(Credits: Far Out / Filip Andrejevic / Diego Ornelas-Tapia)
Every musical genre and era has its definitive acts, with The Beatles, The Who, The Rolling Stones, and The Kinks standing out from the first British invasion and later forms such as punk having their ultimate champions. However, metal is the only landscape to have seen such a widespread mass of heroes arrive that they are celebrated jointly as the ‘big four’ for their efforts in bringing specific subgenres to life.
Whether it be black metal, nu-metal, doom metal, stoner metal or many other offshoots, there are at least 17 subgenres, as it stands, that have been revised and ascribed their ‘big four’ bands. For instance, in the ostensible nu-metal genre, which is more like a lazily compiled collection of four pioneering groups whose music was so fresh that it kicked off a wave of cheap imitators, Korn, Deftones, Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit are deemed its ‘big four’.
Some commentators switch out Limp Bizkit, the Fred Durst-fronted outfit, for the frenetic Des Moines masked group Slipknot. This is due to musical aspects and the extent of influence, yet due to time frames, in that Bizkit was formed a year before Slipknot and released albums before them, this contest is a tight one.
Elsewhere, goth metal has its ‘big four’, which comprise New York City legends, Type O Negative, Suffolk cult act Cradle of Filth – who have long also been dubbed extreme metal by some – Yorkshire pioneers Paradise Lost, and Milan’s Lacuna Coil. As for the controversial Nordic subgenre black metal, its quartet of titans are widely deemed Mayhem, Burzum, Darkthrone, and Emperor, although as it is such a closely followed and gatekept scene, people have differing opinions, depending on what part of the world they’re from, despite being united in their hatred of San Francisco blackgaze legends Deafheaven.
Who are the real ‘big four’ metal bands?
Clearly, there are many ‘big four’ clusters of metal bands. However, out of the many subgenres, there is only one true collection of outfits worthy of the name, with them also happening to be the foremost and most celebrated of them all. This is, of course, the ‘big four’ of thrash, Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax.
Thrash emerged in the early 1980s with musicians who were raging against conservative America rearing its head in the most egregious ways under the Reagan administration. Influenced by the double bass drum patterns and searing technicality of the new wave of British heavy metal acts such as Venom as well as the fury of hardcore, with flecks of prog’s atmosphere thrown in for good measure, it proved a scintillating and more muscular counterpart to the glam metal of Mötley Crüe, Poison and Bon Jovi.
Coalescing in a truly punk way around independent record labels such as Megaforce and Combat, as well as spreading through tape trading across Europe, the genre first came to the fore in 1983, with Metallica and Slayer releasing their debuts in Kill ‘Em All and Show No Mercy, respectively. Just the following year, New York’s Anthrax released their debut, Fistful of Metal, which was first described as “thrash metal” in a review.
While there were tangible links between the nascent thrash scene, with Anthrax and Metallica both releasing their debuts on Megaforce, the latter outfit’s ex-guitarist was also the frontman of Megadeth, Dave Mustaine, who was always bitter after he was ejected in favour of Kirk Hammett in 1983. Unsurprisingly, the two shared many fast-paced and heavy stylistic proclivities. As for Anthrax and Slayer, their music initially shared similarities in aggression before tailing off into two distinct styles, with the former loved by skaters and the latter accused of being Satanists and even White supremacists for their dark work.
By 1987, the ‘big four’ of thrash were at their critical and commercial peak, with the release of Metallica’s Master of Puppets, Slayer’s Reign in Blood, Anthrax’s Among The Living and Megadeth’s Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying? confirming them as significant forces in the metal story and refining the thrash sound. Naturally, this saw many less potent outfits rise in their wake and weaken thrash’s status.
With the emergence of grunge in 1991, when Nirvana burst onto the scene with ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and Nevermind, and Metallica went mainstream with the Black Album earlier in the year, thrash’s dominance was over. However, there was to be no doubt who it and metal’s ‘big four’ are and always will be.