Part of a series “Metal Monoliths” about epically long metal songs.
As I’ve written in an article forthcoming in the journal Music Theory Online (( This article will be published at the end March 2021. Portions of this blog post appear in that article. )), metal songs often follow a pretty simple formula—as James Hetfield once said, “verse-chorus-verse-chorus-middle eight and then out.” (( Kitts, Jeff. “Cover Story,” Guitar World, December 1998, 54-62, 98-104. Cited by Raymond Aglugub in his 2007 Master’s Thesis. )) John Covach calls this “compound AABA form” (( Covach, John. 2005. “Form in Rock Music: A Primer.” Engaging Music: Essays in Music Analysis. Oxford University Press, pp. 65-76.)), where each of the As is a verse/chorus pair, and the B is some kind of contrasting section like the “middle eight.” This form is usually pretty easy to follow—you can find it on almost every track from any classic 80s album, like the most famous albums by Metallica, AC/DC, or Judas Priest.
But what happens when you stretch this formula out over a much longer time scale? Aaron Van Valkenburg wrote in his Master’s Thesis from 2010 about how Metallica expands this verse/chorus-based form by stuffing it with extra riffs in unexpected places, pushing towards longer and longer songs over their first four albums. Van Valkenburg says about perceiving large-scale AABA:
Metallica’s song structures are much more elaborate than most pop songs primarily because of their use of extended introductions, transitions, and instrumental solos (lead breaks). Nevertheless, Metallica’s music strives to subordinate these elaborations within a hierarchical system that highlights the verse-chorus rotation. This allows the listener to trace in his or her mind the large-scale progression inherent in the AABA structure.
(Van Valkenburg 2010, p. 30)
I found one even longer AABA song but it’s a bit harder to follow: “Suite Sister Mary” by Queensrÿche. And arguably, the AABA structure here is harder to keep in mind here—partly because of the evolving and shifting and progressive way in which Queensrÿche uses this form, and partly because it’s just so damn long.
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