A broader discussion of what constitutes HM

[GJ]

I think the important thing is not that much what music they listen to, but WHY do they listen to that music. I mean, I usually like a lot of non-metal listeners better than metalheads, because what¡s important to me is people who appreciate music by itself, and not because they wanna adopt certain image, belong to certain group or pick up certain chick. I would be dissapointed if a child of mine listens to metal just 'cause I do. I would want him/her to listen to whatever they like and truly enjoy.

I couldn't agree more. Thus, death to false true metal! Long live true false metal

[Korgüll]

Not really, more the broader discussion of what constitutes HM in the first place

aes·thet·ics
1. the branch of philosophy dealing with such notions as the beautiful, the ugly, the sublime, the comic, etc., as applicable to the fine arts, with a view to establishing the meaning and validity of critical judgments concerning works of art, and the principles underlying or justifying such judgments.

I think that this is over-analyzing dude.

This sums up HM for me:

Denim and Leather

Where were you in '79 when the dam began to burst
Did you check us out down at the local show
Were you wearing denim, wearing leather
Did you run down to the front
Did you queue for your ticket through the ice and snow

Denim and Leather
Brought us all together
It was you that set the spirit free
Denim and Leather
Brought us all together
It was you that set the spirit free

Did you read the music paper from the back and to the front
Did you find out where to see your favorite band
Did you listen to the radio every Friday night
Did hang around your local record store

Denim and Leather
Brought us all together
It was you that set the spirit free
Denim and Leather
Brought us all together
It was you that set the spirit free

Do you dream of playing guitar or smashing up the drums
Maybe you can learn to play the bass
You can always be a singer like me and front the band
When on the stage we wait at your command

Denim and Leather
Brought us all together
It was you that set the spirit free
Denim and Leather
Brought us all together
It was you that set the spirit free

It was you - that set the spirit free
It was you - that put us here today
It was you - that filled the concert halls
It was you - that set the spirit free

Denim and Leather
Brought us all together
It was you that set the spirit free
Denim and Leather
Brought us all together
It was you that set the spirit free

[GJ]

Saxon have always seemed to be a nice bunch of fellows (not touching the stronger stuff, settling for tea and all that).

And they were never nicer than in this line.

Maybe you can learn to play the bass

See there's hope for every one of us!

[Helm]

Actually the feeling of belonging in a subculture appears in all types of music. For me that's not HM (though the desire to be proactive and make your own band certainly is). It was the strong juxtaposition of the fantastic and the existential, of the superhuman and the humane, that made me love HM. Listening to 'Awaken the Guardian' back to back with say, 'Melissa' covers all the bases.

HM makes promises. It might not keep them but it puts you under that spell when you hear great HM. It's not just a rock n' roll party woohoo let's go out and get drunk and score some chicks. That's hard rock for me. There's dionysian HM as well, but it's in some Nietzschian '...leading to the palace of wisdom' form that excess is described in HM, not just decadent nowhere life-wasting. HM strives for meaning and if there's no meaning it will brand a meaning in the forge and it will BRAND the world with that meaning. Hm, I think about this a lot, it's a big discussion.

[DMR]

Helm, I think you should write a book about Heavy Metal.

[nightsblood]

HM makes promises. It might not keep them but it puts you under that spell when you hear great HM. It's not just a rock n' roll party woohoo let's go out and get drunk and score some chicks. That's hard rock for me.

By that reasoning bands like Venom, Exodus, Motorhead, etc are hard rock bands moreso than metal bands, which doesn't seem to fit with your earlier posts.
While Metal can indeed be inspiring/deep/intellectual, it can also be simple, party-hardy, & happy. It can be depressing, uplifting, cathartic, etc. I think a big part of Metal's durability over the decades is that it covers a wide range of possibilities both in how the music is structured and how it can emotionally impact the listener. It's not like punk or futurepop where the music has to be delivered in a set manner with a set 'emotional goal' in order to fit the genre. Metal is more varied, and thus has the potential to be more enduring, lasting in one form or another long after many genres run their course.
As far as 'what is metal'... you'll either have to nail it down in terms of musical structure, or leave the question open to the interpretation of the listener, 'cause one man's metal is another man's noise

[Helm]

Well my definition is only useful in my dialogue with myself essentially. I don't care for pretensions of 'objectivity' nor do I frankly understand where they come from.

What makes Motorhead or Venom HM bands is that they transgress and transcend the limits of party time music. It may not oftenseem so but they go deeper than just the party stuff. They have fun woo hoo rock n' roll songs, but they are also In League With Satan, or they Don't Wanna Live Forever. If they were just booze and chicks they'd be hard rock for me, for sure.

[GJ]

Well my definition is only useful in my dialogue with myself essentially. I don't care for pretensions of 'objectivity' nor do I frankly understand where they come from.

What makes Motorhead or Venom HM bands is that they transgress and transcend the limits of party time music. It may not oftenseem so but they go deeper than just the party stuff. They have fun woo hoo rock n' roll songs, but they are also In League With Satan, or they Don't Wanna Live Forever. If they were just booze and chicks they'd be hard rock for me, for sure.

Does this make bands like Rush, Uriah Heep, Blue Öyster Cult or Rainbow Heavy Metal in your mind?

[Piotr Sargnagel]

Sorry to butt in with my two cent's worth but I reckon that HM is difficult to define because HM is an infinity of paradoxes - it can be ham fisted but gentle, it can be exciting, it can be boring, it can go to the heights of philosophy and to the depths of infantilism, it can be gentle, it can be depraved, it can be satanic, christian, coptic, pagan, mono - poly - and non - theistic, it rejects order but it is chaotic lyrically while musically often being structured in a very simple way, it can be mazelike and complex musically while being childish and stupid lyrically - I much rather read Lemmy's lyrics than Steve Harris's (for example) but Steve's music is a lot more complex than Lemmy's. My conclusion is that the reason why it endures is because HM is everything and nothing, it is the totality of experience but it is also the void, thus it is very similar to life in its totality because every issue is expressed and explored from love to the very worst of hate and disgust (BM), every issue no matter how taboo is wallowed in but then we also have fantasy, swords 'n' dragons, HM is romantic, beautiful, ugly, loud, gentle, noisy, chaotic, orderly, sane, insane, stupid, genius.... etc etc - what other single genre of music is there, where a guitar, bass, drums and (optional) singer are all that is needed to give you that?

[nightsblood]

It is a type of music very popular in America where transient music trends roll over every 5 years and the new replaces the old. European metalheads with a more 'MY HEAVY METAL IS FOREVER' naive-romantic sort of sentiment resist the change and do not see the point of abandoning their old music for new ones (a sign of less consumer culture in Europe perhaps?).

Quick thought regarding this point; I can't relate to trends in Europe, but the ca. 5-yr 'music turnover' in AMerica is strongly correlated to the generation gap. Most americans start paying attention to music somewhere around age 12 and by the time they're out of high school their tastes are either set, or they start exploring other, older bands/genres. The new styles that constantly crop up are adopted not by all americans, but primarily by the new wave of teens and tweens who want to forge a musical identity unique from what was popular before their time. There may be a component of consumerism wired into that mentality, but I think the predominant factor in young americ ans latching onto new musical styles is that they want something that distinguishes them; they don't want to listen to the same bands their older siblings did. As folks get older, some of them start to pick up on some of that older music and realize it's enjoyable, but in the formative years I *think" the driving force is to establish their own identity, rather than follow trends of previous generations or to feed an adolescent consumer impulse.

[Helm]

The urge to be distinct has for a long time been abused by marketers in the US by tying distinctive personality with product. "You need this to be yourself" I do suggest checking out "The Century of Self" on youtube, it's a very interesting read on these matters. Isn't it telling how most musical subcultures preach that 'one has to be themselves' and then they all dress in the same 'music uniform'? Somebody is profiting from selling culture as product, if you're interested this is a big discussion, and HM, while less than other forms of popular music, also promotes consumerism. So what you're saying is true, but it's not a different effect, it all comes from the consumerist mentality.

Piotr: HM is full of contradictions sure, but for me it's not 'everything and nothing'. I see no usefulness in such a non-definition. My definition is mutable as it is, but I do see some constants into what makes great HM: clarity of vision, honesty of execution and overreaching pathos. The vision is usually transgressive (for the Dionysians) or transcending (for the Apollonians) but a great and important vision it is. "Humble" is not a word in the HM dictionary. "Mediocrity" has no place in it. The honesty goes to say that irony and facetiousness as far as I've noticed, does not bode well with HM, it wears its heart on it sleeve. It may be stupid or smart, but it is honest (compare this for example with new wave or gothic rock or pop or -ugh- 'retro metal' and notice how much irony goes into the making of these things). If you are having doubts that the person singing believes on some level in what he's singing, then you're probably not listening to HM. Finally if you listen to a HM record and there isn't a super passionate execution involved, you're probably not listening to real HM but something that sounds like it.

Seriously, check these things against your favourite bands and see if they work. A HM band worthy of the title makes great promises (show you how to live, show you happiness, you will never die, or on the other end life has no inherent meaning, there is no god, you have to create meaning yourself, you are just meat, align with the forces of darkness: all these things are promises: promises of a higher concept that is important to the artist and -hopefully- to the listener as well) is usually esoterically consistent while extrovertly extremely contradictory and is the product of very strong, life-altering desire for the people involved. I am very aware that under this definition, 70% of what is commonly called 'metal' isn't Heavy Metal. And that's just fine. Fuckin tin foil is also a metal but nobody should give a shit about such a weak-ass easy-to-bend compromise of a metal. MOLTEN STEEL HARDENS INTO THE SPEAR, that's what I'm in this for. I am interested in the essentials, not just gobbling down product after product. After I'm 'done' with researching HM I will be left with 100 records or so, that's all I'll need.

GJ: Rush and Rainbow were at time EXTREMELY HEAVY FUCKIN' METAL. The thing is that they weren't very consistent so I would call them proto-metal at best, certainly an inspiration for the full-time HM bands that came after. They also ventured in various other contexts. Blue Oyster Cult were, reportedly, very ironic in their lyric department so the jury's out on that one. I am not very familiar with any other record but 'Magician's Birthday' from Uriah Heep so I am not in place to answer this.

[nightsblood]

No doubt that subcultures are conformist while preaching deviation from the status quo; this has amused me to no end over the years given that I'm about as un-metal looking as possible. And no doubt that marketers take advantage of young people's drive to establish their own identity with everything from goofy Ipod cases to wacky watches, shoes, etc. Still, I think the driving force is the desire to establish a unique identity, not a drive to purchase goods and services (although such consumerism is often seen as one pathway to obtaining the desired identity, whether you're talking about a 15-yr-old girl wanting a Prada bag or a 15 yr-old boy wanting Metal God status by owning every available Metal album he can get).
I may be stretching here, but maybe the same turnover in music trends isn't seen in Europe b/c Europeans don't feel as compelled to establish a unique identity? Perhaps this relates to Europeans having a more developed sense of history, so they're more 'comfortable' sticking to the styles of the past. This doesn't necessarily reflect a lower Consumer Impulse in Europeans, it would only indicate that Europeans aren't as interested in new trends 9they could still spend tons of money purchasing materials related to 'old trends'; I think we all know some european metalheads that this would apply to ). Again, just thinking out loud; any of the europeans hereabouts can chime in and point out any errors I've made.

[Helm]

Well yeah I'm sure Europe is very consumery too, but I don't think as much as in the US.

[Piotr Sargnagel]

Helm - you are, of course correct in much of what you say. I guess my definition of Metal (and there would need to be a proper sociological/"anthropological" study of Metal fans and bands done - better than the Headbanger's Journey film to give you a proper definition) was somewhat superficial. The answer to the question constitutes a doctoral thesis, I actually can't answer it! I know when something is Heavy Metal and I know why it moves me - it's the riffs, sound, attitude, I can't go deeper than that really in this small space, sorry but I am pleased to be able to read your explanation - it is excellent and deserving of more thought on your part - a book would indeed be a good idea!

[Helm]

I plan on a blog, but not a book. This isn't really an explored area in popular culture and there are things to be said. The only thing that worries me is that this is the internet and the internet is mostly Negativeland. People will hate me just for having opinions (no matter how much I exclaim that they're subjective and purely mine) and will try to bring any communicative endeavour I put forth down just for the fun of hammering the outstanding nail down.