Heavy Metal, Its History, Influences and Subgenres

[LMNO]

YUR ROONING PD!
     \

[AFK]

Meh, there's a lot of crap metal bands out there but there are a lot of good ones too.  But I would argue that Metal is more than just the music and has become a culture, and one that hasn't gone away despite all of the best efforts from the government, religion, and lawyers. 

[The Good Reverend Roger]

But I would argue that Metal is more than just the music and has become a culture, 

That's the saddest thing I've heard this month.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Pop quiz: Which one is which?

I see Carcass and, Red X?

Huh.

It was Mayhem. This one is 1349

[tyrannosaurus vex]

So many things can be technically defined as "metal" now that it hardly has any definition left. There are more subgenres in metal than any other kind of music as far as I'm aware, and many of them are as different from other metal genres as they are from other types of music entirely.

But I'm pretty sure I still have a monopoly on the Lounge Metal genre.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Pop quiz: Which one is which?

Look how serious they all are.   

The guy in the blue denim jacket, especially.

LOOK AT MY ANGST, YE MIGHTY, AND TREMBLE!

[Nephew Twiddleton]

The sad truth about most heavy metal, like most of everything else, is that it's crap. If any of it is put in some "rock n roll hall of fame" (oh, the irony in THAT institution), then the lyrics should written on toilet paper and installed in the bathrooms of said hall of fame.

The last band that "happened" doesn't even matter in context of all the other bands JUST LIKE IT, and also people think they are real aware if they can just list some names that they think everyone else knows (or better yet, has just barely heard of).  Like you say the name of a band that is really popular but which "everyone knows" totally sucks and that's some sort of amazing cultural critique. 

I hung around with some perverts and some rock climbers and they were all "jargon jargon jargon", and it was exactly the same thing.  Totally irrelevant outside of their closely drawn confines.  Insight into popular culture is like keeping meticulous records of the activities of your hamster.

Troof! It's just another form of trainspotting Same as sports geeks, same as movie buffs, same as followers of politics but, hey, I'm pretty sure most people have one or two geeky things they fill their brains full of facts about. No harm in that - storing and regurgitating trivia is part of what brains do.

This is why I typically avoid music threads.  The ones where obscure (or now obscure) bands are discussed are bad enough (for me), but the ones where music is actually broken down in technical terms are unreadable for non-specialists.

I'm not saying people shouldn't make threads like that, I was just mentioning my own personal opinion of said threads.  So if anyone is taking this as a screech about these threads existing, shut up.  It's just my personal thing.

I wouldn't say we're breaking things down into technical terms rather than just kinda discussing the history of it.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The sad truth about most heavy metal, like most of everything else, is that it's crap. If any of it is put in some "rock n roll hall of fame" (oh, the irony in THAT institution), then the lyrics should written on toilet paper and installed in the bathrooms of said hall of fame.

The last band that "happened" doesn't even matter in context of all the other bands JUST LIKE IT, and also people think they are real aware if they can just list some names that they think everyone else knows (or better yet, has just barely heard of).  Like you say the name of a band that is really popular but which "everyone knows" totally sucks and that's some sort of amazing cultural critique. 

I hung around with some perverts and some rock climbers and they were all "jargon jargon jargon", and it was exactly the same thing.  Totally irrelevant outside of their closely drawn confines.  Insight into popular culture is like keeping meticulous records of the activities of your hamster.

Troof! It's just another form of trainspotting Same as sports geeks, same as movie buffs, same as followers of politics but, hey, I'm pretty sure most people have one or two geeky things they fill their brains full of facts about. No harm in that - storing and regurgitating trivia is part of what brains do.

This is why I typically avoid music threads.  The ones where obscure (or now obscure) bands are discussed are bad enough (for me), but the ones where music is actually broken down in technical terms are unreadable for non-specialists.

I'm not saying people shouldn't make threads like that, I was just mentioning my own personal opinion of said threads.  So if anyone is taking this as a screech about these threads existing, shut up.  It's just my personal thing.

I wouldn't say we're breaking things down into technical terms rather than just kinda discussing the history of it.

Oh, I know.  I was referring to some past threads with that comment.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

So many things can be technically defined as "metal" now that it hardly has any definition left. There are more subgenres in metal than any other kind of music as far as I'm aware, and many of them are as different from other metal genres as they are from other types of music entirely.

But I'm pretty sure I still have a monopoly on the Lounge Metal genre.

You're right there. But I think that's because you can do a lot within Metal. Though, one guy once told me that Iron Maiden wasn't Metal. His point was that it doesn't sound like Metal that comes out these days- except it was called Metal back in the day, most people still call it Metal and Metalheads attend their concerts.

The subgenre thing is interesting though- you'll see Death Metallers going to a Doom Metal show wearing a Black Metal shirt. As much as it branches out, it still seems to have broad appeal to other Metalheads.

This one time though, some asshat who wrote for a magazine noted that Death Metal and Black Metal had seemed to fuse into a new genre and that he suggested it be called Turbo Metal.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Ok so there's no singular subgenre that is specifically known for its Satanic lyrics? Cause I was really trying to get it right but I guess I must have misread something on WP. Your distinction makes sense though. I knew it would be either Black Metal or Death Metal because Doom Metal is all like "Awww I'm so depressed and all is hopeless and my life has no purpose and on top of that my string broke" and if Satan'd hear that He'd be all STFU YOU WHINING LITTLE PISS OR ILL GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO BE ETERNALLY DEPRESSED ABOUT and then He'd infect the World with Justin Bieber just to spite them some more--true story.

Hey and what about Dimmu Borgir then? WP says they're "symphonic death metal" but my favourite song is Puritania (yes because of the vocoders--but also the industrial beats help) and that one's clearly industrial metal, Fear Factory could've done it. This video someone made is awesome, it's got the lyrics AND bigass nuclear splosions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QSP51TNTdQ -- it's quite obvious they're singing about Daleks.

Pop quiz: Which one is which?

Next time rehost on imgur so I can't see the answer in your img urls as I reply.

The guy with the short black hair is obviously a Satanist, but his three girlfriends might not realize this until it's too late?

The other image won't seem to load. But I'm guessing it's Black Metal because of the URL filename!!

I never really paid much attention to the lyrics of Doom Metal. I always figured it was Metal for people who were too perpetually stoned to want to listen to stuff that was faster and was played an octave above whatever the E string was tuned down to. There was this one Doom band- my last band played with them at our first show, and we remembered them because of this one song. We never saw them live again, but they practiced at the same place that another band we were friends with practiced at, so we got to hear them play that same song over and over as if they had somehow forgotten everything else that was written. The song was long too and had little variation. 7 minutes of DUN DUN DUN DUN DUUUUUUUN "HOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWL" DUN DUN DUN DUN DUUUUUUUN "HOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWL"

It was as funny as it was annoying.

[East Coast Hustle]

So many things can be technically defined as "metal" now that it hardly has any definition left. There are more subgenres in metal than any other kind of music as far as I'm aware, and many of them are as different from other metal genres as they are from other types of music entirely.

But I'm pretty sure I still have a monopoly on the Lounge Metal genre.

Nope. I was in a lounge metal side project back in the day called "Sippy Cup Margarita". And even then it wasn't original, as evidenced by the existence of Mister Bungle.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

So many things can be technically defined as "metal" now that it hardly has any definition left. There are more subgenres in metal than any other kind of music as far as I'm aware, and many of them are as different from other metal genres as they are from other types of music entirely.

But I'm pretty sure I still have a monopoly on the Lounge Metal genre.

Nope. I was in a lounge metal side project back in the day called "Sippy Cup Margarita". And even then it wasn't original, as evidenced by the existence of Mister Bungle.

Hell, even Metallica did "The Metallicats" thing, even though it was more a joke than an act.

[East Coast Hustle]

Meh, there's a lot of crap metal bands out there but there are a lot of good ones too.  But I would argue that Metal is more than just the music and has become a culture, and one that hasn't gone away despite all of the best efforts from the government, religion, and lawyers. 

As much as I love metal (the music), I'm'a have to say that metal is a culture in the same way that Juggalos are a culture, in that people who grasp on to it as some sort of uniform/life-identifier rather than just a type of music they enjoy tend to be the same kind of people that in a different context and/or with a different upbringing would be proud of being white.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Meh, there's a lot of crap metal bands out there but there are a lot of good ones too.  But I would argue that Metal is more than just the music and has become a culture, and one that hasn't gone away despite all of the best efforts from the government, religion, and lawyers. 

As much as I love metal (the music), I'm'a have to say that metal is a culture in the same way that Juggalos are a culture, in that people who grasp on to it as some sort of uniform/life-identifier rather than just a type of music they enjoy tend to be the same kind of people that in a different context and/or with a different upbringing would be proud of being white.

Hence my earlier comment.

[East Coast Hustle]

Indeed. I felt like clarifying my opinion further because, sadly, that was NOT the saddest thing I've heard this month.