Zeppelin, originally a blues based outfit later abandoned the style to experiment with new musical ventures, like world music, and ballad oriented tunes. Sabbath continued on as the forerunner in heavy metal throughout the 1970's, opening the door for the success of other metal bands. Alice Cooper, who had hit the scene in 1965, brought more relevant stage antics to the style; with his campy horror movie-like stage shows, consisting of fake monsters, blood, and decapitations. A band called Kiss carried the torch afterward with similarly weird live shows, where the members wore makeup and huge boots with strange clothing, fire and pyrotechnics. .
By the end of the 1970's, the harbingers of Heavy Metal were gone due to their own substance abuse from their respective tours. John "Ozzy" Osbourne, the lead singer of Black Sabbath cut away from the band because of differences occurring due to the band's musical inconsistency resulting from drug use. Drummer John Bonham of Led Zeppelin died from years of alcoholism and the band immediately called it quits. .
The 1980's had soon begun. And with it came the birth of a new era in Heavy Metal. Some of the music was very heavy and fast, like Motorhead, Judas Priest, and Iron Maiden, but some was very different. Perhaps no one had ever expected heavy metal music to ever appear onto pop charts. But the 1980's glam rock metal movement did just that. And invasion of almost identically sounding rock bands all dove for a piece of the pie in the 80's. Such bands included Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, the Scorpions, Poison, and Motely Crue. These bands wrote sappy love ballads and wore clothing that appealed to a wider audience, especially a female audience. Their success spanned a wide variety of popular music fans, ultimately leaving most to believe that they were more of the pop genre than a crossover heavy metal genre.
When underground heavy metal bands like Mortorhead, Iron Maiden, and Judas Priest, all seemed to be an endangered species, other bands with a similar sound pummeled their way onto the scene.