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.