Sway, you know next to nothing about AC/DC. Just give up trying to argue. You're basing this off of Back in Black - this is clear.

Wasn't it William Burroughs who coined the term Heavy Metal on 'The Soft Machine'? Was he not also the first person to use it when describing the music of Led Zeppelin?

Living easy, livin' free
Season ticket, on a one - way ride
Asking nothing, leave me be
Taking everything in my stride
Don't need reason, don't need rhyme
Ain't nothing I would rather do
Going down, party time
My friends are gonna be there too

I'm on the highway to hell
Highway to hell
I'm on the highway to hell
Highway to hell

No stop signs, speedin' limit
Nobody's gonna slow me down
Like a wheel, gonna spin it
Nobody's gonna mess me 'round
Hey Satan! Paid my dues.
Playin' in a rockin' band
Hey Mama! Look at me
I'm on my way to the promise land

I'm on the highway to hell
Highway to hell
I'm on the highway to hell
Highway to hell

Dont stop me!

I read an interview recently asking key figures from HM where they thought it all started. Judas Priest's Rob Halford said without doubt it was Black Sabbath. Sabbath's bass player Geezer Butler said that ultimately, it had to be Judas Priest. Generally though, most people asked said Sabbath.

Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap with Bon and Back in Black with Brian are the two best.

6. ministry, their last two or three albums, are more metal than anything.

7. the most metal thing about bon jovi is in their hairspray cans.

ministry's first albums are pure industrial DANCE. their second half albums are all metal with dancy elements

AC/DC never wrote songs about hobbits.

Thread closed.

1. A Heavy Metal song that defines the genre: "Ace of Spades"
2. A Heavy Metal band that defines the genre:Black Sabbath
3. One Heavy Metal album you would want on a desert island: Ride the Lightning
4. One Heavy Metal song that makes you dance: "Problem Child" by AC/DC (who aren't just a heavy metal band, but certainly have been a major part of the development of the genre nonetheless).
5. One Heavy Metal song that makes you drink: "Victim of Changes" by Judas Priest (the Unleashed version of course!)
6. A band that should be thought of as Heavy Metal, but rarely are: MC5 (they're at least as "proto-metal" as they are "proto-punk" anyway).
7. A band that shouldn't be thought of as Heavy Metal, but regularly are: Iron Maiden for the last ten years or so have been significantly more prog-rock than metal.
8. British or American: Hessian!
9. Sonic Youth's most Heavy Metal song (no covers): "Brother fucking James" hands down

No, but they did write "Soul Stripper", "Highway to Hell", "If You Want Blood", "Sin City", "Let There Be Rock", "TNT", "High Voltage", "Shot Down in Flames", "Night Prowler", "Hell Aint a Bad Place to Be", "Live Wire", and "Rock 'n Roll Damnation".

All before Back in Black and all loaded with imagery that alludes to Satan, electricity, darkness and evil, and overall machismo. Of course that's what makes the band so fun, but it can't be denied that such material is thematically right in line with what the majority of society considers "heavy metal". Many a kid listening to AC/DC went on to form a metal band and I distincly remember a Hit Parader poll in the '80s voting Angus Young "best guitarist".

That said, I wouldn't describe AC/DC as a metal band first and foremost. They always had the boogie blues thing going on a bit too much, and for that matter they crossed over into the punk scene pretty heavily in the Bon Scott days (they headlined CBGBs in '77!) It just seems positively silly to me to say AC/DC is in no way and never was a heavy metal band. Metal is a major part of what they do, though you certainly don't have to be a metal head to like them.

In Australia they were a pub rock band. They played in Pubs with the likes of Rose Tattoo. They were very descriptive of the Australian culture and what was happening here at the time. Which is probably why alot of you see them as 'heavy metal'.

Richard Ramirez is a fan, i hear.

Ha ha ha.....huge fan. I read Night Stalker in like 8th grade. It's not as good as Helter Skelter, but it's up there.

victim is another one of those that are meant to be screamed castratti-style with a beer or whiskey in hand.

and good call on brother james.

I see them as a band with heavy metal elements for exactly the reasons I stated. They have 'em. It's not all that they are about by any stretch, but to deny it, or their influence on all heavy metal to come after, is to try to insert your own distatste for such things into the band because you love the band. It's not accurate, however.

They were a global band and not an Aussie pub band long before Bon died, and he made it entirely clear in his songs that this was what he was gunning for. To try to blame the heavy metal connection on Mutt Lange and Brian Johnson is easy, but it's not taking into account that Bon is the force that pushed them into the world wide arena with his evil smile and wicked gleam in his eye.

No one ever denied they influenced 'Heavy Metal' acts. But that also doesn't justify calling them 'metal' just because they were influential and had powerful riffs. It's interesting how dfferent cultures (be it even in the slightest difference) can see things completely different.

They were always an Aussie pub rock band, even when they were playing arenas, and even now.

1. A Heavy Metal song that defines the genre:"Symptom of the Universe"- Black Sabbath
2. A Heavy Metal band that defines the genre:Motorhead
3. One Heavy Metal album you would want on a desert island:"Bastards"-Motorhead
4. One Heavy Metal song that makes you dance: "paranoid" (I guess)
5. One Heavy Metal song that makes you drink:"Capricorn" -Motorhead
6. A band that should be thought of as Heavy Metal, but rarely are: hmm
7. A band that shouldn't be thought of as Heavy Metal, but regularly are: Melvins EDIT: Also, Aerosmith
8. British or American: Norwegian
9. Sonic Youth's most Heavy Metal song (no covers): Brother James

But I didn't "call them 'metal' just because they were influential and had powerful riffs." I made a long list of classic AC/DC songs, all pre-Back in Black, that thematically had a very heavy metal (i.e. dark, satanic, evil, electric, etc.) feel to them.

I don't think of them primarily as a metal band, but I do think metal has always been a component of the band and the band has played a pretty big part in the development of metal as well. I don't think of them as a blues band either, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't call "Down Payment Blues" a blues song nor deny that blues is a major part of the band's sound and feel.

Observing these influences on a band's sound really doesn't have much to do with cultural perceptions. I'm sure AC/DC at least through Bon's days (I don't have much use for them after that myself) maintained a trueness to their Aussie pub rock roots, but they also took on something bigger too. By the time of For Those About To Rock, they'd moved pretty far in the opposite direction with the cannons and shit, and were getting to be an arena band first and foremost to their own detriminent. I far prefer the pub rock rooted days myself, though the irony will always be that Bon wanted and drove them to bigger things, and didn't get to see much of it.

You're not understaning what I mean when I say 'pub rock'. It has nothing to do with stage props or theatricals, it was a 'scene', if you want, that was very 'happening' here at the time. Just like the 'punk' movement in say the US or England. If you understand that, then you'll know what I'm saying. Therefore it does have alot to do with cultural perceptions - it's not hard to see when most Americans on the board have said that AC/DC are 'heavy metal', and if there were more Australians on the board (or more Australians who had a sense of their Australian music throughout the decades) they would find it hard to call AC/DC 'metal'.

And them themes within their songs were just rebellion, and more about getting laid than anything - which is not just a 'metal' ideology.

I think I am, but I can take that as a possibility. Is Aussie "pub rock" significantly different from the British genre that generally refers to something between punk and the traditional hard rock of previous decades a la The Tom Robinson band?

My understanding of "pub rock" is that the sound and feel was directly affected by the type of venue - i.e. playing to a small crowd makes you rock a different way than playing to a vast arena with cannons on stage.

The Wikipedia entry on Australian pub rock seems to echo that line of thinking, but then Wikipedia is nothing but a consensus of edits.

But, please, clarification on what you are talking about certainly couldn't hurt.

what does it matter where they played their gigs?

HAHA.

You're not getting this at all.

From what I read on the French entry of wikipedia on heavy metal, there's a distinction between hard rock and heavy metal, hard rock retaining palpable blues rock influences while heavy metal departs from them. In that sense AC/DC are hard rock more than heavy metal.

AC/DC are not Heavy Metal. Why? Because they are a rock band or, as someone already pointed out, a hard rock band. Since I despise the term hard rock I call them rock. If you don't believe me look at the artwork on their sleeves, DO listen to the records and then shut the fuck up.

Hmmm...That's interestingly contradictory, because all my growing up, I heard the difference explained in 180-degrees opposite fashion. According to all the magazine articles and books published in the '70s and early '80s, 'heavy metal' got started in the mid '60s with a souped-up, deafening approach to the blues by the likes of The Yardbirds, Cream, The Hendrix Experience, Blue Cheer, etc. The next wave of groups--early Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple (Mark II), Uriah Heep, Budgie, etc.--traced their roots to these bands. 'Hard rock', on the other hand, had its roots in soul/R&B and rockabilly, and its 'founders' were groups like Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels, The Who, MC5, etc. There was also the bizarre, can't-quite-be-defined category of 'heavy rock', which more or less died with the '60s. This category seems to have either existed as a gray area between the other two, or was a heavy metal approach to the styles of rock that inspired hard rock. (I'm confusing the hell out of you now, aren't I?!!) 'Heavy rock' was defined by groups like Vanilla Fudge, the less classical-inspired side of The Nice, Iron Butterfly, Deep Purple (Mark I), etc.

Anyway, I think when they diagnose heavy metal as being further separated from the blues than hard rock, they are thinking of post-1980 heavy metal, which is really a genre (as opposed to a sub-genre) in itself, just as influenced by punk, hardcore, noise, industrial, etc. as what it is the '70s heavy metal bands. In fact, if one is going to pick the original Metallica or Slayer as a prime example of heavy metal, then one must automatically conclude that all pre-1981 heavy metal isn't really heavy metal, and is just barely proto-heavy metal at best in the case of 4 or 5 groups (Sabbath, early Rainbow, Scorpions, Judas Priest, Motorhead). Like I said in a previous post on this thread, by the definition I grew up on, the last true heavy metal bands that considered themselves heavy metal were Anvil, Iron Maiden and Trouble, and there hasn't been a well-known new example of the sub-genre since 1984. I would argue that hardcore albums like Black Flag's Slip It In and grunge albums like Soundgarden's Badmotorfinger have vastly more in common with the original heavy metal music of the late '60s/early '70s than, say, Slayer's Hell Awaits or Anthrax's State of Euphoria. Ironic, isn't it?

Must spread whatever it is you spread before givig it to Porkmarras again.

not to get into the debate here, but ac/dc are more metal than van halen. surprised nobody mentioned them as being mistaken for metal. they certainly didn't make "pretty woman" sound heavy, ice cream man is seriously cute. hot for teacher rules, as does panama, but there is nothing metal about the keyboard sounds of jump. they have some metal tunes, but an equal amount of poppy songs.

other Van Halen tags
"california rock" "L.A. rock" "glam metal" "hard rock" "heavy rock" "'80s pop rock" "stadium rock" "arena rock" "big rock" "cock rock"

If one looks up a particular band in wiki, for instance, there often are several genres listed.

For Van Halen, wiki tags the music as:
Hard rock
Heavy Metal

For AC/DC:
Hard rock, heavy metal, blues-based rock, rock and roll

In each case, we find "hard rock" listed first, and (one would assume) primarily, and "heavy metal" appearing as a secondary description. Which is to say that both bands contain elements of "heavy metal," and so one is technically not entirely wrong in referring to them as "heavy metal," it just depends on the point of view. But what is also being implied by the online encyclopedia is that perhaps the most all-encompasing term that best describes the music of each band (Van Halen and AC/DC) is "hard rock."

Sway, you didn't raise any valid points. You mentioned the brand of toothpaste and what fabric softner bands use to describe their music.

Anyway. It really doesn't matter.

Let's just leave it at: The ones who think AC/DC are metal are wrong and will one day see the light, and that those who understand they are a (heavy) Rock band are better off in some way or another because they know right from wrong.

Ok?

Good.

Done.

Well, swa(y), that's not only the basis of many blues songs, but also many songs in general. Another huge blues theme is revenge on the unfaithful lover and outrage at and/or revenge against the boss man. I'm not stereotyping blues music, there is also a lot of spiritual and soulful content too, of course.

Here's a good explantion on why Norma J is basically right, yet is also wrong when he insistently excludes other viewpoints:

Well, of course those are the wiki genre classifications..which are correct in the larger sense of their proper usage in the cultural lexicon.

In the actual historical sense, jetengine expressed the "minority report" on the matter quite well (as usual).

So now your saying you agree with my 'Blues' statement?

Make up your mind, woman!

You're coming along, Sway. This is a new side to you.

Footnote to my previous post re. the blues basis for heavy metal: In the 1995 10-part television mini-series Rock and Roll, heavy metal gets the treatment in the final minutes of the episode dedicated to blues-based rock. Black Sabbath and Deep Purple get a mention, Eric Burdon is quoted re. Jimi Hendrix (featured prominently in this episode), and Led Zeppelin are seen performing 'Stairway to Heaven' from The Song Remains the Same. The final quote from the narrator goes something like, "Led Zeppelin's 'Stairway to Heaven' seems at first listen to be as far-removed from the blues as [comparison I can't remember--this was 12 years ago, people!], but if you peel back the layers, you will find them there,..., etc...."

1. A Heavy Metal song that defines the genre: The number of the Beast / Hallowed be thy name by Iron Maiden, Breaking the law by Judas Priest
2. A Heavy Metal band that defines the genre: Iron Maiden / Judas Priest / Black Sabbath
3. One Heavy Metal album you would want on a desert island:The number of the beast maybe
4. One Heavy Metal song that makes you dance: I hate dancing
5. One Heavy Metal song that makes you drink: none
6. A band that should be thought of as Heavy Metal, but rarely are: no idea
7. A band that shouldn't be thought of as Heavy Metal, but regularly are: AC/DC / Scorpions / Led Zeppelin
8. British or American: British
9. Sonic Youth's most Heavy Metal song (no covers):Titanium expose

agreed. also with floozie mentioning aerosmith.


i'm sure dominik would be one those in favor of this theory, at least partially.

if it is heavy, scary, depends on riffs for the thrust of the song, and is a bit theatrical, one can call it metal!

not all metal is theatrical.

Since metal is the majority of what i listen to, and for the most part, always has been, this thread has been the source of much mirth, bewilderment, and a couple bits that made me laugh out loud they were so rediculous.

ACDC is metal because of "devil" imagery? Robert Johnson was METAL AS FUCK.

Those who have heard Ash Pool might agree with the Prurient/metal connection. While Fernow's Prurient material shares the abraisiveness of grindcore or brutal death metal, it's got much more in common (i think) with power electronics and hear me out, hardcore. I don't think the power electronics description is going to ruffle any feathers, but anybody who's seen a hardcore show and seen Prurient do his thing can probably see the comparision. The viseral, furious performance (especially vocally), is mostly drawing upon hardcore influences, but i could be wrong.

I guess i shouldn't say "mostly" hardcore influences, but i can definitely see them. Black metal plays no small part either.