Metal is a genre of music which has been around since the 70's and has become one of the most popular genres of music in modern day society. With the second british invasion of bands like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, metal was quickly accepted into the American underground. Metal is a very hard genre to define due to the various opinions of many people. Some may say GnR was metal and so it started with bands like that, others may say the Metallica started it all. Whatever you say you have to give credit to Metallica for making it big with metal and making it a more known genre. Whether or not they sold out once they got there, that's not for me to say. Today metal is a global movement and has hundreds of sub-genres that delve deeper into harshness, speed and brutality, but it is safe to say that metal gave them their roots and remains the greatest genre ever.

a great type of music which has been ruined by too many sub-genres and too many stupid people bitching & moaning & making vacuous statements about what "is or isn't" real metal. They hang around message boards and give each other blowjobs & snowballs.

The greatest genre of music ever created.

The best kind of music the world has to offer. Metallica, Slayer, Pantera.... need I say more?

a very artistic genre of music that involves alot of skill and concentration to master, when you first get into listening to metal, it may make your ears hurt like hell,then your able to listen to it when your eardrums adapt so you can hear the lyrics, those of no expierience will most likely not be able to understand it and will just say it is complete shit and go back to their Eminem and 50 cent idols. when you get the ears there is no going back.

Pertaining to something that is deemed cool by listeners and followers of the metal genre. A replacement for the word "cool" by metal heads.
When something isn't metal it is considered Lame.

Movement of music that started essentially with the heavy rock movements of such bands as but not limited to: The Cream, The Spiders, Iron Butterfly, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Led Zepplin, and Kiss. The sound took a larger heavier sound with bands like Aerosmith, Black Sabbath, Pentagram, AC/DC and such bands. But Black Sabbath was the most respected and possibly the darkest of the lot. This is considered the Classical Metal era between the mid sixties to the late seventies. From there on out, when the eighties rolled around, Speed metal became popular with the NWOBHM movement, and thrash metal evolved with such bands as Metallica, Exodus, Primus, Trauma, Megadeth, Testament et cetera. During the 80s a more underground movement of slow metal began to evolve called Doom Metal by such bands as Candlemass, Pentagram and the like. Also in the mid 80s a new form of metal evolved from thrash called Death Metal, and used screams, and heavy notes, and shortly after a new style formed yet again from death metal called grind metal or grindcore. The 90's rolled around, and Groove Metal began evolving with such bands as Pantera, and even Ozzy with his new guitarist took upon himself a slower style more groove/doom based rather than thrash. Then around the late 90s the groove and doom metal scene flourished and produced such bands as crowbar, down, and black label society. Also around the 90s a new form of Metal formed, New Metal. It comprised of such bands as Korn, Slipknot, System of a Down, Tool, Nine Inch Nails, Manson, Sevendust, and Godsmack. This style focuses on dissonance for heaviness and loud vocals, probably inspired by the death/noisecore of the late 80's movement.