Metal subgenres

Stoner metal is basically sludge slowed down but with more blues and sometimes organ. It’s basically classic metal, but slow. A lot of these bands are heavily influenced by Black Sabbath. The Sword, All them Witches, Sleep, etc are all good examples. Woman

Nu Metal is a fusion of metal and hiphop. It’s a pretty wide tent encompassing bands like Korn and Papa Roach with Limp Bizkit, Slipknot, and even Mudvayne. These songs tend to be more chromatic than pentatonic or symphonic. Nookie

Symphonic Metal is the exact opposite of nu metal and grunge. It is the hybrid of classical metal with progressive rock. It highlights pretension, technical difficulty, and grandiosity above everything else. It’s biggest roots are in classical music. Yngwei Malmsteen, Dream Theater, Coheed & Cambria are probably some of the most well-known examples. Carol of the Bells

Post grunge took grunge and sped it up a little with more emphasis on writing hooks. However, it still has that dour vibe which contrasts with hair metals fun. A lot of these bands get lumped in with nu-metal. Shinedown, Seether, Chevelle, Creed, and Breaking Benjamin are some of the most well-known bands from this era. Stupid Girl

Hardcore punk

Punk is basically the anti-metal. However, there was always more cross-pollination than serious fans of either genre want to admit. Hcx was influenced by metal, but took the british invasion inspired protopunk of the 70’s and sped it up. Hcx is fast, loud, aggressive, and often strongly overtly political. There is almost zero influence from blues or classical music. Minor Threat, Black Flag, Operation Ivy, and Suicidal Tendencies were all hugely influential. Through My Hands

Emotional Hardcore is called emo for short. Hxc music in the 90’s, particularly in DC took on a different vibe. Unlike hxc which was focused around politics, emo was more self focused, often centered on themes such as loss, self-loathing, and suicidal ideation. This would inspire a lot of later genres and aesthetics in metal and punk for decades to the present. These early emo bands sounded very different from what mainstream audiences might identify with the term. Fugazi, Rites of Spring, and the Promise Ring are good examples. For Want of

Post hardcore took the attitude of hxc and emo but blended it with the sounds of post-punk/nu-wave music and brought pop sensibilities back to punk music. There are essentially two versions of post-hardcore which vary widely in sound: spicy and mild.

Mild is bands like Hawthorne Heights, early MCR, The Used, Senses Fail, Thursday, Pierce the Veil, and Taking Back Sunday. What it is to burn

Spicy is mire influenced by hxc and groove/thrash metal. Bands like At the Drive In, Underoath, and As I Lay Dying are examples I might point to. However, the lines between spicy and mild post-hxc and metalcore are extremely blurry.
Reinventing Your Exit

Metalcore is another union of hxc and metal, but typically with more influence from thrash and symphonic metal, sometimes even hair metal. Metalcore can also be divided into two categories: 2000’s like Atreyu, Bullet for my Valentine, Killswitch Engaged, and Hatebreed vs 2010’s (which is more influenced by math rock and prog) with bands like LVNDMRKS, Bring me the Horizon, motionless in white, etc. The 2010’s are defined by one album, Sepiternal and the entire metal community’s reaction to it.

Crunkcore is what happens when you mix nu-metal with post-hardcore. This was an incredibly unserious genre attempting to push the envelope in ways that maybe shouldn’t have been done, lol. Some great examples are I Set My Friends on Fire, Hollywood Undead, Asking Alexandria, and Attack Attack!. Many of these bands actually started out extremely Christian and blew up on MySpace in their teens. Stick Stickly

Modern hardcore is its own animal. It’s currently the most vibrant form of alternative music in pop culture thanks to bands like Knocked Loose, Kublai Khan Tx, Callous Dowbois, and Turnstile. This is music to murder people to. The Hammer

Shoegaze is a really odd spot right now. Shoegaze peaked in the 90’s with Deftones as a blend of grunge with nu-wave and post-punk. However, around 2020, this genre got a major resurgence. Today, it’s not only hugely popular with young musicians, but it also has young women listening to metal more than at any time in the last 15 years, in large part thanks to this song: The Summoning

Grunge, hardcore, and shoegaze aren't metal.

I always thought the Ramones created some type of metal sub-genre (Thrash) with their Animal Boy album.

It's like the old song lyric I think it was, 100 TV stations and nothing's on. There are hundreds of types of metal and they all sound the same.

Need entries for doom metal and black metal.

Dream Theater are the torch bearers of progressive metal, not symphonic metal.

Thanks for this. I will listen to these.

Most of the metal I listen to is more mainstream: Megadeth, Pantera, Iron Maiden, Black Label Society, etc.

I need to expand my horizons.

Within Temptation

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Most of the metal I listen to is more mainstream: Megadeth, Pantera, Iron Maiden, Black Label Society, etc.

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Just stick with this. Metal genre discussions can quickly descend into stupidity with all the sub genres within sub genres. Unless you've been into the scene for a long time, you're probably better off not delving too deep.