Simply see no sense in that WASP would be a gateway band... Further you could say Metallica mostly ripped off some NWOBHM bands as far as riffs go in the beginning couldn't you. Quote by Daniel
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Metallica ripping off there predecessors... I say no. EVEN THE MOST ORIGINAL bands are derivitive. I guess influence and true insipration are in the ears of the beholder. I am not one to ignore a band, because they have the dam near same record collection I have. Especially in Metallica's case most of there influences were my favorite bands in 1980/1981/1982.
My thing against most bands who are hard rock and heavy metal hybrids, is they sound "dated" to me. I started way early with the NWOBHM....and I just got to the point where I did not think there was POWER metal, because metal should have POWER and I did not think there was thrash metal. Because I just consider thrash metal, as heavy metal at its natural pace, at its normal pace.
When I heard something like "Kill em all" ..."Show No Mercy"...."Fistful of Metal" and ..."Bonded by Blood"....I was just like yeah, this is the way it should be, because it seemed at the time alot of hard rock was getting slower, and slower. and heavy metal was going through its golden age of extreme metal say '79 - '86.
I always hated those albums with 9 radio songs and 1 fast paced crowd pleaser. I like bands who did 9 face melting crunchers with one song for the radio.
....I do remember poor WASP being picked on by the P.M.R.C...I think they were in a classification of the filthy 15 or filthy 50....
Thanks for the want list for many of rockers and metallers, back then !!!!!! I thought it was funny on person on that PMRC thing was called
GORE 
