Doro (musician) - Reception and Legacy

Reception and Legacy

In the 1980s the presence of women in rock, and in particular in heavy metal bands, was usually considered by press and fans more for glamour and sexual exploitation than for the musicianship showed. Doro Pesch was one of the few exceptions; her qualities as vocalist and songwriter, her commitment in promoting their music and her avoidance of posturing as a sex symbol gave Warlock both a solid fan base in the expanding European metal scene of that period, a long string of favorable articles and covers on the principal European metal magazines. In an interview in 2006 Doro remembered how "we lived in paradise and had not noticed it, (...) we thought at the time, that now it goes on and on and the success would continue automatically, (...) then came the great awakening".

Warlock were starting to make a solid reputation in the US, when the taste of the audience for classic metal acts shifted in favor of grunge, leaving the singer's mission to conquer the American market incomplete. On the contrary, in her home country fans and press remained always loyal and favorable to Doro, who received in her career five nominations for the German Echo music award, which she won in 1994 as Best National Female Artist.

Her frequent European tours in the 1990s maintained her visibility in the eyes of the fans and granted her enough income to survive the bleak period. She became so popular in Spain that she was voted for 13 times Best International Singer by the readers of the music magazine Heavy Rock in their annual polls. She often declared to live and tour for the fans and said that she "would never cancel a tour and everybody knows that about me". Lemmy, in a 2003 interview, testified how nice and professional Doro is.

With the return of heavy metal in the charts worldwide and the diffusion on the internet of hundreds of webzines and fanzines dedicated to hard rock, Doro became again a star of the metal scene, highly requested all over the world and treated by the media as a revered veteran and inspiration for new female singers. Her career and commitment are held in high esteem by the new generation of female heavy metal singers. As Floor Jansen of After Forever stated in a 2007 interview, to duet with Doro "was a huge honor and we chose her because she was a pioneer of the female fronted scene". Doro herself was apparently aware early in her career to have the role "to give other women self-confidence" in the metal world, acting as a pioneer for female fans and musicians.

As further evidence of her influence on the heavy metal scene, in December 2008 Pure Steel Records released Tribute to Steel: A Tribute to Warlock, the first official tribute album to Warlock and Doro; the album includes contributions from bands like Custard, Crystal Viper, Sabaton and Lonewolf, paying homage to the songs of Doro's first four albums with the participation of Warlock's original members.