Music Genre: Rock or Heavy Metal ? (1 Viewer)

[kevin_asai]

Hi guys,

Can you tell me how to differentiate a rock song and a heavy metal song.

I am lousy at it :b

 

[Tim Hoover]

If it has double bass drums or lots of screaming, it's heavy metal

 

[MickeS]

Heavy Metal has chugging guitars, like "chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga".

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

I tend to see the difference in emphasis on melody versus emphasis on rhythm. While this obviously isn't a hard and fast rule- it's a good guideline.

A "hard rock" song usually is guitar heavy, and often features a vocal hook and guitar part based largely in melodic content.

A "heavy metal" song is also guitar heavy, but usually lacks that radio-esque vocal melody hook and the guitar/music is usually less melodically dense and shifts emphasis on the music's rhythmic content.

This is, of course, not to say Metal lacks melody (many bands excel at it)-- but generally if you listen to a heavy metal guitar refrain- you won't so much hum it as you'll remember the rhythm (think Metallica's SAD BUT TRUE)-- where as "hard rock" material you tend to remember the tune of the main vocal or guitar hook.

-Vince

 

[Louis C]

Heavy Metal - much courser and less melodic than hard rock; as already stated, hard rock conforms closer to traditional song structure than heavy metal.

Hard Rock - "Dogs" by Pink Floyd
Heavy Metal - "Enter Sandman" by Metallica

 

[Angelo.M]

I think the distinctions, although at times useful and meaningful, are arbitrary. Using some of the criteria suggested in previous posts, it would be hard to classify bands such as Led Zeppelin, who really straddled the borders between genres (one could argue, in the case of Zeppelin, that they were a hard rock band that invented the genre of heavy metal).

In a similar vein, the distinctions between rock and punk are difficult to make when thinking about bands like the Velvet Underground and (early) Talking Heads. The distinctions between rock, metal, punk and other genres like grunge are nearly impossible to discern when thinking about Nirvana and the Pixies.

Just some thoughts,

AM

 

[Jeff Kohn]

One good rule of thumb, if it gets significant radio play, it's not really metal. (At least not around here).

 

[Fletch]

it depends on how old you are.

 

[Wayne Bundrick]

Hard Rock - "Dogs" by Pink Floyd
Heavy Metal - "Enter Sandman" by Metallica

Good example, "Dogs" is one of my favorite songs ever. Definitely hard rock, the whole "Animals" album is the hardest ever to come from Pink Floyd. Listen to David Gilmour's double-tracked guitar solos which bookend the bulk of the song "Dogs". That's hard rock.

"Enter Sandman", yeah I guess that's heavy metal but it's getting close to hard rock. Drop back to the "... And Justice For All" album for definite heavy metal. That album has something else I consider a characteristic of heavy metal: really fast guitar solos.

Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train" featuring the late Randy Rhoads on guitar. That's heavy metal.

Here's a question for the experts: how do you characterize Tool's "Lateralus" album?

 

[John-Miles]

Now see I would ahve classified songs like Crazy train and enter Sandman as hard rock not heavy metal.

and personally i think the most obvious band which straddles the line between rock and Heavy metal is Metallica. you can look at songs like Dyers eve, sad but true, Battery, Fight fire with fire, and whiplash, among many many others and say the band and music is heavy metal, however like Vince pointed out with the melody there are other songs which I personally dont consider to be heavy metal such as The Unforgiven, nothing else matters, Outlaw Torn, and many others. then there are some which seem to be completly on the border. Many bands think that for music to be heavy metal there must be screaming and not singing, and this is so not true, infact i personally find that the best metal songs i have ever heard involve more singing than screaming. take for example Mercyful fate, personally i cant stand King Diamond, but he sings, he dosent scream.

As a side note i think i should point out that i personally dont see how someone can claim Zepplin created heavy metal, it may have been heavy metal at the time, but the fathers of modern day heavy metal are definitely Black Sabbath, those guys are amazing.

 

[Tim Hoover]

Here's a question for the experts: how do you characterize Tool's "Lateralus" album?

Hmmm... progressive heavy metal?

 

[mike_decock]

Rock: Slutty Groupies
Metal: Sleazy Groupies

-Mike...

 

[Evan S]

You just know if it's heavy metal or you don't. It's a gift few of us have. It's a power not to be taken lightly.

There is also no such thing as a Heavy Metal band. There are only Heavy Metal songs. Even "metal" acts like Ozzy have non-heavy metal songs in their repetoire. Songs like "Mr. Crowley" and "Mama I'm Coming Home".

Like mentioned before, Metallica is a classic example of this. Much of their earlier stuff is classic Metal, while most of their recent work is more hard rock oriented.

It's a vibe, a feeling. Metal bleeds the eardrums, hard rock makes you want to play air guitar. Best way I can describe it.

By the way, both are awesome...I have no bias pro or con with either one.

 

[Rich Malloy]

I think it all comes down to the relative degree of hairspray usage.

 

[Mike Broadman]

Keep in mind that the definitions change. Alice Cooper and AC/DC were considered heavy metal, now many think of them as "hard rock." Most people think of thrash when they think of the word "metal."

 

[Jeff Kohn]

Part of the problem is that "metal" is a very broad category, not a narrow genre. I mean, just some of the sub-categories with their own distinctive sound would be:
speed/thrash metal
power metal
progressive metal
black metal
death metal
not to mention even more narrow genres such as gothic, neoclassical, fantasy, doom, etc. And it's not at all unusual for bands to have charecteristics of more than one of these categories. And I'm not even going to talk about so-called "nu-metal" because IMHO for the most part it's pure crap by talentless posers.
To me the thing that would really define heavy metal is the rhythm guitars, which tend to be distorted and have that crunchy sound to them. Heavy metal doesn't necessarily have to be lightning fast, just, well, heavy. For instance I would consider much of Metallica's Black album or Megadeth's Countdown to Extinction to be heavy metal, while Rust In Peace is more speed/thrash IMO. Iced Earth would probably be another very heavy band, though they've never gotten the exposure of some of the more mainstream bands.
It almost seems like a moot point though, because here in the US it seems like metal is pretty much dead thanks to the big record labels and their total dominance of the industry and radio stations along with Clear Channel (spawn of satan).
BTW, I was at the ProgPower festival in Atlanta last weekend. THAT was metal.

 

[Jeff Kohn]

BTW I wouldn't say that metal can't be melodic, in fact IMHO some of the best metal will have well-written melodies. In fact "melodic power metal" is a pretty popular genre in other other countries that I happen to like and would include bands such as Edguy, Blind Guardian, Hammerfall, etc.

 

[Fletch]

Usually if a song is classified as heavy metal on Monday,by Wednesday it s classic rock,by Friday it s bubblegum and by Sunday it ends up a hymn at church.

 

[MickeS]

Fletch,

 

[Terry St]

This is how I used to draw the line: Rock sticks in the same time signature whereas metal tends to change the signature a fair bit. Ergo, you could dance to rock, but not to metal. While a rock n' roll beat is still the core of hard rock, metal would have more in common with classical music.

These days I just wish stores would cut it out with the frigging categories. I'm sick of going to third floor jazz looking for Tom Waits only to find his ugly arse back on the first floor in the pop section!