A very misunderstood form of music that actually takes lots of talent! It originated as a mix between the blues and hard rock. While not all agree, Black Sabbath is often credited as being the 1st heavy metal band. However they were some bands before them who had songs that could be considered early examples as Blue Cheer, Cream, etc. The darker sound of metal came by accident actually. Black Sabbath's guitarist Tony Iommi had worked at a sheet metal factory and on his last day of the job he had a freak accident, severing 2 fingertips on his right hand. Feeling like his music career was over, he was inspired by a fellow jazz musician to keep going. He then went on to find different ways to make artificial fingertips and used lighter strings to ease the pain on his 2 fingers while playing the guitar. He also down tuned the guitar. With a down tuned guitar and lyric themes inspired by horror movies the music had a heavier and darker sound. Since then bands such as Judas Priest just ditched the bluesy sound and it has evolved to many sub-genres, each with a different sound.

All you people who say that it's for emos, goth vampires, satan worshippers and think it's all grunts and screams and guys dressed like women are ignorant! Do some damn research before you judge it. I used to love rap and and hated metal for those stereotypes. I was an ignorant prick like all of you. Then rap just got stupid with lyrics about meaningless crap so I decided to listen to rock which eventually lead me to metal then I realized there's more to it than grunts and screams and satanism. Those 3 stereotypes only make up a small portion of metal. Grunts and screams are mainly found in the thrash, death, and black metal sub-genres. Then again not all thrash is made up of screams either. Not all death metal bands have lyrics about murder, rape, satan, etc either. Some of them actually have meaningful lyrics like Death and Opeth (Progressive Death Metal). Even still just because a band has screams or grunts for vocals doesn't mean the band doesn't have talent, if you can simply get passed those vocals and just focus on the music itself you'd find out that they could still are very talented. Good examples would be Children of Bodom, Necrophagist, 80's Metallica (anything after '91 flat out sucks), Wintersun, etc. Even if you can't get passed those vocals you could still like metal but just ignore those extreme sub-genres! Like I said they only make a small portion. Under examples I'll list bands with clean vocals.

And the part about metal bands dressing like women, you guys are referring to 80's glam metal, which I'm glad to say is dead because I hate it to! And remember, lyrics that deal with satan, murder, gore, etc are only in good fun, they're just bands who like to have fun because let's face it. Music about GOD is boring!

Also just to show you how huge metal is here are some of the sub-genres, and I'm pretty sure I'm missing some

Heavy Metal
New Wave of British Heavy Metal
Power Metal
Thrash Metal
Death Metal
Black Metal
Blackened Death Metal
Blackened Thrash Metal
Symphonic Black Metal
Melodic Black Metal
Neo Classical Metal
Symphonic Metal
Melodic Death Metal
Metalcore (false metal)
Nu Metal (false metal)
Progressive Metal
Progressive Death Metal
Technical Death Metal
Folk Metal
Viking Metal (though it's more of a theme really)
Alternative Metal
Glam Metal (gay and dead)
Groove Metal
Grindcore

I know there's more but i'm missing them! Seriously metal is so huge and diverse, open up your minds! All those sub-genres sound different from each other!

Contrary to about 400 of the definitions already listed here, Heavy Metal has nothing to do with Marilyn Manson. Heavy Metal is a genre of music inspired by American Blues music, in which people began to exploit the characteristics of the electric guitar to create louder, more discordant sounds. Heavy Metal is characterized by fast tempo, agressive rythm, and grandoise lyrics, often involving such themes as drug abuse, death, or political issues.

A type of music that most people like better than rap, according to thumbs up/down votes in the rap and heavy metal catagory. see for you self

Probably the most controversial of all rock music for its lyrics and image. Its loud, aggressive music and characterized by the electric guitar play the central role in the music backed up with vocals, drumming and base. It branched off of psychedelic music and blues rock in the 60's. The original heavy metal band is no doubt Black Sabbath and it has been going on for 30-35 years.

The idealogy of the music is very romantic which means it is a praise of imagination, emotion and fantasy. Another central theme heavy metal obsessed apon is chaos which involves mental illness, confusion, war, hell demons and what not. Bands go at this theme to find excitement within it or deep personal and emotional involvement or it can be the band reflecting on the human condition from the outside. Finally, the prime reason of its controversy is its anti-Jeudo Christian imagery and themes like Satan, hell and evil. Like written earlier, metal bands make songs about evil because it goes back to chaos. Also, Jeudo-Chrisitanity is the very foundation of Western civilization and making negative (or anti) songs about it means it is the ultimate rebellion. She further explains why they make songs about evil to question society what is really profane. Yes, but there are still bands who use satanic imagery simply as a gimmick to look rebellious or simply just having fun being offensive. There are some themes of hedonism themes (sex, drugs, rock & roll etc) as praise or sometimes negative criticis...

Pretty much everyone who bashed metal here has probably only listened to false bands like Slipknot. Most of the definitions about how metal sucks were extremley biased. Because I'm bored, I'm going to dissect this bullshit definition.

"Can you sing about something else besides Satan?"
Groups like Nuclear Assault and Sacred Reich sang about the government and war. In fact, I don't even think those bands sing any songs that go like "HAIL SATAN!". There's other bands who sing about that too. I've also heard many other metal songs about ancient Egypt, medievel times, etc etc (most notabley with Iron Maiden)

"Can you sing at all?"
Rob Halford can hit a 5th octave. Nuff said. Oh and I also suggest Iron Maiden, Edguy, Dream Theater, Hammerfall, Blind Guardian, Helloween...

"Can you not be such goth fucktards?"
Goth fucktards? Leather, spikes, and chains are hardly gothic. Gothic metal is it's own genre, and I'm not referring to "z0mg im so gawthik" bands like Slipknot and Korn, I'm talking about bands like Type-O-Negative, Paradise Lost, etc.

"Can you focus more on music and maybe write some non-retarded lyrics and maybe get someone who can actually sing to sing them?"
Again, using Iron Maiden as an example, alot of their songs are about history, and they aren't the only ones who do so...and refer to the list of bands above who can actually sing.

"Can you make it a little more normal and a little less like goth vampire shit?"
Refer to what I said about gothi...

gold, lead, platinum, mercury, etc...

An excellent animated movie based on the Magazine. The original far outshines it's sequel, Heavy Metal 2000.

A genre of music that evolved from rock in the late 70s and early 80s.

Is characterized by heavily distorted guitars, giving them a deep, rough sound, which is where the "heavy" part came from; powerful drums, and thick bass. Usually includes very complex guitar work and amazing solos.

Black Sabbath is often considered the original heavy metal band. Bands like Metallica and Iron Maiden are considered the perfectors of the genre, and pioneers of the overall 80s metal scene.

Over the years, it has evolved into several subgenres. The most popular one with metalheads is thrash metal, but there are several others such as power metal, doom metal, black metal, death metal, etc.

The most recent subgenre that's spawned in today's modern scene is nu metal. This subgenre has basically the same characteristics of traditional metal, except for the fact that guitar solos are very rare, if not included at all. This has caused many metalheads to look down upon it as "shit", "poser metal