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There is no good definition I could give without writing the paper for you.
simply put the very beginning could be described as
"A form of Hard Rock that attempted to transcend social norms and advance the rebellious nature of music through "heavier" and louder production, an emphasis on musicianship and more serious lyrical themes that spoke of taboo, fantasy, occult or political themes. This contrasted with Hard Rock bands using nostalgia and "feel good" themes and Glam bands non-serious theatrics where the music took a back seat to entertainment. Metal strives to be the serious side. It also strives to emphasize songwriting and brevity that had become the normal course for a lot of rock bands leaning into softer progressive scene. Metal embodies the spirit of youth, danger and strong determination. It separated itself from garage rock in that it almost took itself as the sole motivation, as evidenced by the musicians intention and tendencies to best their competition with superior lyrical themes, superior musicianship and superior songwriting, whereas the attitude and commonality of garage rock was shunned in favor of a more elite aesthetic"
To me that sums up what metal was about in the early 70's. Led Zeppelin only fits the mold completely after LZIII in my opinion, though the immigrant song as a good start. I wouldn't call them metal, but they were trying to appeal to both the hard rock and metal crowds.
The Hair metal era is very hard to categorize. Some bands were just making louder and heavier hard rock records, like motley crue's early stuff, but the fine line comes with bands like Dio, which is definitely metal and stuff like Lynch Mob, which was more like hard rock, even though the distinction between songs like "wicked sensation" and "rainbow in the dark" are very minimal. Contrasted to that, Europe were the lightest metal band ever, and Guns N Roses was some of the harder hard rock around.
Very tough to pigeon hole those bands. I'd say anything that even touched hair metal is hard rock. It's just easier when you have NWOBHM that don't blur the lines and obviously thrash and extreme metal that was harder than anything before, so it is obviously metal.
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I love the Queen.
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