British Metal
About British Metal - British Heavy Metal re-energized heavy metal in the late 70s. British Metal`s biggest stars (Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath) were either breaking away from the genre Of british metal or sinking in their own indulgence, while many of british metals midlevel artists were simply undiscovered. That was untill these British Metal bands started to sped up the tempo, and toughened up the sound, leaving just a mean, tough, fast, hard metallic core. It didn't make any attempts to win a wide audience — it was pure metal, made for metal fans. Perhaps that's the reason why it's at the foundation of all modern-day metal: true metalheads either listened to this, or to bands like Metallica, which were inspired by British Metal bands.
British Metal - Performers
The early movement of British Metal was associated with acts such as: Iron Maiden, Saxon, Motörhead, Def Leppard, Angel Witch, Tygers of Pan Tang, Blitzkrieg, Avenger, Sweet Savage, Girlschool, Jaguar, Demon, Diamond Head, Samson and Tank, among others. The image of bands such as Saxon (long hair, denim jackets, leather and chains) would later become synonymous with heavy metal as a whole during the 1980s. Some bands, although conceived during this era, saw success on an underground scale, as was the case with Venom and Quartz.
Looking at most comprehensive lists of bands of the time reveals hundreds of obscure or short lived acts. While the average listener would possibly gloss over these unknowns looking for more recognisable acts, record collectors revere such bands. The sheer number of low cost demos from the era, as well as the limited amount of information and media coverage of the era, has led to some of the releases becoming highly collectable. Records originally pressed for very little cost have sold more recently to collectors for hundreds of dollars. In some cases as low as 1 copy of a record is known to exist.
British Metal - Decline
NWOBHM suffered the same fate as many other musical movements. First, the majority of its leading lights were unable to follow up on their initial successes. Second, many bands moved further away from the era towards mainstream hard rock, with Def Leppard in particular targeting the American market with a more refined sound despite having major success. By the mid 1980s, young rock fans searching for their own identities found a new metal scene emanating from Los Angeles led by bands such as Mötley Crüe and later Guns N' Roses. Record companies also latched onto the L.A. scene over the NWOBHM scene. Glam metal simply proved to be more profitable for record companies during this era. In addition, thrash metal, another new but much less mainstream metal scene, had fully emerged around the same time period, which attracted many rock fans for being much faster and even heavier than NWOBHM and often having political lyrics, though the entire genre itself was largely influenced by it.
Some of the more popular bands of the movement, however, went on to considerable, lasting success. Def Leppard, despite discarding their earlier, heavier sound, became even more successful when they used MTV to play their promotional music videos, and thus commercialising their hard rock sound in order to help sales of their albums on strengths of singles. Iron Maiden and Motörhead however stayed with a more traditional heavy metal style, which won them a large and loyal fanbase even after bands with a similar sound had declined.
British Metal - Subsequent influence
Groups such as Motörhead, Iron Maiden, Venom, and Saxon, as well as many lesser-known ones, became part of the canon that influenced American bands that formed in the early eighties, such as Megadeth, Slayer and, in particular, Metallica, along with many others. Indeed, early Metallica is very similar in sound to a number of NWOBHM bands (in particular, Diamond Head, Motörhead and Blitzkrieg, the songs of each of which have been covered by Metallica.)
In 1990 Lars Ulrich of Metallica compiled a double CD compilation album, titled New Wave Of British Heavy Metal '79 Revisited, featuring bands as obscure as Hollow Ground right through to the 'Supergroups' of the era.
British Metal - Revival
The widespread popularity of the internet in the late 1990s/early 2000s helped NWOBHM fans to communicate again and NWOBHM experienced a minor revival. Encouraged by the success of tribute bands and nostalgia acts, many of the original NWOBHM bands reformed for successful tours and the revival was championed by Classic Rock magazine, a new publication featuring many of the original NWOBHM writers of the 1980s including Geoff Barton. Bands like The Darkness and Stone Gods (who are a The Darkness re-formed) also incorperated similar styles to bands from the NWOBHM era, especially Stone Gods; whose heavy style is very similar to bands like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden.