Hard & Heavy, The Biggies

[PeterG]

The Original Big Three
Black Sabbath
Deep Purple
Led Zeppelin

The Big Four of Thrash
Anthrax
Megadeth
Metallica
Slayer

Die Große Fünf
Accept
Helloween
Running Wild
Scorpions
Sodom

The NWOBHM Big Six
Iron Maiden
Judas Priest
Raven
Saxon
Tygers of Pan Tang
Venom


Sleaze, glam, grunge, stoner, hair metal and southern rock I will let others compile.

NB. please note that the lists above are generally acknowledged in the metal community. So as such please try to stick to the generally accepted groupings for other heavy styles rather than lists of your favorite bands.

[bob_32_116]

This kind of list could actually be very useful to me! And no, NOT so that I can hastily go hunting for albums by all these acts.

Surely AC/DC should fit in there somewhere?

[PeterG]

AC/DC with their straight up rock n roll and hard boogie rock would fit on a list with bands like Motley Crue, Kiss, Motorhead, Def Leppard, Hanoi Rocks, Alice Cooper, WASP, Guns n Roses etc.....in fact many years ago Def Leppard would go as far as to say in interviews, we are not a metal band, we are a rock band.

[Digital_Man]

Not sure how you managed to leave out Diamond Head in the NWOBH category but based on my research I think they deserve a spot in the big six more than Venom or Raven.

[PeterG]

Early days in North America
Alice Cooper
April Wine
Blue Cheer
BOC
GFR
Heart
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Montrose
Mountain
Pat Travers Band
Rush
Suzi Quatro
Ted Nugent

[PeterG]

DM, if like me you like and know a lot about Diamond Head, then I would have thought it was obvious why they aren't on the list......do you want the lengthy explanation?

[Jubal]

What, no Uriah Heep? What a shame.

[PeterG]

Don't worry, UH coming on a list soon.

[PeterG]

The Sons of the Great....

Bad Company (Free)
Rainbow (Deep Purple)
Tredegar (Budgie)

[PeterG]

Rocking along on the crest of a spaceship

Captain Beyond
Deep Purple
Hawkwind
Nazareth
UFO
Uriah Heep
Wishbone Ash

Many bands of course may and will appear on several lists.

[Vic2012]

Where's Thin Lizzy? The greatest harmony leads ever

[Digital_Man]

DM, if like me you like and know a lot about Diamond Head, then I would have thought it was obvious why they aren't on the list......do you want the lengthy explanation?

Not a lengthy one no but maybe it is similar to why you didn't include Motorhead on the list. Maybe you think they predated the NWOBHM. I'm just saying I always see DH listed among the top four or five NWOBHM bands listed whenever I see that term and was surprised they weren't on your list. That's all. They were very influential to Megadeth and Metallica too. Not sure how influential some of the other bands were.

[PeterG]

At the top of your list Vic, presumably followed by Wishbone Ash and a few other very melodic twin axe attacks Come on guys I'm not going to do all the graft!

[Vic2012]

Yeah but what list do they fit in among those lists of yers?

[PeterG]

Yea the predating is part of the reason, they were still though one of the first nwobhm bands, albeit with an older sound, which was also true for priest but that sound prevented them being signed for a long time... and fantastic live but their penchant for imploding and unsteady line ups and taking about 5 years,IIRC, to release their first album and zero airplay meant that they had been overtaken in popularity by loads of other nwobhm bands with a fresher newer sound who were spitting out albums at the rate of at least one a year. They were never as popular as Saxon, maiden priest, venom, tigers anyway though, in the minds of the nwobhm buying public.....you can be the best band in the world live, but if you're not producing albums, and good albums at that you can forget it......then when they split in 85, after 10 years and just 3 albums, the second and third of which were quite disappointing and weren't really nwobhm anyway...well that was it really.
As for Motorhead , they were never part of nwobhm, they were playing a mix of old school biker rock mixed with blues, boogie but mostly raw brutal three chord punk, their sound had far more in common with Oi! bands like Cockney Rejects, Gbh, Chelsea and The Business than with Maiden, priest and Saxon.

[PeterG]

For me Lizzy has always been one of the second generation melodic bands along with Queen, Rainbow, and Nazareth.
Third generation would be Whitesnake, Gillan, Quartz etc.

[PeterG]

Or Vic....and this is very much tongue in cheek


Eire Apparent
Taste
The Horslips
Thin Lizzy

[PeterG]

I'm looking forward to some US input, especially with regard to recent years, post-thrash in other words.

[PeterG]

Being present in a place, time and zeitgeist often results in errors, the media often called The Stranglers a punk band and called Motorhead a heavy metal band.....and that was usually media going by looks alone who hadn't actually bothered to listen to the bands.

[Vic2012]

Thin Lizzy was a very unique band. I like all their eras. The only album I don't like by them is Thunder and Lightning. Couple good songs but Thin Lizzy was not a HM band. To me they almost sound Southern Rock, with the whole Irish/Celtic thing mixed in. What a great, second tier, kickass rock band.

[PeterG]

I agree with all of that Vic.My favorite album is Black Rose, massive Celtic rock at its best.

[Vic2012]

Don't care that much for Black Rose. I love the epic, title track and Waiting For An Alibi, the rest doesn't do a lot for me. I love, love, love Chinatown and Renegade, which to me blow away BR.

[PeterG]

Btw, I'm currently trying to compile a list of all the hard rock and metal bands I have on all three formats, vinyl, CD and cassette. And I can tell you it isnt easy with the amount I have. I passed 100 bands as soon as the letter D! B is surprisingly heavy for hard rock and metal bands.

[Fracktured]

The seventies and a good part of the sixties and eighties produced so many hard rock bands that the list could go on for miles.

[PeterG]

Jailbreak and Nightlife are my faves after BR.