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What do you define as heavy in music?

What do you define as heavy in music?

  • Blast beats and grinding awesome

    Votes: 18 40.9%

  • Moderate tempos and pulsing rythms

    Votes: 22 50.0%

  • If I can't breathe to it it's too fast for my heavy fix.

    Votes: 4 9.1%
  • Total voters
    44
#21
It really annoys me when the old-school crowd kicks in and says nothing after Sabbath or NWOBHM is heavy.

No, Cannibal Corpse isn't heavy. Neither is Nile. or Hate Eternal, or Goatwhore or Emperor.

Yes, music was recorded after 1985!
 
#25
IconBasser said:
does anybody else find the Berzerker's snare drum to be REALLY freakin' annoying?
Click to expand...

i thikn you're talking about their bass drum tone. its a sample of some techno bass drum sound. i love it wiht the berzerker. it just makes them that more *heavy* and chaotic sounding.


personally i think of heavy as bone crunching volume and not necessarily slow riffs. but riffs where you can definatly tell where the accented beat is.


this goes the same for hip hop/rap music. they can be really heavy imo too
 
#26
Man, "heavy" can be Sabbath, Rush, Metallica, Cannibal Corpse, Sunn O))), Led Zep, etc, etc. You got all the ridiculous sub-genres of it--thrash, doom, death, classic, new wave of british heavy metal, crossover, punk, hardcore, etc, until you have a headache. I think if you are gonna define it, then distorted guitar is the beginning along with powerful vocals. If you ain't got those two components, it ain't gonna be heavy to me.
 
#29
This thread fails. :scowl::rollno: EPIC fail.

This is (again) one of those questions u can't answer because some people think that Beatles is heavy and some people think that those "I'll rip ur head off and eat it and then **** it on ur dead mothers head and eat her too" bands aren't heavy enough. It's just matter of opinion. Some people like spagetti but others hate it. Some people think that this band is heavy and others don't.

End of discussion
 
#31
IMO, there are a few contributing factors.

the first one is the intensity of the music: I can't really define intensity concretely, but to me the more "intense" a song is, the heavier it is to me. For example: Pantera. They convey a high-energy rocking awesomeness even though they aren't the fastest band around. Aeon: easily the most intense (and therefore heavy) band I've encountered, because there are insane levels of energy and aggression present in every band member's contribution.

the next aspect I always notice is that actual tone of the vocals and instruments. IMO Meshugga [which most people in the other heavy thread agree is the heaviest band around] doesn't sound heavy to me at all. Reason? Their guitars sound weak, thin, and lifeless.
 
#36
Ben Lesser said:
Heavy =/= speed.

To me, heavy is entirely about tone. A lot of thick instrument tones make for heavy muisc, imo. Obviously some genres are more disposed to 'heaviness' than others, but that's how I see it. You can have heavy blues, heavy classical, heavy jazz, whatever.
Click to expand...

Spot on. Go and have a listen to Stravinsky's Rite Of Spring and you'll hear some bone-crushingly heavy music without a distorted guitar in sight.

I think this is one of these "If you have to ask, you'll never know" questions...;)
 

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