November Reign: Defining Heavy Metal

[Luventhariel]

 

November Reign is set up to be a 100% Pure Heavy Metal Event.  And that may seem, limiting.  But I assure you, it is not.

There are many various metal ores and alloys; gold, silver, iron, bronze, titanium, brass, lead, nickel, steel, and so on, all Metal.  Similarly, Heavy Metal has a lot of alloys.  From rough to shiny, forgiving to hardened, dull to sharp.  And then there's Damascus.

In the same fashion, Metal as a genre, is as generic a term as "a metal".  It's not just one single type of music, but a whole lot of variety.  And there's a lot of Damascus.

There is Classic/Traditional "Heavy Metal".  

But there's also...

Alternative Metal, which includes Funk Metal, Nu Metal, and Rap Metal.
Avant-garde Metal.
Black Metal, which includes Symphonic Black Metal, Viking Metal, and War Metal.
Christian (un-black) Metal.
Crust Punk.
Death Metal, which includes Blackened Death Metal, Melodic Death Metal, Symphonic Death Metal, and Death 'n' Roll.
Doom Metal, which includes Sludge Metal and Stoner Metal.
Extreme Metal.
Folk Metal, which includes Celtic Metal, Pagan Metal, and Pirate Metal.
Glam/Hair Metal.  Gothic Metal.  Grindcore.  Grunge.
Industrial Metal.  Kawaii Metal.  Latin Metal.  Metalcore and Deathcore.
Neoclassical Metal.  Neue Deutsche Härte.  Post-Metal.
Power Metal.  Progressive Metal.  Speed Metal.  Symphonic Metal.
Thrash Metal, Groove Metal, and recently the New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal.

And I left out some of the smaller sub-sub-genres, it can get a little crazy.

What defines Heavy Metal?  Ask a thousand Metalheads and you'll get a thousand answers.  But mostly, commonly, it's defined in my terms by "Excessive Hardness".  Rock is hard, Hard Rock is harder, Heavy Metal breaks rocks and pulverizes them into dust.  
Secondly, it's "Emotion", from seething anger and rage, to deep sadness and anxiety, to heavenly joy and love, to childlike amusement and hope, it's all in there, out in the open, and a force of nature.  There are no forbidden emotions.  Heavy Metal encompasses dark, plodding, depressing funeral dirges like Megadeth's "In My Darkest Hour", and also Poison's "Unskinny Bop". 

What defines Heavy Metal for this particular event?  Any song by a band that has "Metal" on it's list of genres in Wikipedia.  I know this leaves out a whole lot of Hard Rock bands that just don't quite make it into the Metal genre, like Boston, ZZ Top, Journey, and Queen.  But that's also not what we're looking for here.  

\m/ O.o \m/

[Fersinda]

Awesome! You I am there for this one :)

Fersinda

[Luventhariel]

Sign-ups for November Reign will start on September 28th through October 12th, location TBA at sign-up time!