Music Genre Explanations

OK, I have to be honest--I don't really know metal genres very well, and when you google them you get differing opinions. My digital music collection is basically organized into the secular & Christian versions of Easy-Listening, Rock, Metal and Thrash. Any metal music that primarily features non-song vocals goes into thrash.

So...
1) is there a thread on the CMR explaining this,
2) can you point me to a site you trust, or
3) list them here so I don't make a fool of myself on posts?

Thanks! 

Metal-archives.com might be your best bet.

Metal archives doesn't have hard rock, prog rock, metalcore, hardcore or nu-metal. Some bands make it because they were early influences to metal though.

It definitely has everything else though.

That’s true, but I don’t know a place that has all the others. Maybe heavyharmonies.com?

Here's one that includes many more genres than metal-archives.com does. They actually go album-by-album with a band's genre as they change over time. I don't agree with every description that they have (or all of metal-archives') but it's fairly accurate most of the time IMO.

http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/

I just found this video which I think does a good job of showcasing the most common metal genres:



Here are some iconic Christian metal bands that have an album that falls into one of these genres in a very specific way:

Antestor - black metal (The Return of the Black Death)
Deliverance - thrash metal (Weapons of our Warfare)
Crimson Thorn - death metal (Unearthed)
Theocracy - power metal (all of them, though with some progressive-ness thrown in there too)

Categorizing various bands or albums into a particular genre can be hard since so many fit into multiple buckets, so there's always some degree of subjectivity to it. But there's also some objectivity, because no one can rightly claim that Stryper has ever made a black metal album, lol.

CrimsonWarrior wrote:I just found this video which I think does a good job of showcasing the most common metal genres:

Here are some iconic Christian metal bands that have an album that falls into one of these genres in a very specific way:

Antestor - black metal (The Return of the Black Death)
Deliverance - thrash metal (Weapons of our Warfare)
Crimson Thorn - death metal (Unearthed)
Theocracy - power metal (all of them, though with some progressive-ness thrown in there too)

Categorizing various bands or albums into a particular genre can be hard since so many fit into multiple buckets, so there's always some degree of subjectivity to it. But there's also some objectivity, because no one can rightly claim that Stryper has ever made a black metal album, lol.

Very nice. That was helpful, but it'd be more helpful to have one with Christian bands, as I know secular music even less than Christian! 

I'm familiar with Weapons and Theocracy. But I'll listen to the other two you mention. And I'm reading metalmusicarchives right now!

Thanks everyone. I'll submit a self-quiz in a few days and you can mark me.

Can't believe I forgot this one.
Another site with a pretty good breakdown of genres.

http://www.bnrmetal.com/v5/main/home

I'd add that it's also a matter of experience over time. At first I couldn't have told you the difference between black metal and death metal if my life depended on it. Now I could probably do it, even though I don't listen to those subgenres.

Thanks all. Soon I'll be a metal connoisseur, and not just a drinker!

CrimsonWarrior wrote:no one can rightly claim that Stryper has ever made a black metal album, lol.

Tracii Guns can.

It's hard to describe music with words.

Frankly I find most descriptions of genres to be inaccurate.

Using more musical terminology helps, as does being a musician.

Temple of Blood wrote:It's hard to describe music with words.

Frankly I find most descriptions of genres to be inaccurate.

Using more musical terminology helps, as does being a musician.

That’s true. It can explain what you’re hearing with different types of music. (E.g. what makes a thrash metal riff what it is).

What most people call "power metal" I call "flower metal".

What most people call "black metal" I don't think is "metal" at all.

What most people call "prog" I don't think is progressive.

I don't see speed metal and thrash metal as very important disctinctions.

A lot of metal genres are stupid because they describe music that is not distinct enough or even worth discussion:  "war metal", for example.

People invent new genres nowadays just to pretend that their music is ultra-creative and ground-breaking.

Very true about prog. To be “progressive” should not mean copying Dream Theater circa 1990ish.

I like organizing my offline music collection into larger genres so that playing on "shuffle" will play larger groups of songs. It's worked very well for the last 20 years! My rough definitions have been: 

Easy Listening = all clean guitars
Rock = some overdriven guitars, very few gtr solos
Metal = distortion gtr rhythm, vocals are sung
Thrash = vocals are non-sung

I may add a genre or two now that I'm getting back into discovering music; perhaps a Nu-thrash and Nu-metal. 

However, I do want to learn what the genre designations mean to the majority of listeners so I can dialogue more intelligently on music. For example, when Pethead describes Becoming the Archetype as Progressive/Melodic Death Metal/Metalcore (and let's forget that he copied that directly from The Metal Archives) I want to be able to rise to his level of musical superiority and prove my worth. 

Thrash = vocals are non-sung

Nope.

Thrash is defined by the style of guitar riffing.

Thrash has some of the greatest variety in vocals. You’ve got sung (Deliverance, Anthrax), shouted (the majority, but they have vastly different timbres and stylings), and even growled (Devastation, some Mortification). (And even yodeling with the upcoming ToB album).

And in fairness, BtA is hard to categorize, even from album to album.

Temple of Blood wrote:

Thrash = vocals are non-sung

Nope.

Thrash is defined by the style of guitar riffing.

Yes, I've been aware of that for a little while but I've buried my head in the sand b/c I like my subjective definition and I like my music collection the way it is! It'll take me a bit to turn the corner on this...

You should organize it by the most important criteria: 

Stuff Pethead Likes
Stuff Pethead Doesn’t

Pethead wrote:You should organize it by the most important criteria: 

Stuff Pethead Likes
Stuff Pethead Doesn’t

So...our family computer is at a built-in desk in our dining room. My wife teaches piano lessons at our piano, which is in also located in our dining room. (As I'm writing this I'm thinking that maybe labeling it the "dining room" is a bit generous. Maybe it should be the multi-purpose room!). When I read this while sitting at our family computer I inadvertently laughed out loud, which caused both my wife and her student to turn around and glare at me for interrupting their lesson. And then Janice (my wife) saw that I was on the CMR, and just shook her head telling her student, "He's hanging out with his besties". 

Sevenoneself wrote:

Pethead wrote:You should organize it by the most important criteria: 

Stuff Pethead Likes
Stuff Pethead Doesn’t

So...our family computer is at a built-in desk in our dining room. My wife teaches piano lessons at our piano, which is in also located in our dining room. (As I'm writing this I'm thinking that maybe labeling it the "dining room" is a bit generous. Maybe it should be the multi-purpose room!). When I read this while sitting at our family computer I inadvertently laughed out loud, which caused both my wife and her student to turn around and glare at me for interrupting their lesson. And then Janice (my wife) saw that I was on the CMR, and just shook her head telling her student, "He's hanging out with his besties". 

My work here is done 

ToB


What do you mean Black Metal isn't metal?


I think I've heard just about every vocal style in Thrash.


Confession! Until October 2005 when via Ultmetal's review site I came across and joined CMR I didn't know genres and was by then 31 years old. My categories:

Hard Rock

Heavy Metal

Death Metal

Black Metal

I based it mostly on speed, distortion and vocals. To me you were as much categorized by what you were not as any other criteria.

Temple of Blood wrote:

People invent new genres nowadays just to pretend that their music is ultra-creative and ground-breaking.

Did you just assume my genre?

scottmitchell74 wrote:ToB


What do you mean Black Metal isn't metal?

I mean that just because a lot of people call something metal doesn't make it so.

Metal is dark, guitar riff-based hard rock music.  This is the way it was when Black Sabbath played it.

Black "metal" is dark but not guitar-riff based for the most part.  It's mostly just chord progressions droning on and on.

It's more about image and "making a statement" than actual sound waves, which makes it closer to punk music in that way.