Why is Metallica so popular but other thrash metal bands aren't?
While it's true Metallica totally sold out and is pretty much an alternative band nowadays, they were still way more popular than all those bands you listed, even back in the day. They ALWAYS had a bigger following than both Slayer & Megadeth combined… and the only way I can explain that is 1) They didn't use Satanic imagery, like Slayer, which made them much more palatable to the mainstream. And 2) they were much catchier than any of those bands as well. Thrash and "catchy" generally don't belong in the same sentence. Yet, Metallica was catchy, even before the Black Album (Songs like One and For Whom the Bell Tolls come to mind). Megadeth came close in regards to catchiness, but Mustaine has a sort of quirky voice that doesn't appeal to nearly as many people as Hetfield's. Hetfield's voice truly is about as mainstream as metal gets. Or, at least, it appeals to the widest range of people -- not too harsh, not too clean, but just right. So, it comes down to accessibility. They somehow managed to bridge the gap. They appealed to metalheads (back in the day) AND mainstream yuppies who wanted nothing else to do with the metal scene, apart from Metallica-worship.
Hair Bands or Thrash Metal?
To an extent (for me) a lot of the bands in these genres can sound really similar. Like the power chord guitar tone that it seems EVERY thrash band has makes a lot of Thrash bands blend in with the crowd. Even if that tone is one of the defining aspects of Thrash. And Hair metal can get old quickly, what with all the shout choruses (literally, haha) and whatnot. But I'm digressing like a mother, I'll go with Thrash just because Celtic Frost and Anthrax are so awesome.
What is your opinion of the Thrash Metal band Incubus
It's kinda funny alot of people were confused with the california band. I kinda remeber giving this band as an answer to a question about metal bands you think you never heard and I got some e-mails about the fact that Incubus is Nu Metal and alternative and not this band from Florida. I think they are great, it is just too bad that their albums and demos are extremely hard to find, mostly because they were never really signed to a major record company and those albums stopped being printed. Very underrated band
Titans of 80s Thrash Metal question?
Well I do own many of these and some of them I only own their older stuff but yet to be able to get their newer releases. I am almost embarrassed that I do not have some of these. Overkill - Ironbound (2010) 9.5/10 fav. track: Bring me the night Megadeth - Endgame (2009) 8.5/10 fav. track: Head Crusher Testament - The Formation of Damnation 8.5/10 fav. track: Henchman Ride Death Angel - Relentless Retribution (2010) 8/10 fav. track: Relentless Revolution Destruction - D.E.V.O.L.U.T.I.O.N. (2008) 8/10 fav. track: Offenders of the Throne Holy Moses - Agony of Death (2008) 8/10 fav. track: Angels In War Exodus - Exhibit B: The Human Condition (2010) 7.5/10 fav. track: March Of The Sycophants Kreator - Hordes of Chaos (2009) 7.5/10 fav. track: Radical Resistance Metallica - Death Magnetic 7/10 fav. track: My Apocalypse Slayer - World Painted Blood (2009) 6/10 fav. track: Beauty Through Order Anthrax - We've Come For You All (2003) 4/10 fav. track: What Doesn't Die Forbidden - Omega Wave (2010) Have not gotten yet Annihilator - Annihilator (2010) Have not gotten yet Sodom - In War and Pieces (2010) Have not gotten yet Exciter - Death Machine (2010) Not gotten yet Hirax - El Rostro de la Muerte (2009) Didn't know they released a new CD so don't have it Nuclear Assault - Third World Genocide (2005) Do not have yet MA, BA, BA1, Ba2^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ BA3: Here are a few that I thought you missed. I did not read the other answers, sorry if I repeat any. Artillery-When Death Comes (2009) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuQq_kZdv... Paradox-Electrify (2009) there are power metal elements as well but definitly thrash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK18TnUTv... Flotsam and Jetsam-The Cold (2010) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wTYOKxCh... Heathen-The Evolution of Chaos (2009) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5lYC__1xMs Lääz Rockit-Left For Dead (2008) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPUtZJYcHq8 Meliah Rage-Masquerade (2009) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s10QDhFzXI Metal Church-This Present Wasteland (2008) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnPhAPryh3o Enough for now. Peace.
What kind of music do you guys listen to? Age group (16-23)?
I'm 13 years old and I enjoy listening to: - Rock N' Roll, like: Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, Elvis, Jimi Hendrix, and more. - Punk Rock, like: The Ramones, Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Misfits, and more. - Hip Hop & Rap, like: Public Enemy, Tupac, Notorious B.I.G, Beastie boys, and more. - Grunge (Early alternative rock): Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Mudhoney, and more. - Metal, like: Pantera, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Ozzy Osboure, and more. - Alternative Rock, like: Green Day, Paramore, Blink182, Muse, Queens of the Stone Age, and more. - Reggae, like: Bob Marley and Eddy Grant. - Techno, like: The Prodigy and Daft Punk - Pop, like: Adele, Jack Johnson, Michael jackson, and some 80's pop. - County, like: Johnny Cash
Do you think the 80's was a great decade?
Oh, the ’80s. I did most of my growing up in them, and lately feel pretty nostalgic for them.It was a simpler time. That sounds cliche, but it's true. We had no cell phones, no internet, no social media. This meant that we had to actually physically interact with our fellow humans, and when we did so, there were no tiny computers in our pockets constantly pinging and vibrating and distracting us from both one another and the present moment. I'm not a complete Luddite or anything, but in retrospect, that was kind of nice.As kids, we had more freedom, I think. My mom was sort of a worrier, but even so, we roamed the woods and the neighborhood all day with impunity (and with no cell phones, our parents couldn't check up on us). We went home when we got hungry, tired, or hurt, or else at dark.We also had great movies — obviously, since they keep remaking them now in the 2010s. Footloose, Ghostbusters, Conan the Barbarian, Red Dawn, A Nightmare on Elm Street, etc., etc. (They were better then.)Great music, too. New wave and heavy metal saw their heydays in the ‘80s, and somehow a lot of the pop music (not all) seemed a little less vapid than today's. There was no autotune then, so you had to actually be able to sing, and while image mattered, it did not play nearly as big a role as it seems to now. Billy Joel has said that if he started out as a new artist in the 2000s, he probably wouldn't have been as successful — because image has become so important and he wasn't handsome. That may be an exaggeration considering his considerable gifts as a singer, songwriter, and musician, but maybe not.All this being said, nostalgia for every decade eventually creeps in, in my experience. In the 70s, the Ramones essentially invented punk music in emulation of the rockabilly they grew up with in the ’50s (their signature style of bluejeans, leather jackets, and Chuck Taylors reflected ’50s greaser style, too). The late ’70s and early ’80s also saw the emergence of rockabilly revival legends Stray Cats. In the late ‘80s, we thought the ‘60s rocked; I devoured ’60s history, music, and fashion as a teen. In the ‘90s, some ’70s fashions came back, like flared and bellbottom jeans. It just happens. Now it's the ‘80s, and the ’90s are sure to follow eventually.
Who was the first heavy metal band?
Everybody that says anything other than Black Sabbath is most definitely wrong. While wikipedia will tell you that Blue Cheer was the first heavy metal band/ released the first heavy metal song “Summertime Blues” but I digress. Please take a listen to the song yourselfThis is not heavy metal. It’s beatles with distorted guitar. In this fashion you can also say Beatles released Helter Skelter, but that doesn’t make them the first heavy metal band.Jimmy Hendrix was heavier than them, and he’s still not considered heavy metal. And they that say that Led Zeppelin was the first metal band, I’m sorry, but no. They were a purely hard rock band with hard rock lyrical themes, and hard rock romance influenced atmosphere.February 13 1970 was the day heavy metal was born. And it was born with this song which begun with sounds of rain and bells tolling in the distance, followed by the first ever heavy metal riff.This is the band that made everything happen. This is the band, whose first six albums have to be heard and appreciated by every heavy metal fan, to truly get heavy metal. There are two phases to listening to Black Sabbath. The first, is listening to them after you’ve heard bands like Led Zeppelin and listening to them as just another Hard Rock band. A great hard rock band but that’s it. It’s when you listen to more metal and come back to the first 6 albums, you realise how they influenced doom metal with the first two albums, the third album influenced the formation of Sludge Metal. How a single song like Symptom of the Universe was the first ever (truly) thrash metal song. Without Sabbath, none of it would be here. When Sabbath began, nobody sounded like them. Sure there was deep purple, and judas priest came along and by the time in 1975 we had Motorhead too. We had Lemmy’s previous band Hawkwind, we also had Rainbow, but did they sound like Sabbath? No.The dark vibes of heavy metal was solely due to Black Sabbath and Black Sabbath alone. Without Sabbath, heavy metal simply wouldn’t be as daring as it ended up becoming.Sabbath started it all and they still remain an essential part of every heavy metal fan’s journey.
How did the 80s became so Metal music like? What influenced this?
What you must remember is that heavy metal was pretty new to mainstream ears by the 1980s. By 1980 it had only been a 10 years since, by most accounts, the first proper heavy metal song was released (Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath in 1970), and the modern quintessential heavy metal sound introduced by Judas Priest in the mid-70's was even younger. For that decade, while metal was still this brand new genre, it was relatively fringe; bands were enjoying success, especially in Europe, but it was more of a cult fame, and it wasn't common to hear heavy metal on the radio. So why did it explode in the 80's? Because of the natural progression of a new genre. New Wave was fringe in the 70's as well, but by the late 80's bands like Depeche Mode and The Smiths were packing stadiums. Another modern example: I'm sure you remember a few years back when Dubstep exploded. It had been around for years before as an underground fringe genre before it made its way into the mainstream and then exploded. And of course attitudes and motifs of the time have a hand in helping a genre grow in the mainstream as well but if we got into that his answer would be the length of a damned book haha. Simply put, the most basic explanation for WHY it was in the 1980's that metal had its mainstream explosion, it really is a lot to do with timing and how long it takes a new genre to take off. I love heavy metal, and I think wha stands out about that genre is that i continued to thrive and evolve after its commercial hey-day. Sure, you don't hear metal on mainstream radio anymore, but bands like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest are still selling out stadiums around the world, and the underground and local metal scenes are only getting bigger every day.
Is there any band of the 70s, 80s or 00s that are as emblematic of the decade as Nirvana in the 90s?
Music has become more diversified and found its way in to smaller niches. This is driven by superior distribution technology to what was available 50 years ago. As time has marched on, music has become cheaper, more accessible, and easier to find. This has lead to a renaissance of less popular, less significant groups that produce amazing music.We will never see something like the Beatles in the 60s again, ever. There's too much variety culturally, too much variety in musical tastes, a significantly less homogenization than before. Not everybody listens to the same thing.There are clearly influential groups that fly over and under the radar. Radiohead is a good example of a popular group - but I don't think their impact has been as large to the whole music scene as the popular groups from the 60s. They are influential - but they're influential in a much smaller portion of the musical world than the Beatles were.But Nirvana? They pale in comparison to Rush, or The Who, or Pink Floyd in scope and influence.Popular music has changed, and will change in the future. Lady Gaga is just the current Madonna. There hasn't been something quite so similar in a long time - but there will be someone similar again. The music itself is irrelevant, it's just trendy pop plus a personality that seems to find a way with a lot of people.For every Radiohead, in the 90s and 2000s there are twenty Joanna Newsoms ('00s - chamber folk), Dream Theaters (Rush + metal), Afro Celt Sound Systems (African + irish + folk + dance + electronic), Sufjan Stevenses (modern folk rock), Ulvers (folk metal -> experimental -> trip hop -> ???), Cornelius (Experimental pop), Janelle Monaes and so on. They may not acheive lasting fame, or they may - but there's nothing at all like the variety of great music that is available today. Somehow, I bet most of the people reading this have never heard of at least one of the above. They're all very different, and all worth a look. Some of it will not be remembered by anyone in 50 years, some of it will. What is popular in clubs, or on a few radio stations today does not remotely cover the breadth of music that exists today.Even radio stations play a significantly more broad base of music with a bigger variety of influences than there was in the past.