Keeping with our “Alt-Metal May” theme this month, part of what made alternative-metal so distinctive when it started blossoming in the late 80s was its willingness to inject funk into heavy-metal’s traditionally rigid song structures. An outlandish idea at the time (and one that still doesn’t sit well with most metal purists to this day), it actually wasn’t such a surprising evolution when you think about it. Indeed, plenty of bands had successfully mixed funk and hard rock together in the 70s (i.e. Funkadelic), but funk as a genre of music was often hard-driving and rhythmically heavy by its very nature (James Brown’s Payback-era has often been described as “heavy-funk”, for example).
So, perhaps it was only natural that funk and metal eventually started meshing in the ’80s. One of the first instances of someone successfully fusing those seemingly disparate genres together actually came from a legendary and highly revered hardcore punk band.
Talking about the Bad Brains of course, who’s 1986 album I Against I surprised many punk rock purists with its (relatively) slower tempos, more spacious sound, and decidedly metal flavor overall. But it was metal with a twist, of course, which came in the form of the funky dynamics that run through the record. Coupled with the band’s reggae influences, it’s one of the earliest examples of what a good alternative-metal album could sound like: a fresh mix of punk, funk, soul, reggae, and well, metal of course (duh)! Check out this killer performance of the title track from I Against I and witness the Bad Brains blurring the manic lines between punk and metal as only they could:
