Power Metal:
A
cheesy and fast paced
sub-genre of metal
Pronounced: Pow-ur met-ahl.
Power metal is a
sub-genre of speed metal known as "true" metal by nerdy teens who only listen to it and ignore most other metal bands outside the genre (the
irony, of course is that they limit themselves to one subgenre of metal and thusly earn little to no
respect from other metallers, as most metal fans
love a broad spectrum of metal, and indeed, other music genres, such as
blues, jazz, etc), and "cheese" or "bullshit" metal by everyone else and is also reviled by most thrash/death/black (actual) metallers for it's lack of substance and wanton insertion of elves, dragons and other nerdy nonsense into lyrics. Broader fans of metal despise it because they fear people judge metal on the cheesey songs by these bands. This is not to dismiss the genre entirely, as it contains many talented musicians, however, the most (undeservedly) popluar
band in the genre, Dragonforce (or, alternatively, Fagonforce) gives the genre a worse
name than it deserves, what with it's legion of pre-teen to mid-teen fanboys, frothing at the mouth over insinuations of artificially sped up songs, little variation between songs, terrible vocals,
overrated guitar work and drummer of unnotable worth. People are, however mislead, into believing dragonforce is the b-all and end-all of power metal, just because it's on guitar
hero. As much as power metal is disliked among many metallers, even among broader metal fans whose taste includes power metal, Dragonforce is often cited as being mis-representative of the
sub-genre and is similarly hated.
Thrash/Death/black metaler upon hearing Dragonforce: "What the fuck is this dogshit power metal?"
"True" Metal fan: "This is the greatest
band ever!!!!"
Thrash/Death/black metaler: "Ever heard of Wintersun, Carcass, Megadeth, Pantera, Sepultura, Children of Bodom, or In Flames (
Old, ie, before they became metalcore suckage)?"
"True" Metal fan: "What's that?"
or alternatively: "I don't
like those bands, they're too
heavy" (in the metal community, this is akin to declaring you are a pussy and will invariably leave you without any credability on your musical crticism ability)
If the "True" Metal fan gives the first response, often, they are allowed to hear
said metal examples, and can be converted on the spot. However if the response is the latter, give up and leave. Such people are often too young or worse, musically stunted, especially if they are only capable of liking one
sub-genre of metal and the worst
band in that
sub-genre.