The new wave of British heavy metal began in the late 1970s and achieved international

attention by the early 1980s. Encompassing diverse mainstream and underground styles, the
music often infused 1970s heavy metal music with the intensity of punk rock to produce fast
and aggressive songs. The do-it-yourself ethic of the new metal bands led to the spread of
raw-sounding, self-produced recordings and a proliferation of independent record labels.
Song lyrics were usually about escapist themes from mythology, fantasy, horror or the rock
lifestyle. The movement involved mostly young, white, male musicians and fans of the heavy
metal subculture, whose behavioural and visual codes were quickly adopted by metal fans
worldwide after the spread of the music to Europe, North America and Japan. The movement
spawned perhaps a thousand bands, but only a few survived the rise of MTV and glam metal.
Among them, Motrhead and Saxon had considerable success, and Iron Maiden and Def
Leppard became international stars. (Full article...)