Heavy Metal

The first element I look for is the guitar pure and simple. The structure of the song and the elements of the vocal.

I've always been a guitar nut and it would frustrate me to no end when I would albums that could be great but because the guitar suddenly took a back seat to the vocal.... it lost that edge... that would drive me crazy when the Elefante's did that with Barren Cross....

Sort of the difference between hearing a band live and then hearing a studio album where their gonads got cut off...

I might describe somethings as metal that others might not.

GrandNational wrote:

Personally, the first thing I always listen to is the drums. I think the way the drums are played and help to guide the almighty riff really makes it heavy for me or not. Watch those early 1970 concerts of Black Sabbath and look at Bill Ward just hammer away and make Iommi shine.

This, and an emphasis on the bass as well.

mc666 wrote:

The_Jayroh wrote:

Consideriong nu-metal to actually be metal is pretty dangerous man.

dangerous? you mean it might cause some crybaby metalhead to throw a tantrum online? that's more silly than it is dangerous.

Haha, probably.

This is a quote I made on a different board about a completely different topic, but it seems to fit here:

Quote :

As much as some people would like to get rid of labels, it's a necessary evil. Slayer doesn't sound like Poison doesn't sound like Becoming the Archetype doesn't sound like Black Sabbath doesn't sound like Cradle of Filth doesn't sound like Judas Priest doesn't sound like Dream Theater, etc. To label it all "hard" doesn't really do it justice and doesn't really describe the sound. At one time (in the mid-to-late 70's), every thing "hard" was labeled "heavy metal". Everything from Ted Nugent, Kiss, Blue Oyster Cult and Aerosmith to Uriah Heep, Deep Purple, UFO, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. That was the first wave of heavy metal. While those bands didn't all sound the same, the single genre tag still fit as they would all appeal to the same demographic. Now you have too much diversity to have only one label.

Troublezone wrote:

Power chords, catchy riffs, crunchy distortion, epic lead guitar, thumping bass and hard hitting drums.

this. +iconic vocals.

in my opinion, vocals are more important to heavy metal than "regular" hard rock of rock & roll. think of the power behind some of the greatest heavy metal artists of all time and once the speed, heaviness, and beat are taken into consideration, vocals separate the men from the boys.

Halford, Dio, Mustaine, Hetfield, Osbourne, Anselmo, and others all have that "voice". rock & roll or hard rock can stand on talented "musicians" and weak vocals, but in my opinion metal HAS to have that iconic blasting voice.

Fat Freddy wrote:

tohostudios wrote:

Fat Freddy wrote:

A perfect blend of melody, attitude, and crunch.

That sounds like a definition of anything I like. And I'm not a metalhead.

I was originally gonna say "the sound of overgrown adolescents destroying their instruments in a fiery testosterone fueled cataclysm," but decided that sounded too negative.

A perfect description of The Who

ultmetal wrote:

This is a quote I made on a different board about a completely different topic, but it seems to fit here:

Quote :

As much as some people would like to get rid of labels, it's a necessary evil. Slayer doesn't sound like Poison doesn't sound like Becoming the Archetype doesn't sound like Black Sabbath doesn't sound like Cradle of Filth doesn't sound like Judas Priest doesn't sound like Dream Theater, etc. To label it all "hard" doesn't really do it justice and doesn't really describe the sound. At one time (in the mid-to-late 70's), every thing "hard" was labeled "heavy metal". Everything from Ted Nugent, Kiss, Blue Oyster Cult and Aerosmith to Uriah Heep, Deep Purple, UFO, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. That was the first wave of heavy metal. While those bands didn't all sound the same, the single genre tag still fit as they would all appeal to the same demographic. Now you have too much diversity to have only one label.

I agree with this; I believe that as long as it's not something stupid like -- "Oh, such and such band isn't this, it's totally that!" "No it's not! It's totally this!" "You're both wrong, it's actually those two combined." -- then genres really don't limit you if you don't let them.