New wave of British heavy metal

The new wave of British heavy metal (commonly abbreviated as NWOBHM) was a nationwide musical movement that began in England in the mid-1970s and achieved international attention by the early 1980s. Editor Alan Lewis coined the term for an article by Geoff Barton in a May 1979 issue of the British music newspaper Sounds to describe the emergence of heavy metal bands in the mid-to-late 1970s, as punk rock declined amid the dominance of new wave music.

Although encompassing diverse styles inherited from rock music, the music of the NWOBHM is best remembered for infusing earlier heavy metal with the intensity of punk rock to produce fast and aggressive songs. The DIY attitude of the NWOBHM bands led to raw-sounding, self-produced recordings and a proliferation of independent record labels. Song lyrics were usually about escapist themes, such as mythology, fantasy, horror, and the rock 'n' roll lifestyle.

The NWOBHM began as an underground phenomenon growing in parallel to punk and largely ignored by the media. Promotion by Sounds and rock DJ Neal Kay moved it into public consciousness and toward radio airplay, recognition, and success in the UK. Its musicians and fans were largely young, white, working-class men who suffered the hardships of unemployment after the 1973–75 recession. As a reaction to their bleak reality, they then created a community separate from mainstream society to enjoy each other's company and their favourite loud music. The NWOBHM was criticised for local media hype for mostly talentless musicians. Nonetheless, it generated a renewal in the genre of heavy metal music and furthered the progress of the heavy metal subculture, whose updated behavioural and visual codes were quickly adopted by metal fans worldwide after the spread of the music to continental Europe, North America and Japan.

By some estimates, the movement spawned as many as a thousand heavy metal bands. Only a few survived the advent of MTV and the rise of the more commercial glam metal in the second half of the 1980s. Iron Maiden and Def Leppard became superstars; Motörhead and Saxon also had considerable success. Other groups, such as Diamond Head, Venom, and Raven, had more limited chart success, but influenced the successful extreme metal subgenres of the mid-to-late 1980s and 1990s. Many bands from the NWOBHM reunited in the 2000s and remained active through live performances and new studio albums.