#3 January-March 1980

Welcome to this weeks episode of The Heavy Metal History Podcast we move ahead in the wake of Black Sabbath to January through March of 1980.

The early days of metal, especially in 1980, the album releases weren’t as extensive as the later years would become. And the inclusion of punk rock and some of those early bands and releases are an equally imperative piece of the genre to talk about as it would later go on to fuse with metal and form Hardcore.

With Punk rock coming to the forefront almost 5 years earlier, 1980 would see some of the most iconic and well known albums from the genre to be released. The Clash would go on to have massive success with “London Calling” and later in the year with “Sandanista” due to a late release date in the U.S. Between the months of January and March we also see the beginnings of the Blackened Thrash genre with Witchfynde who would also release 2 albums in the same year. The Ramones put out their most successful and highest selling album of their discography. German band Scorpions continue along their already broad path or Rock/Metal with Animal Magnetism and Van Halen continues to storm the scene with their 3rd album, that album has a song that possibly later inspired and heavily influenced Slayer’s “Seasons in the Abyss”

The albums I discussed this week:

• The Clash - "London Calling"

• Girl - “Sheer Greed”

• Witchfynde - "Give Em' Hell"

• Ramones - "End of the Century"

• Scorpions - “Animal Magnetism”

• Van Halen - "Women and Children First"