Definition of Heavy Metal Music

Now, to my definition of Heavy Metal. I am including all of the sub genres of Metal in my beginning definition . My purpose is to describe what I feel are the characteristics of Heavy Metal, which will be more than a short sentence or paragraph.

Heavy Metal is a musical form that uses heavy, thick distortion on very loud guitars. The EQ is often set with a lot of bass and a lot of treble, but very little mid-range. This gives the equalizer a "scooped" pattern. The graphic equalizer sometimes looks like a roller coaster, with a lot of low, a dip in the mid-range, and you climb back up on the highs.

Heavy Metal music communicates a very dark, gloomy message most often, so to do that, the musicians want a very dark, gloomy sound. To achieve that, they down tune their instruments from standard tuning to at least a semitone lower. This lower tone gives a foreboding feeling to the music. With the heavy distortion and the down tuning, the guitars sound as much like a percussion instrument as the drums. Many of the rhythms of Heavy Metal have a galloping feeling. The riffs come at you like a stampede of wild horses. You have to either jump on and go along for the ride or get trampled on. I find it very difficult to listen to a good heavy metal song without at least a slight headbanging.

I personally feel that the aspect of Heavy Metal that I connect with the most is the content of the lyrics. This is also the part that is of course the most controversial. Most often, people who are not fans of Heavy Metal will criticize it because of the loudness, and tone of the instruments and because of a superficial listening to the lyrics. My mantra is always that you should "first seek to understand before you seek to be understood." In other words, we should listen to what the person is trying to say before we criticize them. Often the criticism comes without any attempt to understand. THIS IS THE REAL REASON WHY I AM BLOGGING! I want to encourage people to listen to all people who are different from you and try to really understand what they are saying before you make a judgment about them and begin to criticize.
I admit that the content of Heavy Metal music can be quite morbid, dark and gloomy. One big thing to remember is a word that I used above a few times. Heavy Metal is a "Genre" of music. That means that it has a musical form that it follows. With the Heavy Metal genre comes a certain style of lyrics. I don't believe that it is always wise to take the lyrics to a Heavy Metal song at face value. Sometimes you have to understand that they are communicating using images, symbolism, and themes that are part of what defines it as Heavy Metal.
A very good example is when a song talks about the Devil or Satan. Western society has a distinct image of who the Devil or Satan is. He is evil, the adversary of God and the church. Whenever we see images of the Devil in books or movies, it is usually never a positive thing. So, when Heavy Metal talks about the Devil, which they do often, they get the reputation of being evil and are often called "Satan-worshippers" and all kinds of evil names. One thing to remember is that just because Heavy Metal bands talk about the Devil, it does not mean that they are actually talking about the Devil.

A lot of people involved in Heavy Metal music don't have a good view of society for a lot of reasons. Sometimes they, like a lot of other people, have been hurt by society in one way or another, or have recognized the hypocrisy that is rampant among politicians, leaders, the church, the legal system, really everywhere we look. And they have something to say about it. Often when Metal speaks of the Devil, it is really talking about society. They want to characterize society in the worst possible terms because that is where they see us going. They are just fed up with all the crap going on and want to scream about it.

Nam against their will. The members of Black Sabbath were about the right age at the time to be drafted into the armed service in the U.K. They didn't want to go to For example, in the late 1960's a lot of young people were being sent off to fight a war in VietViet Nam. They wanted to communicate how much they hated the war, so they wrote "War Pigs." They wrote in this song about those who are in charge of the war, the "generals", in demonic terms. War is described in very graphic and real terms. "In the fields the bodies burning, as the war machine keeps turning." They celebrate the day of judgment for politicians because they will get back what they did to those they sent to war. They even talk about "Satan" casting "priests" into a funeral pyre. This is trying to communicate in the worst possible terms how they feel about society and the government sending people to war. (I don't want to speak for the members of Black Sabbath, or put words into their mouths, but I feel that this is accurate with what I have heard them say in interviews and what their song actually communicates.)

Many different people are not happy with society and how it treats people and the hypocrisy that they see. Everyone communicates that malcontent in different ways. Heavy Metal communicates it with vivid hyperbole. While the artists may scream obscenities about society, demonizing politics and even religion, one would do well to first seek to understand the genre of Heavy Metal and also try to hear the artists speak when they are not on stage before passing judgment on the artists as barbaric or crude. I have heard many of the artists speak in interviews and I am not the least bit amazed to hear humble, conscientious, intelligent, well-spoken people behind the music. I am not amazed because of the great artistry that goes into the music. I'll try to talk about the artistry of Heavy Metal in another post later.

My last word in this post is that everyone should listen to what the musicians are trying to communicate with their music before they pass judgment. I have seen too often that people never listen to a single song on an album, but demonize the bands calling them all Satan Worshippers because of what is printed on the cover. Please don't condemn something that you haven't at least listened to and tried to understand. My advice is to listen to the music, loosen up, bang your head a little, and have fun.