Guitar World counts down the heaviest songs before Black Sabbath. #50-41

The origin of heavy metal is a very fuzzy thing, but most historians and fans can agree that Black Sabbath’s eponymous 1970 debut was the first true metal album. Its thunderous drums, sinister riffs and downright evil lyrics left little to be debated, but what we at Guitar World wanted to know was this: What was the heaviest song before Black Sabbath?

We ranked these songs based on a variety of factors: distortion/fuzz, speed, darkness, volume and shock value. Most importantly, however, the song had to have been released before 1970. It would have been easy to list the first two Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix albums and call it a day, but we dug deep to find some hidden heavy gems from the era of peace and love.

We'll be revealing 10 songs each day until Sunday, when we reveal the heaviest song before Black Sabbath.

The Full List
The 50 Heaviest Songs Before Black Sabbath: #50-41
The 50 Heaviest Songs Before Black Sabbath: #40-31
The 50 Heaviest Songs Before Black Sabbath: #30-21
The 50 Heaviest Songs Before Black Sabbath: #20-11
The 50 Heaviest Songs Before Black Sabbath: #10-1

40 - The Kinks, "You Really Got Me" (1964)
Some musicos consider this song the father -- or at least the spastic uncle -- of heavy metal. It doesn’t hurt its cred that it was covered by Van Halen a few decades back and was recently recorded by Ray Davies with Metallica for Davies’ See My Friends album.

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