Flash metal? WTF is this now?

So I'm looking up the forgotten '80s hair metal act Dagger on Metal Arcives and on their page I find this:
http://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Dagger/55278

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Despite the clothing, Dagger didn't play glam rock. They played the same branch of heavy metal as Keel did, a branch that bears the name flash metal.

Here's an example of how they sound:


So I'm wondering, do any of you veterans here remember the term "flash metal" being used back then? If so, what other bands was it applied to? To me, this just sounds like melodic hard rock/heavy metal.

Never heard of it.

Flash Metal? Mmmmm , nope. That's a new one on me.

Yay, another useless subgenre classification!!

No. I can't recall ever hearing the term "flash" metal.

Yeah, another needless genre classification.

This issue of sub-sub-sub genres of sub-genres of genres it out of control.

I've said it before and I'll say it for the umpteenth time.  Don't tell me what kind of music a band plays, that's not useful because we all define the music classifications differently.  Tell me what band(s) they sound like or remind you of.  That's much more to the point IMO.

My favorite band Diamond Dogs is a good example. I have absolutely no idea what genre or sub-genre(s) they fit in but if I tell you they sound like Rod Stewart and The Black Crowes had a three-way with The Clash and this baby came out, you get more of an idea of the sound to expect.

Nope. Didn't exist then.

I just hear poppy hard rock with some metal elements, although obnoxious terms have been applied even in decades past.

One term that I can't grasp is "pirate metal". Just because Running Wild wore outfits and sang about conquests doesn't make them otherwise any different from the likes of Grave Digger or Helloween. It's just power metal.

Hey, Painkiller's back. And right on the f*cking dollar.

never heard the term flash metal before... hell, the term hair metal didnt exist back then either...for along time bands like keel were just called heavy metal ...

brokentulsa wrote:

never heard the term flash metal before... hell, the term hair metal didnt exist back then either...for along time bands like keel were just called heavy metal ...

The first reference to "hair metal" i've found comes from a review blurb on Bonham's "Mad Hatter" where they say something to the effect of Bonham is different than "faceless hair bands" or something like that, so the term was being used as early as 1992.

I remember hearing in the doc, "Heavy: The Story of Metal" someone talking about 'teeth' Metal regarding VH I think b/c the band members actually smiled. I thought that was pretty ridiculous. Like Hadley said, all the genre tags came later.

My guess is the dude writing the Metal Archives article just uses that term himself. And Sentinel's mention of "teeth" metal, similar thing.

I think some times people come up with terms to describe stuff that they want to set apart from others in the same sub-genre. So calling VH teeth metal was not like trying to define an entire new sub-genre...but just a jokey way to describe one band. And flash metal is that dude's way to describe a certain sect of the glam metal bands. Although the term "glam metal" does it just fine.

Also, that Dagger album is so mediocre dude. There's nothing wrong with it, but it is so run of the mill for the genre, nothing exciting at all. It's like listening to a blank piece of paper that someone wrote the words "glam metal" on. Just a heads up.

Ok...hey, I take it back...maybe there are some people that just call glam metal flash metal. Here is a website that does just that: http://www.flashmetalsuicide.com/
That site looks to go pretty deep into the sleaze genre.

Nope. Never heard the term flash metal.

Another silly, useless sub-genre classification I've heard recently: "Glunk," as in a mix of glam/punk (i.e. Crashdiet, Hardcore Superstar, etc.)

Heh, but yeah glunk is funny. I agree it's useless, especially since "glam punk" works just fine.

As I've said in the 764 discussions we've had on this same topic, labels and genres really are okay...they are just used to relay or convey what a band sounds like to someone else. As long as you don't let a label or genre necessarily make you think a band sucks without hearing them, then I see no harm.

But imagine if there were no sub-genres. It was just metal. Then you'd be like hey, check out this metal band, Cryptopsy. You'd be like oh? Metal? I like Iron Maiden and they are a metal band. Ergo, I will probably also like Cryptopsy.

Certainly many people probably like both Maiden and Cryptopsy...but aside from both being some form of metal, there is no reason to assume if you like one that you will like the other. I like Maiden but have no use for Cryptopsy.

That's how I sees it anyway.

The one sub-genre I think is humorously named is West Coast AOR. And considering that West Coast AOR is even, like, wimpier AOR than regular AOR, I'd be offended if I lived on the West Coast.

This should be called 'Only three people in the world gives a shit, and there were four people in the band metal'

If only because I'd like to hear Sam Dunn trying to pronounce Otpitwgasatwfpitbm as a word!  

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But imagine if there were no sub-genres. It was just metal. Then you'd be like hey, check out this metal band, Cryptopsy. You'd be like oh? Metal? I like Iron Maiden and they are a metal band. Ergo, I will probably also like Cryptopsy.

I agree that some sub-genre labeling is necessary... but when you start getting into the pointless, hair splitting ultra nit picky sub-sub-sub-sub-genre names like "flash metal" it's just annoying.

Even worse are the bands that try to be all things to all people ("We're oldschool ultra depressive folk/thrash viking black power/speed metalcore with a hint of lemon freshness and a side of fries")

Fat Freddy wrote:

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But imagine if there were no sub-genres. It was just metal. Then you'd be like hey, check out this metal band, Cryptopsy. You'd be like oh? Metal? I like Iron Maiden and they are a metal band. Ergo, I will probably also like Cryptopsy.

I agree that some sub-genre labeling is necessary... but when you start getting into the pointless, hair splitting ultra nit picky sub-sub-sub-sub-genre names like "flash metal" it's just annoying.

Even worse are the bands that try to be all things to all people ("We're oldschool ultra depressive folk/thrash viking black power/speed metalcore with a touch of dill and a side of fries")

I do agree with that. But here I really think "flash metal", which like everyone else I had never heard of before, is like, just another name for the same sub-genre. Some people say hair metal, others say butt rock or cock rock or other diminutive terms. Or sleaze or LA metal or whatever...it's all the same stuff, just different names for it.

Next phase, new wave dance craze anyways, it's still grindcore to me.

ZombieHavoc wrote:

Fat Freddy wrote:

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But imagine if there were no sub-genres. It was just metal. Then you'd be like hey, check out this metal band, Cryptopsy. You'd be like oh? Metal? I like Iron Maiden and they are a metal band. Ergo, I will probably also like Cryptopsy.

I agree that some sub-genre labeling is necessary... but when you start getting into the pointless, hair splitting ultra nit picky sub-sub-sub-sub-genre names like "flash metal" it's just annoying.

Even worse are the bands that try to be all things to all people ("We're oldschool ultra depressive folk/thrash viking black power/speed metalcore with a touch of dill and a side of fries")

I do agree with that. But here I really think "flash metal", which like everyone else I had never heard of before, is like, just another name for the same sub-genre. Some people say hair metal, others say butt rock or cock rock or other diminutive terms. Or sleaze or LA metal or whatever...it's all the same stuff, just different names for it.

Next phase, new wave dance craze anyways, it's still grindcore to me.

I kind of get it with black metal because some of it goes way off the reservation stylistically so if a Mayhem fan listens to Violet Cold  because it's just listed as black metal they will 100% of the time respond with That's not black metal!!!!  so the bands can't win, and to be honest I's rather be called pretentious than get death threats from devil worshipping lunatics

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But here I really think "flash metal", which like everyone else I had never heard of before, is like, just another name for the same sub-genre. Some people say hair metal, others say butt rock or cock rock or other diminutive terms.

It was probably coined by a More-Tr00-Mettle-Than-Thou type who was trying to cover his ass when his elitist friends found his Keel records.. "It's OK! Keel weren't cock rock, they were, ummm... errr.... Flash Metal! Yeah, that's it!"

If it's on metal-archives it was probably written by a goofball in his mid-20s that's an expert because he downloaded 1000 albums from pirate bay.

Genres are absolutely necessary, even within metal. Even black metal and death metal these days are quite distinguishable, especially as there are absolutely no thrash metal elements left in their non-hybrid forms.

With that said, sounds tend to vary from one region to the next. Bay Area thrash metal sounds almost nothing like Teutonic thrash metal. Even the death metal in both Finland and Sweden sound quite different from each other.

So, really, who cares about "flash metal", and is it really worth dispensing so much energy arguing about such a trivial matter? There have been obnoxious terms coined in the 1980s underground, and it's going to continue that way. My Legions of Death vinyl has a sticker that deems it "gothic metal".

It does make you wonder....if I had to rearrange my 80's metal collection -
let's say into a simple to understand - 5 genres - I'd have to say....' street metal ' -
'popular metal'......NOT flash metal - that - I WOULD NOT think up
Accept's song sounds like UDO is singing - FLESH rockin' man !