What Is Metal?

After all this time (15+ years) I thought I knew but after joining HoM I just don't know anymore. Many bands I think of as metal I've heard people here say they aren't (Kamelot, Nightwish, Hammerfall, etc.) though they haven't told me what they would call them. Also there are certain bands that people call hard rock but in the past has been called metal (Aerosmith, AC/DC, etc.) I have come to the personal conclusion that it is up to the individual listener but I think there might be people here who don't agree with this. What is metal to you? What is the difference between metal and hard rock?


I can't quite pinpoint what I think metal is but I know it when I hear it. Certain combinations of guitars, drums, bass, and vocals makes me think of a band as metal or not (keybaords don't disrupt the formula). As far as the difference between metal and hard rock, I just don't know. They seem to be interchangable to me in most cases.

Hmmmm...

Let me dwell on that a bit.

I have given up on the never ending genre debate long ago.
What`s Metal to me is NOT Metal to the next guy, and so on.
I once tried to sort my collection in different genres, but that was extremely frustrating, there are so many bands that are difficult to label.

When I was starting to listen to hard rock/metal music, it seemed like anyone who had long hair could labeled metal, so Aerosmith, AC/DC, Ted Nugent and led Zeppelin were labeled metal and were referred to as metal artist by the press, fans, and radio stations, it was not til metal began to get more fragmented that people than started to revaluate who was metal and who was not.

I personally still label Aerosmith as metal and Led Zeppelin as one of the first metal bands, I am sure alot of peps here will disagree with me, but that is how I saw them when I was kid.

One man's Metal is another man's rock,etc. But even though I completely missed the 70's I refer to bands like Aerosmith and Zep as Heavy Metal not "Classic Rock" as do most of my contemporaries.

akeldama wrote:

One man's Metal is another man's rock,etc. But even though I completely missed the 70's I refer to bands like Aerosmith and Zep as Heavy Metal not "Classic Rock" as do most of my contemporaries.

I do not like referring bands such as Zep and Aerosmith as classic rock is because I donot want them lumped in with Bob Seger, Fleetwood Mac, Steve Miller etc.

manny wrote:

akeldama wrote:

One man's Metal is another man's rock,etc. But even though I completely missed the 70's I refer to bands like Aerosmith and Zep as Heavy Metal not "Classic Rock" as do most of my contemporaries.

I do not like referring bands such as Zep and Aerosmith as classic rock is because I donot want them lumped in with Bob Seger, Fleetwood Mac, Steve Miller etc.

No love for Seger,Miller or Peter Green/Bob Welsh Mac?

Nah, I see your point.

From our friends at Wikipedia:

In chemistry, a metal (Greek: Metallo, Μέταλλο) is a chemical element whose atoms readily lose electrons to form positive ions (cations), and form metallic sionic bonds between between other metal atoms and nonmetal atoms.^[1]

That oughta clear things up.

Fat Freddy wrote:

From our friends at Wikipedia:

In chemistry, a metal (Greek: Metallo, Μέταλλο) is a chemical element whose atoms readily lose electrons to form positive ions (cations), and form metallic sionic bonds between between other metal atoms and nonmetal atoms.^[1]

That oughta clear things up.

Beat me to it! I was gonna consult good ol' Merriam-Webster.

While I personally never thought of a band like Aerosmith as "heavy metal", I can certainly see their influence on the genre and understand how the term was applied to them back in the 70's.

In regards to the original question though, I've stopped caring what other people's definition of rock or metal might be. I can't define it either, but I knows it when I hears it.

Heavy Metal is pretty much all the bands that can be traced back to the mighty Sabbath, influentally or otherwise. But since the biggest contribution to what most would consider metal was the NWOBHM movements, and the 80's classic metal, I'd also say that any band sounding somewhere close to that, is metal.

The tricky thing in the sub categories. Power metal, speed metal, prog metal, neo-classical metal, melodic speed metal, etc. That is what is confusing. And I think that is where most people stumble or disagree. The everlasting debate on the original meaning of power metal and what most people today call power metal is but one example.

akeldama wrote:

manny wrote:

akeldama wrote:

One man's Metal is another man's rock,etc. But even though I completely missed the 70's I refer to bands like Aerosmith and Zep as Heavy Metal not "Classic Rock" as do most of my contemporaries.

I do not like referring bands such as Zep and Aerosmith as classic rock is because I donot want them lumped in with Bob Seger, Fleetwood Mac, Steve Miller etc.

No love for Seger,Miller or Peter Green/Bob Welsh Mac?

Nah, I see your point.

Fleetwood Mac I am a fan,especially their early blues period with Green and post Green. I am even a fan of the Stevie Nicks years, but when I think of Fleetwood Mac audience I always picture middle aged yuppies as their core audience.

Fat Freddy wrote:

From our friends at Wikipedia:

In chemistry, a metal (Greek: Metallo, Μέταλλο) is a chemical element whose atoms readily lose electrons to form positive ions (cations), and form metallic sionic bonds between between other metal atoms and nonmetal atoms.^[1]

That oughta clear things up.

Everyone's a comedian .

Hard rock tends to stay in the blues based realm and metal cranks it up, faster tempo, double bass, darker riffs, heavier vocals etc.

Quote :

Everyone's a comedian .

I just figured that this thread is gonna turn into a Chinese fire drill eventually (ask a zillion metal heads that question and you're gonna get a zillion different answers!), so I got started early.

OK, so that didn't work for ya, how'bout this?



We know this is metal because he's prone to saying "Bite my shiny metal a$$!"

Fat Freddy wrote:

Quote :

Everyone's a comedian .

I just figured that this thread is gonna turn into a Chinese fire drill eventually, so I got started early.

OK, so that didn't work for ya, how'bout this?



We know this is metal because he's prone to saying "Bite my shiny metal a$$!"

On both posts that's why I gave you a smiley ( ) the first time.

Saxon.

mc666 wrote:

Are we playing who's the merry man?

There was a time in the 70's and 80's when the terms "hard rock" and "heavy metal" were interchangeable. Black Sabbath, Ted Nugent, UFO, Judas Priest, Aerosmith were hard rock bands as much as they were a heavy metal bands. The fans called these bands both. The press called them both. It wasn't until the 90's that I started hearing people make this big distinction that "so and so isn't metal, they are just hard rock".

It's also about this time people started accusing any band with a blues influence to be hard rock, while band with more classical backgrounds as heavy metal. Problem with this is what do you do with bands like Deep Purple, Rainbow, Whitesnake, Yngwie Malmsteen, Impellitteri, etc. who have classical influences but are obviously blues influenced as well.

It's all rock and roll to me! Aerosmith, Ted Nugent and Kiss will always be the bands that got me into heavy metal when I was in grade school in the 70's. Soon after I discovered Thin Lizzy, Judas Priest, Motorhead, Blue Oyster Cult, then on to Mercyful Fate, Anthrax, Metallica, Queensryche, Saxon, Iron Maiden, Celtic Frost, Cirith Ungol, etc. Next it was on to Kreator, Sodom, Death, Possessed, Carcass, Napalm Death, etc. It just kept getting heavier and heavier, faster and faster.

ultmetal wrote:

There was a time in the 70's and 80's when the
terms "hard rock" and "heavy metal" were interchangeable. Black
Sabbath, Ted Nugent, UFO, Judas Priest, Aerosmith were hard rock bands
as much as they were a heavy metal bands. The fans called these bands
both. The press called them both. It wasn't until the 90's that I
started hearing people make this big distinction that "so and so isn't
metal, they are just hard rock".

It's also about this time
people started accusing any band with a blues influence to be hard
rock, while band with more classical backgrounds as heavy metal.
Problem with this is what do you do with bands like Deep Purple,
Rainbow, Whitesnake, Yngwie Malmsteen, Impellitteri, etc. who have
classical influences but are obviously blues influenced as well.

It's
all rock and roll to me! Aerosmith, Ted Nugent and Kiss will always be
the bands that got me into heavy metal when I was in grade school in
the 70's. Soon after I discovered Thin Lizzy, Judas Priest, Motorhead,
Blue Oyster Cult, then on to Mercyful Fate, Anthrax, Metallica,
Queensryche, Saxon, Iron Maiden, Celtic Frost, Cirith Ungol, etc. Next
it was on to Kreator, Sodom, Death, Possessed, Carcass, Napalm Death,
etc. It just kept getting heavier and heavier, faster and faster.

I am in 100% agreement.

Dallas, Nightwish, Hammerfall, and Kamelot are all metal bands regardless what anyone says.

Metal is what you want it to be, if you think a song is metal then so be it. There shouldn't be someone there to tell you otherwise.

Sparkly penises.

SpectreFate wrote:

Sparkly penises.

I believe the proper plural is "penii". But otherwise, yea, that's metal enough for me.

kmorg wrote:

mc666 wrote:

Are we playing who's the merry man?

were you looking for one?