10 Greatest Pre-Metal Metal Songs
6. Born to Be Wild - Steppenwolf
A lot of metal music comes down to the badass aesthetic you're trying to bring across. As far back as Black Sabbath and Judas Priest, the visual presentation of ripped jeans, denim jacket, and whips and chains seemed to fit in perfectly with the sounds of heavy riffs being played at punishing volumes. Then again, Steppenwolf may have had the rock and roll badass down to a science before anyone else on Born to Be Wild.
With one of the most driving riffs of the entire decade, most of this song comes down to the urgency of each guitar stab. For as persistent as the riff is though, this song really belongs to John Kay, as he spits out the lyrics with the authority of a drill sergeant. Though there have been plenty of rock stars who have an attitude whenever they step up to the mic, Kay was the first of his kind to really beat people up so they would listen to every word he said.
And come on, it's not like you can talk about the progenitors of metal and not feature the one song with the lyric "heavy metal thunder." Though they may have been just placeholder words at the time, that utterance of heavy metal was just a sign of more savage, dirty, and metallic things to come.