The Death of Hard Rock

Well, some call Priest and Maiden power metal because of the high-pitched vocals and the melody.  Some even call Black Sabbath doom metal because they have many of the characteristics of that genre.  However, I can't really agree with this interpretation; Maiden, Priest, and Sabbath (among others) helped define the whole genre of metal as a whole.  I don't think you can lump them into the genres of those bands which were heavily influenced by them; this is why I just call them heavy metal.  See thisfor a discussion on the topic.  Some would label Maiden even prog metal.

And I wouldn't call melodic death metal "power metal with growled vocals."  That's a valid interpretation for some bands, but melodeath draws influences quite heavily from thrash metal and especially heavy metal (read: Maiden and Priest).  Often when listening to Dark Tranquillity (for example), many of the instrumental bits make me think of Maiden. 
 
I agree. Specially with Sabbath not being any subgenre in particular. They, like I said in my first post, are the first band to not only be called Metal, but like forostar mentioned that it was important, they self-identified as such. They definitely laid the ground for Metal, but when I listen to Doom I can't help but think of Sabbath's early work :)
 
Well, Priest I find the blueprint of the typical Heavy Metal band. It's their image, their trademark but also their sound. They "made" that heavy metal genre.

I don't literally mean that Priest is just another heavy metal band. I mean that Priest has been more of a typical (trademark) metal band than any other (older) band, not meaning it's a bad thing. There are many bands that sound like Judas Priest, especially the Priest from the eighties.

Priest's "Painkiller" was also important for the evolvement of power metal and many bands have copied this and sound like this.

Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath are also very important and influential bands of the metal genre, but they have an unmistakable sound. There are many bands that sound like Judas Priest, but who sounds like Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath (as much as those bands themselves)? You can hear esp. Maiden's influence in many, but they're still more unique, because no other band writes songs like Maiden does and no other band plays and sounds like Maiden.
 
Onhell said:
As for SMX's enlightening post: I never thought of Van Halen or the Scorpions (Yet definitely Poison...) as "Hard Rock, though lately that's the hunch I was getting. They just seemed on the lighter spectrum of Metal, rather than right at home in Hard Rock. Makes a lot of sense now though.
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While there's no such thing as a rule here, a good indicator for me is lyrical content. Most hard rock bands sing predominantly about women. Most heavy metal bands spend most of their time on other subjects.

The Scorpions are a little different case. Their origin is in the deep dark 1970s, when very few metal bands existed. Metal was still developing, and by modern standards some of those 1970s bands are just hard rock now. UFO is another such band who I call hard rock, and Rainbow could go either way.

The bands from before the NWOBHM who I call metal are Sabbath, Priest and Motorhead, plus maybe a few minor bands like Budgie. But for the most part, metal as we know it today was born in the NWOBHM (or around that time).
 
In my head, I usually just thought the difference was in the 'beat' and the speed.  However, SMX posted this in the Metal news forum, and it has served me well in differing between "metal" and "hard rock":

SinisterMinisterX said:
OK, time to distinguish between "harder" and "heavier" - or in other words, what's the difference between "hard rock" and "heavy metal"?

There are several, but the most pertinent one right now is:
Hard rock is often heavily based on blues music (though it is not a necessary qualification) ... while heavy metal rarely is.
(Note that the above applies to entire songs, and not guitar solos, which (even in metal) often have a blues base.)

In other words, if you accept the assertion that AC/DC was bluesier with Bon Scott, then they were "harder" back then and "heavier" now.

Other differences between hard rock and heavy metal:

1a. Hard rock lyrics are most often about some aspect of male/female relations... sex, love songs, pick-up songs, breakup songs etc. When they're about something else, the most likely subject is party anthems... rock 'n' rolling all nite, drinking, fast cars, etc ...or teenage rebellion.

1b. Heavy metal lyrics are rarely about male/female subjects (though party anthems and rebellion/angst are still prominent). However, most lyrics are on some other subject altogether: violence/agression, religion, history, occult, etc.

2a. Hard rock has two very common tempos: power-ballad slow or a moderate, "danceable" tempo.

2b. Heavy metal has a wider variety of tempos, including an overall tendency to be faster in general.

3. While I'm not sure how to phrase this in any definitive or authoritative manner, metal is more intense. For instance, most Maiden songs are more intense than most Aerosmith songs. (This doesn't necessarily mean "better"; I love both Aerosmith and Maiden.)
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SMX, hope you don't mind me posting that, but I thought it was a great definition.

I think that the media, especially VH1, have gotten lazy in the way they define Metal and Hard Rock.  When I see a 'Best Metal Songs Top 100' list and Poison is on there, I just shut it off and look for something else to watch. Poison should never be mentioned in a Metal breath. 
 
wasted155 said:
Poison should never be mentioned in a Metal breath. 
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Perhaps, but consider this:
The subgenre of hard rock that Poison falls into is often called "hair metal". Obviously, that's because Poison and similar bands used significant elements of the metal "look" for their appearance, along with elaborate hairdos that real metallers avoid. To me, the name "hair metal" is a derisive snort at the attempt by these bands to "look metal" while playing hard rock.

But with this name fairly common, those people not sensitive to the subtleties of real metal have thought that the "hair metal" bands are an actual subgenre of real metal, instead of hard rock. And as noted above, such people tend to think that any band with distorted guitars and long hair is metal anyway.

For the record, since Poison seems to get dissed on this forum a lot: I freakin' love Poison. They were a great hard rock band. Their second album in particular was just a lot of fun. Plus I saw them open for David Lee Roth in 1988 and they kicked ass.

I know, I'm starting to sound like Carl from Aqua Teens: "Oh no Foreigner does not suck! I saw them at the Garden in '83 with Loverboy and they kicked ass!"
 
I like Unskinny Pop... still don't think they're metal as seems to be the general consensus here :), doesn't mean I don't like them. I liked them more as a teen though. Bon Jovi on the other hand, still like A LOT and he is as pop as any hard rocker can get.
 
I like SMX's attempt to define these terms but I honestly think that the labeling has more to do with time than with sort.

The term hard rock is oldfashioned and out. The term metal is in. It went like that with a lot of terms, but the current term -metal- seems to stay forever.

In year V they called it rock'n'roll
In year W they called it rock
In year X they called it heavy rock (or some English bloaks said 'eavy rock) ;)
in year Y hard rock
In year Z heavy metal

...and now they call it plainly metal or a subgenre of metal, such as death metal or progressive metal

Oh, and this is a good one to remember (some fan told this once to KK Downing, who kind of liked that):

Black Sabbath are heavy but Judas Priest are metal.
 
That is partially true. Certain terms become fashionable or more accepted as time goes on, at the same time "Metal" is not the equivalent of "rock 'n' roll". Elvis is far from Metal and Opeth is far from "Rock". these terms do have their limits and parameters. I believe SMX's explanations are pretty valid.
 
I guess I'm making myself unpopular when I say that I consider "metal" to be a branch of the "rock" tree.
 
Neither did I, but if I'm not mistaken, Forostar did. At least that is what I get form this post:

Forostar said:
I like SMX's attempt to define these terms but I honestly think that the labeling has more to do with time than with sort.

The term hard rock is oldfashioned and out. The term metal is in. It went like that with a lot of terms, but the current term -metal- seems to stay forever.

In year V they called it rock'n'roll
In year W they called it rock
In year X they called it heavy rock (or some English bloaks said 'eavy rock) ;)
in year Y hard rock
In year Z heavy metal

...and now they call it plainly metal or a subgenre of metal, such as death metal or progressive metal

Oh, and this is a good one to remember (some fan told this once to KK Downing, who kind of liked that):

Black Sabbath are heavy but Judas Priest are metal.
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Perun said:
I guess I'm making myself unpopular when I say that I consider "metal" to be a branch of the "rock" tree.
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I don't think its un-popular.  

I think its a hard thing to define, really.  Hell, I have listened to country music songs that I would have put in the 'rock' grouping, had they come out in the late 70's.
 
Naturally rock in e.g. the sixties or seventies wasn't exactly the same as the metal of these days. Nor was early eighties hard rock exactly the same as current metal music.

Music evolves. One big tree indeed and it all certainly has to do with eachother.
The whole genre evolved, and in a way these genres are connected. The music changed and so did the terms.

But it's still here! We still say "This rocks!". We still have cars, in the beginning we used to call them automobiles.
But we still use them for the same goal and with the same passion.
 
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