Heavy Metal is for kids ONLY. It’s not even music, to begin with.
I have been listening to Among The Living by Anthrax in my car all week. Great album. 
Master Of Puppets by Metallica is my all time favorite album. Ride The Lightning is good too.
Somewhere In Time By Iron Maiden was also one of my faves back in the day…only have that on vinyl though, haven’t listened to it in ages. Too bad you don’t like Slayer, Reign In Blood is a great one too.
Rose
Gotta love Napster! I thought about downloading some Metallica, but I was under the impression that downloading a Metallica song from Napster=instant banning. Maybe I’m confused on this point?
And FTR, it’s Y-N-G-W-I-E. Scandanavians pronounce “W” as “V.”
Yngwie Malmsteen. If you like to hear Paganini done a la speed metal guitar, this dude is your man.
Alice Cooper’s new one is great. Look it up. Don’t forget some Def Leppard, just for that 80’s completeness.
Pronounciation: EENG-VAY MALL-MEAS-TIN
I totally agree with Motorhead, but no one has mentioned their mates, Girlschool. I would highly recommend the “Play Dirty” album. Surprised the Scorpions haven’t been mentioned either. Below are my top 5 eighties metal albums:
- Motorhead – No Sleep Till Hammersmith
- Scorpions – World Wide Live
- Iron Maiden – Piece of Mind
- Girlschool – Play Dirty
- Queensryche – Empire
Eclectic mix, but awesome all round.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by muppetsoup *
**
Jeesh, I’m glad somebody saw the joke.
Yes, it was intentional.
rasta you seem to be on the right track with most of the recommendations so far. the only one I would add is Riot. though its hard to search for them without pulling Quiet Riot and Atari Teenage Riot. Napster search engine is easy but not powerful.
Uniball - heavy metal as described here (ie 80s mainstream) can NOT be for kids since anyone familiar with it (that is, able to spell Yngwie) must be at least 30. Ratt played the House of Blues in Chicago last month and I can tell you, there were very few if any fifteen year olds. Embrace the decadence, You can’t continue to deny your past. God I can still remember making out to ‘Rock You Like a Hurricane’
check out my Napster collection I’m “bone_78248”
I would say that much of the 80’s heavy rock music would be described as metal and before that it would be heavy rock.
There are plenty of bands that overlap and there are bands in the 80’s that are heavy rock but not metal.
To me metal, and particularly thrash metal was merely a distilled and formulated version of rock music and very very predictable, you just knew when the guitar solo was going to start and equally how it would play out, plus the interminable endings to a number.
Anthrax, Metallica, et all are not the best examples of the heavy rock genre by a long way, where was the innovation ?
I play Led Zepp and Black Sabbath to new recruits and they often realise that much of the newer stuff they hear is just a pale imitation.
There are great bands out there, I even like Motley Crue but I find that stuff like Prodigy is closer to the spirit of that genre than most of poo that seems to be pushed at us by the record company execs.
Sepultura, as one person recomended but mispelled
Brazialian heavy metal. Quite good
Also, Faith No More… Old Grandad, modern, but great in a classic sense, plus they have a good sense of humor. Motorhead.
And if you want something really interesting go with Apocolyptica. They are a cello quartet that doess heavy meta lcovers. Quite good.
Anything by Skid Row.
Plus, for more “glam metal” or “hair metal”, pick up some Poison. Good stuff, but not REALLY metal.
There is so much variety and depth in the metal scene today, it’s hard to point a stranger to what they might like. Plus you have many people that have been taught to think that bands like Led Zeppelin, Motley Crue and Korn are heavy metal - that doesn’t make it easy to get across the sound of bands like Tristania or Solefald.
Since you like the not-so-extreme, straightforward stuff I might recommend Nevermore, Iced Earth, Hammerfall or Cathedral.
I also recommend compilations. Labels like Century Media and Nuclear Blast tend to release inexpensive compilations with lots of different bands to sample. You spend less than $5 and get to hear a dozen different bands. Some you’ll like, some you won’t. The ones you like, you can seek out more material from. Check out http://www.centurymedia.com as they have lots of small samples (including video clips).
Plus, there are lots of good metal magazines like Terrorizer, WormGear and Ill Literature out there to help educate you on what is available today in metal. Avoid mags like Metal Edge (ha!) and Kerrang.
If you’re really interested in “catching up” on metal, allow me to spam my site 
http://www.stormclad.com
Uniball, why don’t you go find your other ball?
Exodus - Fabulous Disaster
Stormtroopers of Death - Speak English or Die (Remember those cool clips with train wrecks and the guy crashing on the bike going into and out of commercials on “Headbangers Ball,” back when M-TV almost had a reason for existence? The music behind them was S.O.D.)
any M.O.D. (Featuring many of the same guys from S.O.D., as well as some of the Anthrax boys.)
The first album from Skid Row is a little too Bon Jovi-ish for my tastes. But their Slave to the Grind CD is pretty heavy and damn good.
Testament - Low is a disc not many people seem to know about, but I’ve worn out two of them. It smokes.
I could go on. As has been mentioned, you can’t go wrong with any old Metallica, Megadeth, Maiden or Pantera.
Some of you, apparently, have funny ideas about what constitutes metal. A lot of stuff people have listed is only rock and roll.
But I like it.
It’s been a while, but Metallica’s Ride the Lightning is probably the best metal album I’ve ever heard.
If Led Zeppelin is metal, then so is the very first **Rush ** album (the one with “Working Man”.) They started out as a Zeppelin clone, but after putting out one really cool album they changed their style completely.
Despite it being a parody, I also got a kick out of the **Spinal Tap ** soundtrack (with the all-black cover.)
I’ve never been able to take the fantasy-and-swords type of metal seriously but I have to admit that Hail to England by Manowar has some damn good music on it (hey, give me a break… that was a long time ago.)
I’m amused at how quick some people are to state categorically what is or isn’t heavy metal.
The sound we call heavy metal was pretty much invented by four men: Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton. Oh sure, early songs like the Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” showed signs of what would later be called heavy metal (loud, distorted guitar playing a few repeated chords), but I think when you hear Hendrix’ “Purple Haze,” Zeppelin’s “Good Times, Bad Times,” Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love,” or Jeff Beck’s “Rice Pudding,” it’s clear that all the trademarks of the heavy metal sound existed by 1967 or 1968.
Now, at THAT time, the phrase “heavy metal” didn’t yet exist (well, it did, but wasn’t yet applied to music). Page, Beck, Clapton and Hendrix wouldn’t have known what you meant, if you called them “heavy metal” guitarists. They probably just thought of themselves as blues guitarists who were pushing the envelope. But in the process, they created a wholly new sound that later generations of rock fans would call heavy metal.
In the same way, to steal a line from Greil Marcus, Chuck Berry probably didn’t think of himself as a “rock star,” in 1955. He probably thought of himself as a blues singer, and considered “Maybelline” a novelty song. But in the process, Berry created something we now call rock and roll. I’d scoff at anyone who says “Chuck Berry wasn’t rock and roll,” and I scoff at anyone who says Hendrix or Beck wasn’t
heavy metal.
Now, to the Beavises and Buttheads of the world, anything mellower than Iron Maiden doesn’t qualify as heavy metal. But I’m inclined to include MANY artists under that tag that Beavis and Butthead would dismiss as wussies!
As I said earlier, NOBODY classifies Neil Young or King Crimson as metal acts. But on what grounds can we say that Neil Young’s “Rocking in the Free World” is NOT heavy metal? On what grounds can you say that King Crimson’s “Red” or “21st Century Schizoid Man” is NOT heavy metal? Heck, a lot of sprightly, pop-oriented 60s songs by the Small Faces and the Move featured an unmistakeably heavy-metal guitar sound. Beavis and Butthead would ridicule the Move’s “Hello Susie” or the Small Faces “Song of the Baker,” but they sound rather metallish to me.
I happen to think the distinction between “hard rock” and “heavy metal” is a very slender, fine one. I think the distinctions have more to do with personalities and castes than with the music itself.
“Heavy metal” is associated in many minds, with drunk, aggressive 15 year old, blue-collar white boys. Thus, a college-educated, middle-aged Jimi Hendrix admirer prefers to pretend that his hero was NOT heavy metal.
Conversely, teenage metalheads view Rush as the favorite band of the intellectual dorks of the Science Club. Thus, even when Alex Lifeson is DEFINITELY crunching out heavy metal chords, metal purists prefer to pretend that what Rush is playing really ISN’T heavy metal.
Definitions in rock are frequently hazy. Feel free to argue what is and isn’t heavy metal. But I ask you to base your judgements on the music, and NOT on your own personal perceptions of the artists and their fans.
With all due respect, I strongly disagree. I don’t think any of those were metal in any way. To describe the grounds that “Rocking In The Free World” is not metal seems somewhat humorous; one only has to listen. They used sometimes-distorted guitars, but that’s where the similarities end. If that’s the only criteria to be metal, then punk music is also metal. Hardcore music is also metal. And so on…
Metal is a direct result of Black Sabbath. From what I can gather, an overwhelming majority of metal fans are in agreement with me on that. A few other bands had certain elements of what would become the true sound of heavy metal, but nobody (to my knowledge) put the whole package together before Black Sabbath came along. Decades later, they still sound metal. That is a key element that cannot be understressed. A friend of mine defined metal by saying that, since Black Sabbath are the originators, any band that is to be considered heavy metal must have recognizable elements of Black Sabbath’s sound in their own. I like this definition a lot - if you look at even the most extreme grindcore bands you can detect many things about the music that aren’t that far removed from a sped-up Black Sabbath with different vocals.
Many people make the mistake of thinking that because Jimi Hendrix (or someone else, depending upon whom you’re talking to) was the first artist to be labeled with the term “heavy metal” that he was truly the first metal artist. This is not the case. As is the nature with language, definitions are dynamic, not static. They change as time goes by. When the phrase “heavy metal” was first coined, people had no idea it would eventually lead to Cannibal Corpse. People had no clue as to how this music would evolve, which parts would survive and which parts wouldn’t. Now that it has been so many years since Black Sabbath burst upon the scene, we can look back and see a clear path of evolution - the “guitar rock” movement was a reaction to Hendrix, while the metal movement took its cue from Sabbath.
Another argument often used is that Blue Oyster Cult (or insert Iron Butterfly, etc) was doing this before Black Sabbath. That is also incorrect. These bands had certain elements of metal but overall they were far from being metal enough to still fit the modern definition (either that or Carcass must fit into another category besides metal; you can’t have it both ways). It can be said that Black Sabbath had people who influenced them directly and thus those bands started it. Well, those bands had their influences as well, and so on and so on. You can trace metal back all the way to the first caveman to bang two rocks together or to make an attempt at “singing”. Much like you can trace modern man all the way back to some form of bacteria; at some point we became so different from bacteria (and later fish, then apes…) that we require our own definition. Black Sabbath is the point of entry for metal’s ascension from rock music.
Basic framework - With an exception given to the heavy 90s usage of keyboards and other instruments, your basic metal band consists of guitar, bass, drums, and vocals. The priority given to the guitars helps etch out the classic metal sound. While this setup is by no means a rare occurance in modern music (nor is every element strictly necessary), this is the basic first step to identifying a metal band.
Guitars and Vocals - It is customary in most forms of mainstream music to have the vocals in the center of the music. They are often the be-all end-all of the songs, with only the “beat” of the song being somewhat important to pulling off the material. In metal, it is often the case that the vocals are used in the same capacity as the other instruments; not to be the sole focal point in the sound, but rather and integral part of the whole. Metal vocalists (ideally) have more powerful voices than rock/pop/alternative/country/etc singers and use that to embellish the music instead of detract from it. In contrast, the guitar shines more brightly in metal than in most other mainstream music. In most bands the guitar is at (or very near) the same level of importance as the vocals.
This stress on the guitar, over time, has led to a certain style of playing. Use of distortion and tuning down are quite common in the genre. Most bands have two guitarists, allowing them to incorporate a more complex series of arrangements and/or to be “heavier”. The music should be played with a certain crispness and intensity.
How heavy is heavy? - If nothing else lets you distinguish the barrier between hard rock and heavy metal, this will be the clincher. People often give different thresholds depending upon what their experience has been. I don’t view bands like Skid Row or Warrant as metal. They are not heavy enough (in addition to other reasons) to be considered metal. If you’ve spent your life listening only to FM radio and watching MTV, I can see where Extreme or Cinderella may have sounded powerful to you. But to those of us who brave the likes of General Surgery and Catasexual Urge Motivation, the glam movement was obviously rock music’s flavor of the day and not at all related to metal.
It is also a medium of beauty. The 1990s have brought this to the forefront with bands like The Gathering, My Dying Bride, Tiamat, and many others. These bands blend the crushing power of heavy metal with serene beauty the likes of which is rarely seen in mainstream music.
It is also a forum for experimentation. Voivod, Godflesh, Candiru, Devil Doll, and many others bring bizarre elements to the table that wouldn’t work in many other settings. One of the current trends is to use metal as a springboard for developing other creative and experimental styles.
And I would of course be remiss if I didn’t point out that metal is also…fun! The energy, the aggression, and the sometimes incoherent abandon involved in the music make for a great form of release.
There is more to metal than just distortion. I think people who aren’t really metal fans have a tendency to think “heavy metal” means anything that’s loud and aggressive in some fashion. I’ve heard “mainstream” people refer to bands that were clearly punk rock as being metal. Or here, bands like Rush and King Crimson called metal. It’s all a matter of how much metal you’ve really been exposed to and how much you understand that it’s not just playing “hard” or having a distorted guitar sound that makes you metal, it’s also the style of riffs you use, the feel and layout of the music, etc. No one thing does a metal band make.
At the end of the day it’s just a label. Call Mel Torme metal if you like. Those of us who live and breathe the music know better though
So, unless you label as “heavy metal” bands that anybody who knows what the hell they are talking about knows aren’t metal, you’re equated with Beavis and Butthead?
Thanks for clearing that up for us, astorian. :rolleyes:
Have it your way, Milos.
The Who’s “Live at Leeds”? Easy Listening.
King Crimson’s “Red”? Country and Western.
Neil Young’s “Hey Hey My My”? Well, EVERYBODY KNOWS that Neil Young is strictly a folk act- put that one in the file next to Peter, Paul and Mary.
Sheesh - it’s been a while since I’ve seen an argument over what is/isn’t ‘heavy metal’. I guess most of us just don’t care anymore.
As far as Yngwie goes, you’d better type it in as ‘Yngwie J. Malmsteen’ - if you don’t put in the ‘J.’ you’ll be inundated with all the other Yngwie Malmsteens out there.
HenrySpencer
Ahem, Slayer can be favorably compared to just about anything, if only for their originality.
This doesnt even begin to take into account the fact that they have consistantly put out albumn after albumn of HARD
asskicking drive fast beat the shit out of preppies music ever released.
The originality of the lead solos is on par,if not exactly as pleasing to the ear of the narrow minded, as anything
Hendrix put out during his lsd/mdm-soaked performances.
In short, bash not Slayer, lest ye be bashed yerself,
punk.