Heavy Metal (often referred to simply as metal ) is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s. With roots in blues-rock and psychedelic rok, he bands that created heavy metal developed a thick, massive sound, characterized by highli amplified distortion, extended guitar solos, mphatic beats, and overal the first heavy metal bands such as Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple attracted large audiences, though they were often critically reviled, a estatus common throughout the history of he genre in the mid 1970s Judas Priest helped spur the genre's evolution by discarding much of its blues influence ; motorhead introduced a punk rock sensibility and increasing emphasis on speed .
Bands in the new wave of british heavy metal such as Irun 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 commercial force with groups like Motley Clue and Ratt .
Undergroups scenes produced an array of more extreme styles : thrash metal broke into the mainstream with bands like Metallica .
Other styles like death metal and black metal remain subcultural phenomena .
