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Heavy metal
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Ozzy Osbourne performing energetically onstage with arms outstretched, in front of drums and stage lights at Download Festival, Donington Park, United Kingdom. Guitar god Jimi Hendrix Gene Simmons, wearing a metallic costume with a prominent codpiece, and Paul Stanley of KISS perform on stage with guitars during their Alive 35 tour in Brisbane, Australia. Heavy metal pioneers Led Zeppelin Eddie Van Halen
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Ozzy Osbourne performing energetically onstage with arms outstretched, in front of drums and stage lights at Download Festival, Donington Park, United Kingdom.
Heavy metal icon Ozzy Osbourne, 2012 British singer and musician Ozzy Osbourne fronted the pioneering heavy metal band Black Sabbath beginning in the late 1960s. He later had a successful solo career.

Heavy metal

music
Written by
Robert Walser
Professor, Department of Music, Case Western Reserve University. Author of Running with the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music; editor of Keeping Time: Readings in Jazz...
Robert Walser
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Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
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Heavy metal, genre of rock and roll music that includes a group of related styles—from thrash metal to deathcore—that are intense, virtuosic, and powerful. Driven by the aggressive sounds of the distorted electric guitar, heavy metal is one of the most commercially successful genres of rock music. Although the origin of the term heavy metal is widely attributed to 20th-century American novelist William Burroughs, its use actually dates well back into the 19th century, when...

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