Genre Description:
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==Genre Description==
==Genre Description==
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'''Heavy metal''', usually abbreviated to '''metal''' is a loosely based genre generally characterized by its distorted guitar work, loudness, shock value, and experimentation with lead vocals. The origin of heavy metal music is unclear, but it most likely started in 1966 when Jimi Hendrix took influence from bluesy and psychedelic guitar and incorporated them in his sound. Unfortunately, his band Jimi Hendrix Experience, only survived until 1969, because Jimi died from an intense overuse of drugs that year. Though he's deceased, his legacy became timeless because that same year a "triple band explosion" of Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Led Zeppelin followed Hendrix which further influenced the genre. Ironically, these bands took Heavy Metal towards three very different directions. Black Sabbath became the lead pioneer for the depressing Doom Metal subgenre, Deep Purple became a leading pioneer for progressive metal, and Led Zeppelin became one of the earliest pioneers for the heavy metal music commonly labeled "hard rock" or "classic rock" by self proclaimed non-metalheads who hypocritically choose to not associate the metal bands they like with metal. This music would eventually be called Glam/Hair metal and would bring heavy metal to a new golden age in the late 70s and all through the 80s. Besides Zeppelin, other heavy metal bands and musicians who helped pioneer and progress this form of music, included AC/DC, Aerosmith, Foghat, Def Leppard, Kansas, Kiss, Motley Crue, Quiet Riot, Scorpions, Ted Nugent,Van Halen, Warrant, and Z.Z. Top. Then the 80s came along and an event called the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, which sought to revive the early heavy metal music which, other than glam metal, was declining in popularity. One could argue the movement was to Heavy Metal what the Punk Movement was to Rock & Roll, since the NWOBH bands were rougher and a bit less bluesy than the early heavy metal, yet still sought to revive it. And like the Punk Movement, the NWOBH was short lived, but it was essential in the heavy metal timeline. After a few years the NWOBH movement ended up splitting into two new subgenres of metal, Thrash Metal and Power Metal, and Thrash Metal ended up further splitting into Death Metal and Black Metal. Death Metal took influence from the thrash bands Slayer, Possessed, and Atheist, is generally characterized by blast beats, low-pitched beastly vocals (growls, roars, snarls, etc.), highly distorted, low tempo guitar solos, blast beats, and meanings pertaining to either violent or atheistic ideas. Notable death metal bands include Arch Enemy, Cannibal Corpse, Carcass, Death, Lamb of God and Machinehead. Whereas Black Metal took influence from the thrash bands Venom, Celtic Frost, and Hellhammer, is generally characterized by chaotic drum beats, possessed shrieks with diaphragm ussage, use of corpse paint, and meanings usually based on either Christian Blasphemy or Viking Paganism. Notable black metal bands include Bathory, Behemoth, Burzum, Emperor, Enslaved, Moonsorrow, Satyricon, Xasthur, and the musical projects of Gaahl (Gaahlskaag, Godseed and Trelldom). Although Death Metal is musically the most violent, Black Metal is actually the most extreme existing form of Heavy Metal. Thrash Metal is generally similar to Death Metal, except their guitar solos aren mid tempo and their vocals are slightly less violent (a vocal style commonly referred as aggression). The most famous and influencial thrash band was Metallica, but other notable bands include Annihilator, Anthrax, Exodus, Megadeth, Motorhead, and Testament. Many Death Metal and Black Metal bands decided to get away from the popular atheist (from death and thrash) and christian-blasphemy (from black) meanings and sought to return to their roots of ancient paganism, since most of them did come from Europe. These bands are commonly referred to as "Pagan Metal" or "Folk Metal" but musically still retain a black metal or death metal (depending on the band) sound. Meanwhile, power metal was developing as well. Modern power metal is generally known for having nicer, fantastical song meanings, coincided with epic melodies and often the inclusion of band members who play classical instruments like strings and pianos. However, original power metal seemed to just be a milder side of thrash metal, still retaining aggression in its sound only a bit more melodic/, with bands like Blind Fury, Dream Evil, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Manowar, Metal Law, etc. During this time, power metal and thrash metal were still closely linked together through the NWOBH. Eventually power metal seemed to separate more musically from thrash metal, sounding less aggressive and incorporating strings, pianos, and other neoclassical instruments with bands like Dragonforce, Dragonland, Gamma Ray, Helloween, Krusader, and Rhapsody of Fire. Progressive metal evolved in a similar way with bands like 30 Second to Mars, Dream Theater, Enchant, Haken, Liquid Tension Experiment, Porcupine Tree, Queensryche, Symphony X, Theocracy, so the two are often interchangeable. However the two subgenres are completely independent from one another, with a few notable differences. The first, is that prog metal bands incorporate whole, complex orchestras with all different kinds of classical instruments, whereas power metal bands don't incorporate orchestras but may have band members that play classical instruments, most commonly pianists and violinists. The second is that, even with the orchestras prog metal bands still retain more of a bluesy sound to it, whereas power metal bands play very epic, melodic music, the kind of epic you'd see in a lot of fantasy games. The third is that progressive metal bands tend use a single lead guitar for shredding, meaning that they play the lead guitar throughout most of the song, whereas power metal bands tend to save their guitar until the middle of their songs where they play long guitar solos often with two lead guitars instead of one. For instance, both Herman Li and Sam Totman have played lead guitars together in the power metal band Dragonforce, as well as the black metal band Demoniac. And the last difference is that power metal bands tend to speed up their drum beats in studios, giving it a much faster pase (So fast that the drummer would literally not be able that fast otherwise, no matter how good he/she was because the speed would be beyond human ability) whereas progressive metal bands don't. Dragonforce has become well known for this, so much that they've even gotten some undeserved criticism of being a talentless band that edits everything so it sounds good.
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'''Heavy metal''', usually abbreviated to '''metal''' is a loosely based genre generally characterized by its distorted electric guitar work, loudness, shock value, and experimentation with vigorous vocals. The origin of heavy metal music is unclear, but it most likely started in 1966 when Jimi Hendrix took influence from bluesy and psychedelic guitar work and incorporated them in his sound. Unfortunately, his band Jimi Hendrix Experience, only survived until 1969, because Jimi died from an intense overuse of drugs that year. Though he's deceased, his legacy became timeless. That same year a "triple band explosion" of Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Led Zeppelin followed Hendrix which further influenced the genre. Many other heavy metal bands and musicians who soon aided them in pioneering and progressing heavy metal for several years, including AC/DC, Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Cream, Def Leppard, Faster Pussycat, Foghat, Kansas, Kiss, Night Ranger, Quiet Riot, Scorpions, Ted Nugent,Van Halen, and Warrant, Z.Z. Top. These were among the first major heavy metal bands and their music has been called several things, including "Hard Rock" "Glam Metal" and "Hair Metal." Then the 80s came along and an event called the New Wave of British Heavy Metal happened, which sought to revive the early heavy metal music which, was declining due to the existing dance and pop music that seemed to be dominating. One could argue the movement was to Heavy Metal what the Punk Movement was to Rock & Roll, since the NWOBH bands were rougher and tougher than the early heavy metal, yet still sought to revive it. And like the Punk Movement, the NWOBH was short lived, but it was essential in the heavy metal timeline. After a few years the NWOBH movement ended up splitting into two new subgenres of metal, Thrash Metal and Power Metal, and Thrash Metal ended up giving way to Black Metal, the most extreme of all metals. Whereas Black Metal took influence from the thrash bands Venom, Celtic Frost, and Hellhammer, is generally characterized by chaotic drum beats, possessed vocals, often with diaphragm ussage, use of corpse paint, and meanings usually religion-based (Christianity, Paganism, and Christian-blasphemy are the most common). Notable black metal bands include Antestor, Bathory, Behemoth, Burzum, Emperor, Enslaved, Mayhem, Moonsorrow, Satyricon, Xasthur, and the musical projects of the musicians Gaahl and King ov Hell (Gaahlskaag, Godseed, Gorgoroth, and Trelldom). Thrash metal is generally characterized by violent vocals (aggression, death growls, etc.) and lyrics pertaining to Atheism and violence. The most famous and influencial thrash band of all time was Metallica, but other notable bands include Annihilator, Anthrax, Children of Bodom, Exodus, Megadeth, Motorhead, Sepultra, Slayer, and Testament. Officially, a genre called Death Metal exists and is separate from Thrash but it really shouldn't be because the only major difference between the two is that what is called "Death Metal" uses vocals that are just a bit more violent than that of what is called "Thrash Metal" but there Meanwhile, power metal was developing as well. Modern power metal is generally known for having nicer, fantastical song meanings, coincided with epic melodies and often the inclusion of band members who play classical instruments like strings and pianos. However, original power metal seemed to just be a milder side of thrash metal, still retaining aggression in its sound only a bit more melodic/, with bands like Blind Fury, Dream Evil, Judas Priest, Manowar, Metal Law, etc. During this time, power metal and thrash metal were still closely linked together through the NWOBH. Eventually power metal seemed to separate more musically from thrash metal, sounding less aggressive and incorporating strings, pianos, and other neoclassical instruments with bands like Dragonforce, Dragonland, Dream Theater, Enchant, Gamma Ray, Helloween, Krusader, Queensryche, and Rhapsody of Fire. Power metal bands also tend to be fairly long, often passing 15 minutes with ease. Now lets go back to 1969 with Black Sabbath for a second. They may have been a hard rock themselves but they were a key factor in the emergence of Doom/Sludge Metal, which is generally characterized by low temp guitar work, depressing lyrics (usually either about doomsday, drugs, or witchcraft) and low-pitched singing (in fact, Doom metal vocals are the closest thing Heavy Metal has come to normal singing). The first true doom metal band was probably Pentagram in the mid 70s, but other notable bands that followed him included Candlemass, Electric Magma, Electric Sun, Electric Wizard, Goatsnake, Reverend Bizarre, Saint Vitus, and Witchfinder General. Doom metal songs, like power metal songs tend to be long, but also very slow. Some have even made it past a whole hour. In this sense of duration, doom and power metal have that in common, but lyrically and musically, they're very different, practically opposite in fact. Take note that these are just the independent subgenres of heavy metal. There are other forms of heavy metal like progressive metal, gothic metal, pagan metal, and nu metal, but there more so concepts that are interchangeable with the metal subgenres than subgenres themselves.
==Heavy Metal Heroes==
==Heavy Metal Heroes==