Brown/Who do we think they are, 8. Flight of the Riff: Distinguishing Hard Rock and Metal in the Seminal Styles of Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Uriah Heep, and Black Sabbath

In Chapter 8, Dietmar Elflein compares and contrasts Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep and Led Zeppelin, as key bands in the evolution of heavy metal. This is done as part of a critique of those writers who have attempted to differentiate hard rock and heavy metal, in viewing Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple as ‘hard rock’ and Black Sabbath as ‘heavy metal,’ without providing satisfactory musicological criteria.The crucial overriding issue here is whether Deep Purple make use of a compositional model that is independent of their frequent line-up changes.