacing of the usual strokefest with a couple of "Man, they sucked" quips.

― Edward III (edward iii), Thursday, 18 January 2007 19:34 (nineteen years ago)

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