A Mess of Metal Sub-Genres

Here is an essay that I wrote recently concerning the classification of Heavy Metal. If anyone feels the same (or otherwise) send me a message and maybe we can discuss it further.

Author's Note: I LOVE Heavy Metal, along with rock (in nearly any form) its' my fav. genre so don't even begin to think that I'm bashing here.

HammerFall RULES :) (Sorry, had to put that in :)


A Mess of Metal Sub-Genres

When people go to stores to buy movies, they can expect to find whatever film they’re looking for in it’s own ‘genre-labelled’ stand. The criteria for classifying movies are not only clearly defined, but also logical and common knowledge to everyone, but what happens when the same people visit a CD-Shop?
At first the system seems flawless. The CDs are divided into the main genres, and then smaller sub-genres arranged alphabetically. Everything is fine, isn’t it? It would only seem that way. In reality, all those sub-genres of contemporary music are mere formalities since neither musicians nor music critics agree upon them. Musicians continue combining genres and sub-genres, thus creating new ones in such a way that in the end, no one knows ‘what’ makes ‘who’ go ‘where’. This simply means that neither fans, nor shopkeepers really know what these sub-genres exemplify, so any clarification or order that the classification was supposed to bring is lost in the confusion.
To illustrate this, it is better to use examples in an art form that we all know and is well defined rather than those of contemporary music, otherwise this paper too would get sucked down into the well of uncertainties and mistakes of contemporary music classification. So returning to the film store example, Science-Fiction is a genre of film. Sub-genres of science fiction would then be things like Space Fantasy, Alien Invasion, Cyborg or others. Though these may not be common knowledge (i.e. Not every one knows these genres by name), deciding whether a film is an Alien Invasion or a Cyborg movie isn’t too hard. When compared to the classification system of contemporary music, however, some of the deficiencies are already evident. For instance, if Jazz is a main genre of contemporary music and Free jazz, Latin jazz or Bebop are some of its sub-genres, can an average person tell the difference? Unlike film genres, where the name itself is enough to define its characteristics, defining a music genre is a much more complicated process.
On the whole the main genres such of contemporary music such as Jazz, Rap, or Dance are usually quite clear and distinguishable like in film, and their differences are obvious to anyone, but the further breakdown of these main genres into smaller sub-genres becomes problematic. One genre where this is clearly evident is heavy metal.
To illustrate this, we can compare two definitions of the same sub-genre of heavy metal from different sources. Take speed metal for example, it can either be ‘a heavy metal sub-genre combining fast melodic riffs, a clean sound, extended guitar solos and shrieking vocals’ (Wikipedia ) or ‘heavy metal that is exceptionally harsh and fast’. (Houghton-Mifflin Dictionary) Ignoring the fact that the second definition is simply too vague and short, we can already see that the two sources have completely different definitions for what should be the same thing.
In his book Sound of the Beast: A Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Hetal, Ian Christe attempts to classify the most famous heavy metal bands into what he calls ‘genre boxes’, but in the foreword of the book depicting the history of Heavy Metal, he clearly states what he believes is the reason for the uncertainty of any such classification. According to Christe, who is a heavy metal songwriter and musician, the inability of critics to ‘grasp the genre’ has made the current classification system inefficient.
The Junk , who runs the Metallurgy Radio show, unsurprisingly has a different opinion about the matter. He is in a constant argument over metal classification because of the simple fact that he has to allocate time slots for each sub-genre for his show. He repeatedly argues that the nature of heavy metal makes this sort of classification a waste of time and that the way the genre has evolved and the people who it concerns are only fuelling the confusion that is already there. The true reason is inherently somewhere in between. It is the confusion between musicians and music critics that makes classifying this sort of music into sub-genres a waste of time.
In order to understand why heavy metal sub-genres are so loosely defined, unclear and not agreed upon, it is probably a good idea to go back into its history. It may also help us understand what caused this confusion between musicians and critics and what effects it had on the genre.
Heavy metal was pioneered by the band Earth, which later changed its name to that of their most famous song ‘Black Sabbath’. In 1967, Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Bill Ward and Terence Butler had taken what was then known as hard rock to the next level. By combining heavily distorted and down-tuned guitars, a double base drum and most importantly dark almost cult-like lyrics, they had started a completely new and unique genre. For the next couple of years, more bands began to adopt Black Sabbath’s style. They took the basic characteristics of heavy metal that Black Sabbath came up with and started adding their own, although everything was still combined under the banner of ‘Heavy Metal’.
‘In the late 1970’s, NWOBHM (New Wave of British Heavy Metal) emerged in part as a reaction to the decline of traditional heavy metal bands such as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath’. (Wikipedia) NWBOHM was comprised of six bands, namely Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, Girlschool, Judas Priest, Saxon and Diamond Head, who each took a particular aspect of the heavy metal genre and specialized in it. They had become so ranged both in terms of music and style that creating separate sub-genres was a necessity.
For example, Iron Maiden, decided to combine singing in falsetto, epic lyrics and power chords played at high speeds with catchy clear melodies to form what they called ‘Power Metal’. Their bassist, Steve Harris, describes it as: not being ‘interested in all of the bitching and moaning at governments or trying to make a statement about loudness… We wanted to take the fantasy aspect of heavy metal and write music that fit that style.’ (Harris 16)
Def Leppard, took glam rock (wild costumes and extravagant stage performance) and combined it with the louder and darker sound of heavy metal. This became what is ‘Hair Metal’ today. “‘Hair Metal’ is more about looks than the other metal (sub) genres’. (Hysteria DVD)
These were just two of the six sub-genres that also included ‘Thrash’, ‘Death Metal’ ‘Speed Metal’ and ‘Grindcore’, but one can clearly see the differences between just the two mentioned earlier. One would think that the new genres would provide some clarity in people’s minds. They did. The problem was that only for a very short time.
Before NWOBHM, heavy metal wasn’t divided into sub-genres and its sound was so unique that anyone could tell what heavy metal was and wasn’t. This meant that critics had absolutely no problem describing heavy metal and placing bands into this category. After NWOBHM, they now suddenly had six sub-genres to work with. The good aspect of this was that there was always that one band that started each sub-genre that music could be compared to before classification, but it was also the impulse that eventually pushed the system on a downwards spiral.
During the 1980s, the heavy metal genre went through its boom and its popularity soared. Smaller bands started coming up with their own genres, taking a bit here and a bit there, always specializing beyond the NWBOHM bands. Furthermore, even the NWOBHM bands, which had by now released nearly ten albums, began to stray from their initial concept. They too had to evolve and as they did, critics lost their footing. Not only were there tens of new genres, but they no longer had a ‘defining’ band to go by. To solve this, they tried to come up with a set of characteristics for each sub-genre. Again, they tried to do so by picking out bands that they felt best represented each sub-genre and taking their features.
This is what musicians like Ian Christe believe was the main problem. As previously mentioned, it is the case where the critics ‘failed to grasp’ the nature of heavy metal. They failed to realize that these bands too would continue evolving. The system had to be changed fundamentally, which didn’t happen. ‘Help could be, but rarely is forthcoming from the critics; however hotly they proclaim their lip service to the “contemporary cause”’ (Hartog 14) Rather than trying to individually make sense of it all, they should have gone into talks with musicians and come up with a universal set of traits. As it was, critics, but not even critics as a whole but individual ones, had their own system, while musicians had theirs and the block between the two parties had begun.
To set a final nail into the coffin of heavy metal classification, the popularity of heavy metal declined by the 90s’. In order to appeal to a narrowing audience, bands immediately began to ‘bridge’ sub-genres, creating the critic’s nightmare of ‘slash’ bands. This started the age where an average heavy metal band would be described in a combination of usually no less than three sub-genres such as Power/Death/Doom Metal because they ‘cannot be pigeon-holed into one (sub)genre, but rather cross the lines of two or more..’ (The Junk ).
When this ‘slash’ era began, the whole issue was brought around ‘full circle’. The entire point of a classification system isn’t so that you can give a band a ‘category title’. First and foremost, classification should help fans (the people who buy the product and fuel the whole system) find what they are looking for. It should be a way of helping them sift through the endless amount of music that is available. If they like a particular type of music or a particular musician, they should be able to consult that section of the music store and find music similar to what they like. If bands and musicians are in the wrong place, then there is some hope that the ‘right place’ can be found somewhere, and there, the person can still find what they are looking for. But if bands are not only in the wrong place, but belong in around three places at the same time, this attempt to ‘help’ fans isn’t helping at all. Thus, what had started as merely confusion between musicians and music critics, has now made classifying heavy metal into sub-genres useless.
This in no way applies only to heavy metal. Other genres of contemporary music genre seem to have gone through a similar evolution. A genre is pioneered by a single or few individuals and its main characteristics are set. It becomes popular, so in order to survive in the increasing market, the musicians specialize. They take individual characteristics and center their music upon them, specializing in one particular aspect or trying something completely new. In order to ‘catch’ these new trends, critics create sub-genres and begin classifying the music beyond just the main genre. But as the popularity wanes and bands begin losing fans, they start combining many sub-genres and whatever system there may have been in the first place is lost.
A quick look at the history of Rock shows that the heavy metal example definitely is no rarity. When Rock developed from Rock n’ Roll in the 1960s’, it also started with a very unique sound. Bands like the Beatles brought fame to the genre and soon it had begun to expand, very much like Heavy Metal. Today, there are tens of sub-genres of rock and be it, Glam Rock, Garage Rock, Psychedelic Rock, Acid Rock, Soft Rock, Hard Rock, Pop Rock, Punk Rock or even Indie Rock, it is just as hard to imagine anything defining behind the names as it is with metal.
David Ewen, a world-renowned classical music critic, has a definition of contemporary music that seems to explain why classifying it just doesn’t and can’t work: ‘…modern (contemporary) music… signifies discordant, disordered music… disrespectful of discipline and form and… goes through such a rapid rate of change that observers have had no time to take a breath and identify the trends with any certainty.’ (Ewen ix)
Now, when one looks back to the CD-Shop, the confusion absolutely makes sense. No wonder nothing is where it should be. How can a shopkeeper put CDs on stands with such a classification system? If he looks up the artist on the cover and gets something like ‘Thrash/Prog Metal’, where is he supposed to put the CD? What if a different web-site or magazine has something completely different like ‘Grindcore’? Does he put it in the Thrash section, the Prog Metal section or the Grindcore section? Should he start not only dividing his stands into sub-genres but also combinations of sub-genres? But if he tried that, wouldn’t some combinations be just too obscure? So where should he put a one-of-a-kind band? It’s a never-ending dilemma. The fact that these questions arise isn’t a problem in of itself, but the lack of answers is what cements this idea of the futility of classifying all contemporary music. Music is an evolving medium and if the classification system doesn’t evolve with it, this is exactly what we are left with: a mess or metal sub-genres.













Bibliography

Christe, Ian. “Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal”. Harper Paperbacks. Feb. 2004

Ewen, David. “The World of Twentieth Century Music”. W. W. Norton. 1991

Harris, Steve. “Run to the Hills: Iron Maiden, the Authorized Biography”. (Contributions: Mick Wall, Chris Ingham) Sanctuary Publishing. Oct. 2004

Hartog, Howard - European Music in the Twentieth Century. Greenwood Press. 1993

Houghton-Mifflin Free Encyclopaedia, “Speed Metal”

Hysteria – The Def Leppard Story DVD

Metallurgy Radio Show (http://www.geocities.com/metallurgy44/ )

The History of Rock n’ Roll Sixth DVD. Bonton DVDs. Interviews (The Junk)

The Norton/Grove Concise Encyclopaedia of Music (Edited: Stanley Sadie)

Wikipedia Online Encyclopaedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-genre, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_metal, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_metal ) “speed metal”, “power metal”



Obviously, you can't listen to the CD here, but if you know anything about Heavy Metal, you'll probably be familiar with the tracks mentioned.

Appendix
CD1
The origins…
Track 1 – Born To Be Wild – Steppenwolf (Origin of the term ‘Heavy Metal’ in the lyrics ‘heavy metal thunder’)
Track 2 – Black Sabbath – Earth (So-called ‘1st heavy metal song’)

Some Sub-Genres (NWOBHM)…

Track 3 – Hallowed Be Thy Name – Iron Maiden (NWOBHM song that defined ‘Power Metal’)
Track 4 – Two Steps Behind – Def Leppard (Example of ‘Hair Metal’ song by NWOBHM band)
Track 5 – The Hellion-Electric Eye – Judas Priest (One of the first ‘Speed Metal’ songs by its creator band)
Track 6 – Am I Evil? – Diamond Head (Combined elements of Punk to establish the ‘thrash’ sound. Large influences for future trademark Thrash bands such as Metallica or Megadeath)

And now for the mess…

Track 7 – Touch Like Angel of Death – Children of Bodom (This Scandinavian band is often described as Power/Death/Speed Metal and this song [the only one which we heard in class] shows how hard it would be to pigeon-hole the band into only one genre)
Track 8 – Living Dead Beat – Children of Bodom (The scary part, though, is that songs like this would [from the same band!] probably be put in the realm of ‘Thrash’…. You figure…)
Track 9 –Dreams Come True – Hammerfall (Songs like these, similar to the song ‘liberty’ we heard in class that had lyrics like ‘the sky is blue’ or in this case ‘kiss me once/twice… dreams come true’, show that metal is much more broad a genre than many people thing and putting music like this into a sub-genre that is made up of mostly fast songs [epic or not] just seems wrong)
Track 10 – Nothing Else Matters – Metallica (Metallica is probably one of the few bands that have stuck to their original concept and one genre, [thrash] but what about this song? Probably their most famous song, isn’t really Thrash at all)
Track 11 – Death Whispered a Lullaby – Opeth (Again, this is very different from the ‘growling’ supercharged ‘Death Metal’ yet is death metal nonetheless)

But these were just the main sub-genres… What about where the genre is heading and obscurity?

CD2
Track 1 – From The Inside – Linkin Park (The most recent metal genre ‘rap-metal’ or ‘nu-metal’ takes a lot out of Thrash, but the integration of rapping takes the genre in a complataly different [and hopefully very temporary ] direction)
Track 2 – Fugue – Yngwie Malmsteen
Track 3 – Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony – Steve Vai
Track 4 – Paganini Paraphrase – Uli Jon Roth (It is true that Heavy Metal originally drew a lot from classical music, but when virtuoso guitarists like Malmsteen, Vai, Roth or Van Halen combine heavy metal with outright classical music… again something very different from what we perceive as heavy metal. A new genre maybe?)
Track 5 – Tain Bo Cuailgne – Cruachan (Then we get genres like ‘Viking Metal’, ‘Funeral Doom’ or in this case ‘Celtic Metal’ that are simply too obscure for anybody to keep track)
Track 6 – B.Y.O.B. – System of a Down
Track 7 – Chop Suey! – System of a Down (SOAD is often described as ‘Alternative Metal’ which could be considered as critics’ inability to classify them.)

And if this may be messy, add varying looks (religious, glam, cultural, reaper/death) lyrics and attitude and you are again left with the mess of metal sub-genres.