Why is heavy metal called heavy metal?
Heavy metal music
In a review of Sir Lord Baltimore's Kingdom Come in the May 1971 Creem, Saunders wrote, "Sir Lord Baltimore seems to have down pat most all the best heavy metal tricks in the book".[99] Creem critic Lester Bangs is credited with popularizing the term via his early 1970s essays on bands such as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.[100] Through the decade, heavy metal was used by certain critics as a virtually automatic putdown. In 1979, lead New York Times popular music critic John Rockwell described what he called "heavy-metal rock" as "brutally aggressive music played mostly for minds clouded by drugs",[101] and, in a different article, as "a crude exaggeration of rock basics that appeals to white teenagers".[102]
Heavy metals
In 2002, Scottish toxicologist John Duffus reviewed the definitions used over the previous 60 years and concluded they were so diverse as to effectively render the term meaningless. Along with this finding, the heavy metal status of some metals is occasionally challenged on the grounds that they are too light, or are involved in biological processes, or rarely constitute environmental hazards. Examples include scandium (too light); vanadium to zinc (biological processes); and rhodium, indium, and osmium (too rare).