[atari 2600]

Originally Posted by jakeonguitar

Heh. I'm not up to par with any metal/punk knowledge, so I'm not doing these surveys.

I want to just drop my $.02 if anyone will listen. I think it's very easy to see AC/DC and immediately think, "Heavy metal? No." in this day and age. That is, I believe, because the category of heavy metal is for the majority filled with more modern (i.e., heavier) bands and sub-genre bands (black metal, death metal, grindcore, whatever) that embody the immediate epitome of "heavy metal." If that was confusing, what I meant to say cleanly is: the contemporary heavy metal is much heavier than it was in the past.

Thus, heavy metal from the 60's-80's is almost classic rock or just rock to a lot of people right now, I believe. This, once again in my opinion, is because the stuff today is ridiculously heavier than it was 30 years ago. But, conversely, living in the 70's as a 30 year old average joe, the opinion of "Damn! AC/DC is some heavy music!" was probably common. So, that was their heavy metal.

Again I stress, that's just an opinion. Means shit.

I completely follow you and agree...that is, except for the part about today's hard rock being so much heavier. I get your meaning that the music of today has heavier crunch and more rapid sledgehammering guitars though. Listening to some numetal or death metal or whatever metal these days is a visceral experience physically, (something Metallica began more or less) but the music is not "heavier." The metal of today is bullshit; formulaic styles, modern equipment and production techniques have taken the place of actual music and fucking heavy duty dirty-ass rock 'n roll. There is no comparison. Classic hard rock offers great tunes. The heavy rock of today offers nothing but a screaming idiot and headbanging bombast. Some of classic rock's lyrics may be not great poetry, but at least they are tuneful. By contrast what's out there today has shit for vocals & laughable lyrics. There are no more frontmen. There are no more really great heavy ROCK guitarists. Hard ROCK is a dinosaur; it's fucking extinct.