When I was a kid I used to save up my dollars and cents and ride my bike to the record store to get A New Tape. New Tapes were few and far between, so I’d spend hours at the store pouring over everything in stock, making sure I picked just the right one.
Being a kid, cover art, logos, and names were huge to me since I didn’t have a lot of outside input on what was good or not. The day I found the Compilation tape section I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. 15 bands! One tape! The score of a lifetime! Didn’t matter that I didn’t really know any of the bands, this thing had skulls and flying v guitars on the cover and the words are written in lightning and it was called “Super Extreme Metal Massacre Of Doom”! Hell yeah!
So I paid, and they took off the plastic anti theft dealy and I ran outside to my bike. Carefully peeling of the cellophane I popped in my new tape in my Walkman and began the surely awesome ride home. Then……Blue Oyster Cult? What crap is this? Ok, fast forward….Quiet Riot? Deep Purple? Sammy Frickin Hagar?? Gah! This tape sucks! This isn’t “Metal”, this is crap!
I concur. In fact, I separate your basic Led Zep, AC/DC, Van Halen, G&R from the Iron Maidens and Black Sabbaths in iTunes as Hard Rock vs Heavy Metal. Crue, Jovi, Leppard, Whitesnake are another subset of Hard Rock I refer to as “Hair Bands”. Rush? Forget it. You guys get seated in the same “Progresso-Psychadelica Rock” section as Yes and Pink Floyd.
I would also excude “Nu-Metal”, “Rap Metal” or “Alternative Metal” (whatever you want to call it) like Korn, or Tool.
Of course I agree with all of this in concept. To me, “hard rock” is more bluesy-rock based and “power pop” is more heavy-ish guitar sounds in a more poppy song. Hair bands fall somewhere between the two.
But Kashmir? Heavy, heavy, heavy. Weird non-blues scale? Off timing that takes a few measures to resolve the hook? Some deep-thoughts, esoteric topic? A beat to raise the dead? All that in spades…the only thing it is missing to me is a crushingly heavy guitar as the dominant main instrument. It has Jimmy’s Danelectro in a funky tuning - but hardly a D-tuned 7-string…
As others have indicated, it’s tough to narrow down the choices to a top three. My subjective picks:
Ozzy Osbourne - “Crazy Train”
Metallica - “For Whom the Bell Tolls”
Dream Theater - “In the Name of God.”
Note: Much of Dream Theater’s oeuvre includes songs that I would not consider metal. However, the above score along with most of the Train of Thought album should certainly qualify as ‘metal.’
I wouldn’t really class Tool as nu-metal. They were a big influence on that genre, but they can actually write complex and progressive music. In fact, I have a hard time thinking of them as metal at all – to me, they’re just straight-up prog rock.
Yeah Tool are not alternative metal or nu metal. It’s a difficult question if they are heavy or not. They certainly are loud. However, they do not really sound like any other heavy band that I can think of. That said, take a number like stinkfist, you cannot say that is not a heavy metal song.
Tool is pretty much in a genre all their own. They have a lot of similarities to the various slowcore bands (Neurosis, Isis, Red Sparowes, etc.), but their work is too close to actual songs to file them in that bin. I think I just have them labeled as progressive metal in my collection.
Umm… How did we get this far without some Motorhead?
Ace of Spades - Motorhead (I don’t much care for the song, but it’s up there)
You’ve Got Another Thing Coming - Judas Priest
The Trooper - Iron Maiden
I’ve heard some bands who’ve clearly been listening to Tool, but so far they’ve all stuck to pretty straightforward alt-metal. It’s not unheard of for a band to be so far ahead of the pack that they don’t even have imitators–think Opeth, or Therion.
Exactly. Tool has remained so far ahead of the curve that bands that are openly influenced by Tool still sound like cheap Tool cover bands. Some bands, no matter how influential have a sound that can’t really be copied well by anyone; Tool is certaily one of them, like Iron Maiden was before them. Lots of influence, but you can pick out their sound in other works by other bands clear as day.
On the other side of the coin are bands like Black Sabbath who have been emulated by just about everyone.
My rule of thumb for splitting hard rock or metal is whether they palm mute or not. That crunch or chugging sound of a distorted, palm muted guitar is the defining sound of metal for me.
1/ Motorhead, Ace Of Spades {because it sounds like the Grim Reaper chasing you down a rusty iron staircase in a jet-powered combine harvester}.
2/ Black Sabbath, Paranoid {Toss up between this and Iron Man: both are pretty much genre-defining, but Paranoid has the edge cos’ it’s faster}.
3/ Metallica, Ride The Lightning {No wussy Bob Rock production here, and it still makes this 38 year old headbanger want to throw devil horns while playing tennis racket guitar in front of the mirror}.
Honourable mentions to Tool’s Cold And Ugly, because playing it in the car while driving back from the beach made other vehicles wind their windows up, and Ministry’s Jesus Built My Hotrod {the extended mix with the drag race samples}, because my then girlfriend liked to have sex to it.
1.) Any fast song by Sabbath
2.) Time’s Up by Living Colour (the first half that is, it kinda winds down in the end)
3.) Endemoniada, Fields of the Nephilim
As mentioned above, this is tough seeing metal having so many sub-sets. Overall it’s tough to get anything into my top 5 that isn’t by Rob Zombie, so excluding him and going with seeming traditional metal:
Fake Healer - Metal Church
Ride the Lightning - Metallica
South of Heaven - Slayer
And a very close 4th probably due to nostalgia, Kiss’ She.