To answer the topic “What Is Metal Music?” we must first investigate the beginnings of metal.

Metal is a style of rock music that emerged and gained popularity in the late 1960s and early 1970s in the United Kingdom (we Brits take credit for anything good). The earliest bands to experiment with it featured greatly amplified guitar distortion, lengthy guitar solos, strong drum rhythms, angry vocals, and pushed the volume up to eleven! They were inspired by blues rock and psychedelic rock.

In 1968, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Deep Purple were the first bands to popularize metal. These early bands were heavily criticised by music reviewers at the time for “ruining the music scene” and “bastardising blues rock.” If you asked anybody on the street, they would have heard of all of those bands, demonstrating that their legacy continues to this day. We’ll never know if the initial fame was due to the musicianship or the rebellious spirit of individuals who purchased their songs.

Judas Priest appeared in the 1970s and changed the sound by removing metal’s blues influence. Then came Motorhead, who introduced a punk aspect to metal, making it fast and loud, which Iron Maiden and Saxon also incorporated into their music. The words ‘Metalheads’ and ‘Headbangers’ initially appeared in the 1970s to designate metal music enthusiasts.

Then came the 1980s, which gave birth to the ‘glam’ style of music, which bands like Poison and Def Leppard combined to develop the intriguing notion of glam metal. Fortunately, underground scenes grew in prominence, bringing more aggressive metal styles and a variety of sub-genres with them. These included thrash, death, and black metal. Popular bands that emerged from these underground scenes included Megadeth, Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax, Death, Immortal, and Mayhem.

As the 1990s approached, new subgenres emerged. Groove metal is particularly important since it is played at a slower tempo than standard metal. Pantera, Sepultura, and Lamb of God are three well-known groove metal bands. The late 1990s and the turn of the century gave rise to a highly popular sub-genre of metal known as Nu-Metal, which is still immensely popular today. Korn, Slipknot, Linkin Park, P.O.D., and Papa Roach have all performed this song.

Tony Iommi, the former Black Sabbath guitarist, is widely regarded as the originator and Godfather of heavy metal music. I’m not sure if this is accurate or not.

I asked on Facebook for people’s ideas on what they thought metal music was, and I was astonished by the responses….

“Rock music with the gain turned up?”

“Metal has a faster bpm than rock, but not as fast as thrash”
“To me, metal is just another name for heavy rock.”

“A loud racket!”

“Heavy metal music is characterized by heavy guitars that can be both aggressive and melodic.” I’d say if a song that mostly involves guitars with a powerful rhythm may be termed heavy metal.”
This is only a tiny sample of individuals I posed the question to, yet I still received a diversity of responses. Other noteworthy comments included the suggestion that in order to be acknowledged as Metal, band members must dress a certain way, have as many tattoos and piercings as possible, and seem nasty…

“To be honest so much of what is ‘metal’ now has little to do with musical style as much what clothes you wear, how many tattoos you have and, super importantly, which demographic you are being marketed at.”
I completely see where this individual is coming from, since record labels and band management are being compelled to choose the bands they represent based not just on their music, but also on how the band looks and if their image will be accepted into the scene or not. Does the main vocalist seem mean enough? Does he or she have enough visible tattoos and piercings? Is a band’s outward image as significant as its music in current times? So, I’ll leave the idea of ‘required’ in music for another time.

There are countless modern metal sub-genres, but I’ll focus on a handful.

Thrash metal is quick, with high-intensity drumming and low-register guitar riffs combined with shredding-style lead guitars. The lyrics are written regarding current societal problems in the anti-establishmentarian style of hardcore punk rock. Slayer and Anthrax fall under this heading.

Death metal often features extremely distorted and low-tuned guitars performed using methods like palm muting and tremolo picking, deep growling vocals, and violent, strong drumming with double kick and blast beat techniques. The vocals are often aggressive, detailing horrific procedures and activities. This is the metal subgenre that some people refer to as demonic and menacing. Bands like Napalm Death, In Flames, and Canible Corpse are classified as Death Metal.

Djent metal is distinguished by its signature high-gain, distorted, palm-muted, low-pitch guitar. Fredrik Thordendal, the guitarist for the Swedish metal band Meshuggah, came up with the concept. Other noteworthy bands in this category include Sixth and TesseracT.

There are also variations of metal, such as metalcore, which is a mix of hardcore rock, rap, and metal; screamcore, which is an emo-metal mix with screaming lyrics; and even mathcore, which sounds like it should be at school but has very complex dissonant riffs and a lot of tempo changes, utilizing the speed and aggression of hardcore punk.

The average population believes that metal is similar to rock, but with a higher BPM (Beats Per Minute) and louder volume.

So, with all of this metal history, what exactly is metal music like nowadays 2018? We’ve witnessed the emergence of sub-genres and even sub-sub-genres, which essentially means that nearly anything can be classified as Metal as long as it’s fast, violent, and loud.