Steel Panther is the consummate metal band.
That is what amazes me about their live shows. They are so tight, that what they play on stage could easily be mistaken for a studio production. Not to say they don't put on a great performance, they do...but if you closed your eyes you could assume they were playing a CD over the sound system.
Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."
Steel Panther is the consummate metal band.
You've probably heard everything from all these - but the best melodic Metal bands not mostly mentioned above IMO also include Guns N Roses, Poison, ACDC, and I'll second the Def Leppard and Iron Maiden. Avenged Sevenfold (Hail to the King) is also kind of fun if you like Metallica:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DelhLppPSxY
and somebody had to be that guy, so I'll do it.
Marilyn Manson deserves a mention in this thread. Is it good, no. The Beautiful People was cool. But otherwise, Antichrist Superstar from 1996 was bleak, twisted, terrifying, and savage. It elicited goosebumps and nightmares. Speaking of nightmares, you've surely heard this famous cover, but don't watch this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUvVdTlA23w
Along those lines, White Zombie, Rob Zombie, and Nine Inch Nails are decent
Last edited by richardjackson199; 09-03-2019 at 10:48 PM.
Obligatory. "Say your pwayers!"
They perform again 6 years later, after puberty, and also meeting Metallica, who gifted them new instruments.
Another vote for Tool, whom I have also seen live. Just amazing.
Sorry to be that guy but I gotta derail a little.
I'd consider these two to be pretty seminal "hard rock" bands and definitely not heavy metal. I get really vexed, when Guns n'n Roses, in particular, is mistaken for hair metal. They were The Rolling Stones mixed with a little ACDC, a little Aerosmith, and a little Van Halen. Slash is a blues based rock guitarist with an early-Clapton "woman tone". Hard rock at its finest.
I mean, The Beatles had some distorted guitars on the white album, but I don't think anyone would call them a metal band.
Hard at work making beautiful things.
And a prog hard rock band that Tool has cited as heroes, Rush. Also listed as a heavy influence by members of Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Metallica, Smashing Pumpkins, Rage Against the Machine, Primus, Jane’s Addiction, Dream Theater, and others. Musicians’ musicians. Complicated songwriting and as talented a group of instrumentalists as rock has seen.
"We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us, an effort which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world." --M. Proust
Rush is great and my all time favorite, but they are more prog than heavy in my mind. "Exit, Stage Left" is a great way to introduce yourself to them.
Pantera is a band I got into much later in life. I'd recommend their greatest hits album as a good place to start, and then go to "Vulgar Display of Power" and "Cowboys from He!!" if you want some deeper stuff. They had a B side called "The Badge" included on the soundtrack for the movie "The Crow" which has been a personal favorite.
Metallica's "Garage Days" has some great covers of some early classics like Queen's "Stone Cold Crazy" and "Blitzkreig." And Master of Puppets is amazing.
"Countdown to Extinction" is my favorite Megadeth album, but I'm likely in the minority there.
My son is big into Avenged 7x, although I haven't spent much time in their catalog to be honest.
Some others that I haven't seen mentioned yet that I enjoy are Mastodon (Once more round the sun), Godsmack (Awake, Faceless), Baroness (Purple, Yellow & Green), and Rancid (Out Come the Wolves, Let the Dominos Fall). Rancid is a bit more punk than pure heavy metal, but it's a genre I enjoy as well for exercising.
"There can BE only one."
Led Zeppelin - arguably started it all or at least one of the early pioneers.
AC/DC Back In Black - The metal party album of the early 80's...and beyond.
Motley Crue - Shout At The Devil was their coming out party.
Metallica's self titled album contains Enter Sandman, Sad But True and several other favorites.
Ozzy has a bunch of good stuff and sometimes it depends on which axe man you prefer. Rhoads is considered the best, but Jake E. Lee was really good in his prime.
More rock than metal, but the Scorpions are talented, polished and always sound great live. German precision.
I grew up listening to what is now considered classic rock in the 70's - Boston , Kansas, Foreigner, Aerosmith, Eagles, etc., but gravitated towards metal in the MTV 80's when I was in the Army. Good times.
Sometimes I'll blast Modern Day Cowboy (Tesla) just to make it through the morning or afternoon commute with sanity.
There is a lot of blur on the margins for these genres. I would be more prone to consider Guns N Roses metal than Def Leppard, for instance (although I wouldn't call either metal). I also wouldn't consider Rage Against the Machine, Alice in Chains, or Tool (some examples already mentioned in this thread) to be metal bands although all three are excellent.
So yeah, here's one of my ongoing questions...what is metal? At the end of the day, I don't really care as to the "definition" of this or that band/album/whatever; I'm just looking for loud, thrash-y stuff the likes of which a lot of y'all have recommended quite well in this thread. But again, would anyone care to venture a "textbook" definition of metal, even better a breakdown of thrash vs. speed vs. death vs. whatever else metal? OK if nobody wants to bite; it just seems that this genre is oddly definition-defying and I'm curious as to why.
Well "metal" is pretty broad and so hard to define. The sub-genres are a little bit clearer (but there are a lot of them). I'm not a huge metal fan and will leave the sub-genre breakdowns for someone else. For me it is a little bit "know it when I [strike]see[/strike] hear it". Thetype of distortion is important (not all distortion implies metal). The way the vocals are performed. The types of drum and bass rhythms being used.
“Coach said no 3s.” - Zion on The Block
I also found this via the Googler... includes actual examples of a bunch of different metal genres. Hard to tell the difference among several of them but I bet it helps you find more of the style of metal you like.
“Coach said no 3s.” - Zion on The Block