Poll: Do you like heavy metal?

Sounds like the problem might be you and not the music. Every form of music has redeeming qualities, unless the person exploring it is too close-minded to appreciate it.

I hate country music with a passion, but there are some artists I respect, even if I don't enjoy them.

 

Hope you have a play copy too? It really is very good!

 

Well, since all of us metal fans are clearly mullet-haired, primered muscle car driving meth-heads who hang out all day in liquor store parking lots wielding nunchucks, I suppose you have a point.

 

I usually like the stuff you post, but the "white trash lifestyle" thing is pushing it.

 

I don't yet... I'll get a play copy soon though, its supposed to be the best sounding version on cd I believe. I'm about to play this korean vinyl copy of kill em all with the grey cover that I bought a few years ago, I bet it sounds awful.
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/METALLICA-Killem-All-KOREA-Greytone-Cover-Edit-LP-/281256220496

 

I hope he really doesn't think that and was just looking to get a rise. I'd hate to think that anyone would stereotype based on "Heavy Metal Parking Lot".

 

I only like a handful of Metal albums. Mainly the big ones like Number of the Beast and British Steel.

 

British Steel is a must as an entry point IMO.

 

The only metal band I like (unless you also consider Van Halen & Kiss metal---i don't) is Black Sabbath. But, do I ever love them!

 

My parents in the 70's listened to soft rock so that was what I heard and enjoyed. Then around 11 years old I borrowed my Dad's cassette copy of Styx that had Cornerstone and Pieces Of Eight on it. The song "Queen Of Spades" hit me differently than the others. That chugga chugga guitar riff is what had me hooked. The same style is what I heard in Heart's "Barracuda". So when a friend of mine let me borrow his Metallica tapes (Kill, Ride, and Master. Justice wasn't out yet.) it was like hearing an old friend. It felt so perfect for me to hear that thrash metal! Ever since then I've been hooked on metal. I still listen to all forms of music (except rap and new country) but nowadays Opeth is what gets me going.

 

I love some heavy metal, although I don't care for some modern heavy metal. The cookie monster vocals pretty much ruin it for me. I love most all "old school" heavy metal and some newer stuff. One of my favorite types of music if done right.

 

The heavy metal/hard rock line is very blurred.

Massive fan of "Sin After Sin", "Damnation", Tool, Dream Theater, Rammstein, DP, Sabbath, VH...

Iron Maiden, Metallica, NWOBHM etc... not so much.

 

Some. For example..

I love Iron Maiden's debut, most of all. It is a real top album IMO, just never grows stale or dates. I recon I'll still go back to it if I reach 95! I also like a few others of theirs, quite a lot. I've never really thought of Deep Purple as heavy metal (except maybe In Rock) neither Black Sabbath - but they're two of my favourite bands of that era, whatever the case. Dozens of other bands I could name that may or may not be heavy metal...

I don't really like to classify stuff and the lines of distinction seem to blur, the more and more I look in depth at certain acts. So genres mean less to me today than ever. Like any musical style- some of it I find quite exciting and a lot of it does little or nothing for me. All that matters to me is if I like certain albums/bands/songs etc. So there wasn't an option for me to vote.

 

I am floored by the results here!

 

I loved 70's-80's, NWOBHM stuff (Sabbath, Maiden, Priest, Ozzy, etc), and also some thrash and speed metal. Burned out in the 90s, I let it all go, but I've recently come back to listening to a lot of the older stuff. When I look for newer music though, I just can't stand the cookie monster vocals, and even some of the almost normal growly stuff. I want people who actually sing. For example, I'm getting into Baroness - I love the music, but the vocals almost ruin it for me. I've been listening to stuff like Earthless and Causa Sui, jammy stoner doom instrumental stuff, and I like Uncle Acid. Anybody have any recommendations for metal in those veins but with vocals that are more NWOBHM?

 

Metal is most of what I listen to, by a wide margin, though I do try to save space for classical, jazz, and other less easily categorized odds and ends. With the exception of some trendhopping in the 90's (electronica, goth, industrial, etc.) I've been a loyal metalhead since I first saw an ad for King Diamond's Abigail in a Hit Parader; I bought the album and found myself transported to an utterly new realm where music had evocative capabilities I'd only previously experienced in, say, a tone poem by Franck or a chorale by Bach (I was a Nat'l Public Radio kind of kid). I'd been into a lot of the hard rock and glam of the 80's, driven to that mainly by KISS, but proper metal, especially the darker kind, was a revelation. I soon found a college radio show dedicated to it, which is still going strong almost 30 years later, and that show directed me to the heavier stuff of the time: Slayer, Celtic Frost, Sepultura, Dark Angel, et al. From there I started building The CD Collection That Would Not Die.

In the wake of the aforementioned 90's anti-metal sabbatical, I've spent the last 15 or so years not only playing catch-up but digging ever deeper into a genre of music that is in no danger of running out of inspiration or invention. I know there are many people who believe metal has been all downhill since 1986; I can only assume we listen to this music for very different reasons, because to me, albums like Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk, None So Vile, The Voice of Steel, At the Heart of Winter, Ordo ad Chao, and Colored Sands annihilate most of the post-NWOBHM power, speed, and thrash of the 80's. (Though Fates Warning's Awaken the Guardian is for sure in my top 5. And Coroner. And Voivod. And probably more than 10 others. My top 5 has a weight problem. But my point stands that metal has gotten stronger and more interesting over the years.)

Someone earlier said that death metal had gone into a sterile phase of choosing technique and polish over character, I think. That person needs to check back into death metal: the last several years have seen a deluge of old school death worship bands emulating, and occasionally bettering, the organic stuff like Dismember, Autopsy, Death, Incantation, and Immolation. The most recent albums of Obliteration and Grave Miasma, for instance, are amazing new interpretations of that old sound.

 

I love all the genres of Metal. Each genre has it's personal charm.

 

Nice post. You just casually rattled off three of my favorite metal albums of all-time (None So Vile, At the Heart of Winter, Awaken the Guardian).

 

As if my little autobiography there wasn't long enough, I wanted to add that because of this forum, especially this particular glam thread, lately I've been listening to a lot of 80's glam and hard rock that I either didn't know about or didn't appreciate at the time. Vain, Leatherwolf, Dirty Looks, Fifth Angel -- you had to look, but apparently there was quality stuff amid that whole Sunset Strip frontal assault on good taste. (I say that mainly as a condemnation of my own taste at the time, which was largely driven by MTV and Hit Parader, and thus horrible. I remember thinking that Cinderella, Great White, and Motley Crue were the best that world had to offer.)

Also, I reread my prior post and realized I was ignoring traditional/power metal. There certainly are modern examples of greatness there: Atlantean Kodex, Satan's Host, and Pharaoh spring to mind. Going back a little, there was Evergrey, Onward, Lost Horizon, and Khan-era Kamelot. I'm sure there are loads of others but that's sort of my semi-blind spot in metal. Sometimes I think the more "conservative" subgenres of metal have had a harder time living up to their own legacies. Death and black have been able to branch out, get more experimental, or even get more extreme. I don't know if traditional and power metal can really do that, but that's obviously part of the charm.

 

I also like Katatonia who started off as doom metal on their early albums but became more melodic hard rock, mainly because Jonas Renkse could no longer perform the harsh death vocals. I actually prefer his clean singing.

 

yes, of course...Play it loud!

 

I like heavy metal in its classical stage, basically until 1985-86. After all this wave of hair bands and glam metal sincerely believe that there was no longer anything interesting for my taste. In fact today I do not hear much heavy metal, maybe a little Iron Maiden, Saxon, Samson, Dio, Judas Priest something of Ozzy and olds bands form NWOBHM.

 

Just a little observation I've formed over the last, oh, 40 years. Along with "most pretentious As*sholes I know drive $80,000 Porsches. And I didn't single anyone one out. I've leave the direct finger pointing to my more politically correct and courteous SHF members. And as my own rules go, a direct threat or insult you join my ignore list. Later.

 

Part of front row; Black Sabbath at Santa Monica Civic, 1975.

 

Heavy metal is rock in its most pure form. Guitars and drums played at extreme volume. Lou Reed claimed to have invented it!