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[The Willow Wisp]

My friend and I are constantly getting into arguments about what songs and bands are Metal. Soon after that, we try to decide what makes a Band or Song Heavy Metal. I personally believe there is no way to define what a type of music is, I think it is something you have to feel. That is how I decide if a band or song is metal. It could have a bit to do with what our examples of metal are. For me the base examples are Ozzy Osbourne, Iron Maiden, Judas Preist, Megadeth, Metallica, and Anthrax. His are more like Between the Buried and Me and As I Lay Dying. I was wondering how other people decide what is and isn't Metal. By Metal, I mean anything that could be considered metal. Death Metal, Folk Metal, Vintage Metal, Rap Metal, whatever. But please, if you disagree with someone else or don't like a band or song they talk about don't be rude or mean about it. I don't want this to turn into a fight over which bands suck and which bands rule. And if you could include an example of what you are talking about in your post, please do. It saves time.

Things I consider Metal:

Metallica
Megadeth
Korn
Anthrax
System of a Down
Ozzy Osbourne
Fozzy
Iron Maiden
Judas Priest
Avenged Sevenfold
All that Remains

[Hawkfrost]

Metal is more like a basepoint for the subgenres, kind of like rock, I guess?

Like, you can have this Rock, and this Rock, just like you can have this Metal and this Metal.

Its a general feeling among songs.
Then you get into subgenres, and stuff that is harder to pin down.
Like, what would this be called? It has death metal singing, but a different sound, and has some clean vocals mixed in.

By this I mean, it's all technically Metal, but Metal has a wide range of sound.

[Muz]

Rock is like.. Elvis, Beatles.
Hard rock is um.. Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, Queen.

Metal is harder than rock. It's like so hard that it's not even rock anymore. But sometimes hard rock is like, so hard it can be considered to be as good as metal. At least one electric guitar compulsory. Some step between the two, like Black Sabbath, Van Halen, Def Leppard, Deep Purple.

Heavy metal is even heavy, deeper, sometimes having at least two heavy instruments. Either at least two electric guitars, or a very powerful voice + guitar. If it's good enough, sissy instruments like flutes and violins don't hurt its status as heavy metal, though the flute certainly pulls Jethro Tull down to hard rock. Heavy metal is like AC/DC, Disturbed, Dio, Metallica.

If you push heavy metal a bit further, it turns into Grunge.

Personally, I prefer plain ol' Metal, sometimes power metal as well, though Dragonforce seems to be the only power metal I like, even then because of the retro video game-ish tone. Grunge is also fun.

[Cthulhu]

Dragonforce sucks, they fake the guitar speed by layering and speeding it up in the studio.  Vision Divine is way better Power Metal.

[Psyco Jelly]

My favorite metal bands are probably Metallica, Disturbed, and Korn.

It can be hard to say what heavy metal is, but I know one thing that certainly is:

[MrWiggles]

So this isn't about the of the same name?

[ein]

I'm personally a fan of cobalt.
Arsenic is cool too.
Tungsten... some people don't consider it heavy metal, but some do...

Oh, wait...

You mean the music.

Yeah, metal is just like the core.
I'm a fan of power/folk metal.
Favourite would be Demons & Wizards, then Blind Guardian.
Don't really have a third. The rest are kinda classified as honourable mentions.
And yeah... DragonForce is kinda lame.

[Tormy]

I am not a big Heavy Metal fan to be honest, but some of the songs of Metallica are pretty epic & awesome. 

[Asheron]

Meheh, sissies. Deathmetal for the win! 

The fact is though, you can't define a genre, because it's music, and thus, art. Art is undefineable. You can, however, say in which genre it fits most.

[SolarShado]

Metal... yeah, it's rather broad. Just the extremes of Disturbed makes that clear. Here's some of my fav. bands (sorted more or less from most fav. to least) and what genre I consider them to be:

Disturbed (definately metal, some songs are heavy, some probably death. I've seen "Nu Metal")

Metalica (I tend to think of it as "Classic metal"... I don't know of any new bands that have the same sound as their "Ride the Lightning-...And Justice for All" period.)

Linkin Park (Metal? Not really, IMO. While I know most people would call it rap or rap-rock, I don't think of it as rap... The only genre I file it under is "Music I Like". One of my fav songs is "Nobody's Listening", it's so... unique.)

Godsmack (again, definately metal. The song "I Stand Alone" is heavy metal. Some songs are soft though...)

Korn (The singles are good, and varied. Most of their other songs... too wierd for my taste.)

I agree with Muz, metal has at least one elec. guitar.

[Cthulhu]

I'm pretty sure Korn is mallcore, and Disturbed is hard rock or nu-metal at best.  Linkin Park is an abomination.

[Mr Tk]

Rock is like.. Elvis, Beatles.
Hard rock is um.. Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, Queen.

Elvis and Beatles is more Rock 'N Roll where the others are more like rock.

Hard rock would be more like AC/DC.

Heavy metal is even heavy, deeper, sometimes having at least two heavy instruments. Either at least two electric guitars, or a very powerful voice + guitar.

This also describes many bands which are definitely not metal. Tool would be one good example.

If you push heavy metal a bit further, it turns into Grunge.

Wait? What? So Rock N Roll -> Rock -> Hard Rock -> Metal -> Heavy Metal -> Grunge!

I'll admit that people like Kurt Cobain listened to White Zombie and other heavy metal bands but to try and label Grunge as a type of metal!? Grunge is more likely seen as a rock sub-genre like alternative rock.

But as has been pointed out it's hard to try and label a band a genre. Bands like Led Zeppelin, Gomez, the Beatles all have very vast and differing genres between albums.

Alternative metal, Avant-garde metal, Black metal, Christian metal, Dark metal, Death metal, Doom metal, Drone metal, Extreme metal, Folk metal, Glam metal, Gothic metal, Groove metal, Industrial metal, Metalcore, Neo-classical metal, Nu metal, Post-metal, Power metal, Progressive metal, Rap metal, Sludge metal, Speed metal, Stoner metal, Symphonic metal and Thrash metal are just to name some of the major metal genres.

[Cthulhu]

Only one person here can separate the metals from the rocks and the -cores.

TORAK, I CALL UPON THEEEEEEEEEEEEE

[The Willow Wisp]

Alternative metal, Avant-garde metal, Black metal, Christian metal, Dark metal, Death metal, Doom metal, Drone metal, Extreme metal, Folk metal, Glam metal, Gothic metal, Groove metal, Industrial metal, Metalcore, Neo-classical metal, Nu metal, Post-metal, Power metal, Progressive metal, Rap metal, Sludge metal, Speed metal, Stoner metal, Symphonic metal and Thrash metal are just to name some of the major metal genres.

This is why I dislike classifying music by specifics. 26+ different genres of Metal is way too many. I use the term "Metal" to encompass as big an area as possible, that way we don't worry about specifics. While I'm sure all the types have differentiating characteristics, there can't be a large enough number of differences to warrant 26+ genres. To me, their is Heavy Metal, Nu-Metal, Dark Metal, Classic Metal, and Alternative Metal. That would encompass every type of metal music, in my opinion.

Examples
Heavy Metal: Metallica, Fozzy
Nu-Metal: Disturbed, Korn
Dark Metal: Avenged Sevenfold, All That Remains
Classic Metal: Ozzy Osbourne, Iron Maiden, Judas Preist
Alternative Metal: System of a Down

I view Disturbed, Korn, POD, and bands of the like as Nu-Metal bands. While they all have some Metal qualities, they have various tones from other music genres. An example, Korn has Metal roots but uses alot of things present in Pop and Rap in some of their music. The only time I really have a hard time deciding if a band is metal is when they are either Metal or Hard Rock. Disturbed was the toughest so far, but we finally decided that it was Nu-metal instead of Hard Rock. The Band I'm currently stuck on in this catergory is Nickelback. To me they seem Metal in some songs and Hard Rock in others.

[Cthulhu]

Nickelback is a terrible band, don't feel the need to classify them.  There's a reason we don't have an identification for every bit of dirt on the ground.