If you love metal, how did you get into it?

[Schmeal]

I initially got in to hair metal bands because of Headbangers Ball on MTV. Then in 8th grade a friend of mine and I dared each other to get a random tape (it doensn't seem like much of a dare, but $10 - $15 is a lot of money to part with when you are a jobless 8th grader). I ended up getting Exodus' "Pleasures of the Flesh" and was instantly hooked on thrash metal buying everything I could.

Once in college I got away from metal (I couldn't get in to the death metal direction because I found the singing annoying) and got in to grunge, punk, trip hop, and some strains of progressive or avant rock and listened to that for a while.

Interestingly enough, what brought me back was Grand Theft Auto Vice City. I couldn't stop listening to the metal station! It was around that time too that someone I work with gave me Opeth's "Blackwater Park". That album made me realize that death metal had so much more to offer than just crappy vocals. So, yeah, it wasn't until I was 30 that I got in to extreme metal...around the time that most people have grown out of it

[the atomic sasquatch]

grown up on metal

[Tono_Fyr]

A friend of mine got me into Metallica and Shadow's Fall when I was sixteen. I discovered Blind Guardian independently, and upon sharing them with other friends, was recommended more bands.

4 years and 250 CDs later, you have where I am now. I love metal in all its various forms. I feel that there is enough variety to satisfy all that I'd really want to listen to. I occasionally dip into other things (for example, I have a copy of a performance of Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, which is quite an amazing symphony, and I kind of dig Andre Benjamin from Outkast every once in a while), but for the most part, I find that if I want to listen to something more electronic, I can grab a number of prog metal records and have a bit of electronic, or if I want to listen to more acoustic stuff, I can grab one of the more flamenco inspired bands that I listen to (3, Rodrigo Y Gabriela, for example) and have that. If I want something more on the side of folk music, I can grab a number of albums from my little collection of folk metal (which ranges from Norwegian Folk to Israeli Folk and Brazillian folk). Then there's the stuff that ONLY metal satisfies.

I don't personally understand how someone could call metal "unoriginal thorughout", as for the most part, that's what I love about it. Even crappier metal albums tend to be more musically adventurous than more "highly rated" albums from other genres. Someone earlier was saying that metal is "not that original on the whole", but I just don't see that. And I'd also like to know what he would consider more original. Granted, he's certainly allowed to have his own opinion (and I respect that), but I don't personally understand it. I mean, the best argument he could make is that metal tends to be "same sounding", but listen to, say, Blind Guardian - Straight Through The Mirror and then Cynic - The Space For This, they sound completely different and they're in the same subgenre (Progressive Metal).

I won't deny that there are copy cat bands, but I feel like that's the least prevalent in metal as compared to other splinters of rock. It's also the least sales driven genre, there's not AS much 'you need to sound like this to sell, so do it" as there is in, say, "Alternative" rock. It's not really alternative anymore, because every one kind of copied that formula and turned mainstream rock into the fiasco that it was in the 1990s (and, in my honest and humble opinion, continues to be today).

Anyone who disagrees with me on any point, I'll be more than willing to have a discussion with you about it. That's kind of the reason for forums in the first place.

[Lolicat]

I'm really only to disagree with you on this point: 'Even crappier metal albums tend to be more musically adventurous than more "highly rated" albums from other genres.'

I think poorer metal albums do as a whole tend towards sticking to the one formula, and you cannot deny that metal as a genre does often encourage a return to just plain heavy metal a lot of the time. Perhaps the more experimental bands are more well known across the spectrum, but I don't think that metal really pushes the boundary any further than any other genre, and often I think metal is playing catch-up and only incorporating things that other genres have done so before.

[Onslaught_fei]

Because among the many contributions to the album format from metal have been guitar downtuning, harsh vocal styles, double bass drum and cymbol choking popularization, distortion through OD tube amps, and virtuosic usage of sweep picking, tapping, extended instrumental solos, and the breaking of the tritone by heavy metal bands first, werent contributions that havent been emulated.

Although I started with progressive rock and jazz fusion first, I have sunken into heavy metal because of the emphasis on technicallity and musicianship over lyrics and attitude.

[Lolicat]

Because among the many contributions to the album format from metal have been guitar downtuning, harsh vocal styles, double bass drum and cymbol choking popularization, distortion through OD tube amps, and virtuosic usage of sweep picking, tapping, extended instrumental solos, and the breaking of the tritone by heavy metal bands first, werent contributions that havent been emulated.

This sort of stuff existed before metal. However, I do bow to the fact I was over-generalising.
Also jazz is still > metal for instrumental tecnicality.

[Onslaught_fei]

This sort of stuff existed before metal. However, I do bow to the fact I was over-generalising.
Also jazz is still > metal for instrumental tecnicality.

Absolutely.

[Gowienczyk]

Metal improvisations are pretty much most based off of Django Reinhardt's compositions anyway.

[Onslaught_fei]

Metal improvisations are pretty much most based off of Django Reinhardt's compositions anyway.

Because his usage of machine gun blast beats and double drumming onslaught is renowned amongst death and power metalheads alike.

I do agree he is the single most influential guitarist ever, heavy metal or not.

[Lolicat]

I think metal fans have a tendancy to overstate their favourite band's technicality. There seems to be a basis in metal that string bends and fast playing= all that there is to technical playing.