jbc

What are the characteristics that define the two music forms? In my experience its not metal unless the lead singer is growling.

Janszoon

It's true there are a lot of forms of metal where growling is the norm, but there are also quite a few others where the singing is almost operatic. So I don't think that's the best way of classifying metal.

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jbc

What is mettal? What is rock?

punkrawker07

i don't know how you would really sum the two up. rock is a vast genre with many different sub genres. metal depends on a few factors too and has all it's own sub-genres too. to me it's the whole sound that makes it metal. that depends on era to. i've seen motley crue, poison, whitesnake, etc. classified as metal but i wouldn't consider it metal at all.

some of the things, in my opinion anyways, that make music metal is that a lot of the time metal bands will use a drop tuning to make it deeper, thicker, more eerie, loud type sound. a lot of bass double kicking on the drums is used as well. it more or less has a thicker, heavier sound than the majority of rock bands.

every one has a differing opinions on what's metal though. you might say a band is metal where i would say it was more rock so there really is easy way to class it. again i think the time it was produced plays a big factor because a lot of old "metal" would be considered hard rock by today's standards as metal has evolved into heavier and faster beats today. don't know if this helps at all.

punkrawker07

devildriver, system of a down, black sabbath, the agonist, the agony scene, megadeth - metal

godsmack, papa roach, nickelback, ac/dc - rock

Obombration

Are you for real or what?System of a down is metal?That is the funniest thing i've heard for a while.Apparently agonist and agony scene are metalcore,according to metal-archives.Your choice of bands to describe the epic journey that is metal disturbs me greatly.Sabbath and Megadeth...my granny could name those.

I personally think 2 things seperate metal from rock:complexity and heaviness.

Proper metal is complex,nuanced music.It has layers,and depth.It is played by skilled musicians,alot of whom are masters,and are peers of master classical musicians. Anybody can play rock,and even make a living from it.There are plenty of rock bands that make it big because of marketability,not talent. Like i said,anybody can play rock,it doesn't take alot of talent,just look at the charts.That's not to say there aren't rockers who are good enough to play metal music,there are plenty i'm sure.But you won't see meg white or the drummer from good charlotte playing any Tomas Haake material any time soon.

Heaviness is probably subjective but i think it is fairly easy to identify.Where you draw the line,who knows.It is blurred now by sub-genres such as post-rock/metal and post-hardcore.I think that is why people use myriad sub-genres to describe music.What is Isis,Tool,Fates Warning,Buried Inside?I call them all metal,because they have all done heavy,complex material,and to call them rock belittles them in my eyes.But plenty of people swear that Tool,Isis and Fates Warning are not metal bands.But to list in the same genre as Nickelback?No thanks.

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Janszoon

I don't think it has to be complex and it definitely doesn't have to be nuanced to be metal. In fact a lot of metal has it's appeal in it's lack of nuance.

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Obombration

Everything i said was in comparison to rock music,not stand alone

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Embracethedeath

I'm guessing your a fan of Deathspell Omega?

Anyway, what you said has some truth to it, but I don't think metal is differentiable solely because of talent and complexity. Tons of doom metal bands aren't really complex or talented in the slightest, yet they're obviously still metal. Its really quite hard to make a clear cut line between rock and metal, but I would just say heaviness separates the two. Nothing more, nothing less.

Janszoon

Metal is also directly descended from rock so a lot of metal is really just a subgenre of the gigantic umbrella genre that is rock. It's only when you start talking about a band like Sunn 0))) that I think you're talking about a type of metal that isn't rock.

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