The Top 50 US Power Metal Releases Of All Time

We Have The Power Presents: The Top 50 US Power Metal Releases Of All Time, Part 1

We Have The Power Presents: The Top 50 US Power Metal Albums Of All Time, Part 2

Any thoughts on this? I think the writer did a wonderful job.

There's a few albums I haven't heard. A very good read.

I wouldn't consider any of them power metal. They are just classic metal. When did they change??

Lurideath wrote:

I wouldn't consider any of them power metal. They are just classic metal. When did they change??

What would you consider to be power metal then?

Stuff like Hammerfall, Sabaton, Firewind, Control Denied, Jacob's Dream, Kamelot, and more. Power Metal to me didn't start until the 90's. Everything before it was just a precursor to me. It wasn't called power metal when the albums on those lists were released. So when did that change????

Well, it's a widely accepted term now to separate it from thrash and glam metal. You could call them all heavy metal, yes.

European power is the more popular variant. Stuff like Hammerfall still sounds like "just heavy metal", but it is what it is.

Lurideath wrote:

Power Metal to me didn't start until the 90's.

I contend Blind Guardian's first two albums were indeed Power metal, kinda weird they were retro before the scene was even over, with bands such as Helloween ,Omen ,Fates Warning, Damien and many others still going strong.

U.S. Power Metal is an entirely different genre from Euro Power Metal and predates it by almost a decade. Back in the day we called it simply heavy metal but writers now are using the term to usually refer to bands that are heavy and melodic. I always think of Fifth Angel and Leatherwolf as being prototypical of the genre. This is usually referring to bands that are too heavy for Glam and not heavy enough for Thrash. Of course it's not anything we talked about at all in the 80s. Back then there was just Heavy Metal and then Glam and Thrash. Plain old Heavy Metal had died out by the late 80s and only Glam and Thrash remained. At least that's how I remember it.