What is a Subgenre? Websters defines it as follows:
It's literally exactly what it should be, a genre within or under an already existing genre, hence the "sub" portion of the compound word.
However, headbangers worldwide have taken the term to new and ridiculous heights. In the musical Genre "Metal," or the less used old school phrase "Heavy Metal," the ludicrous amount of subgenres, along with the titles of said subgenres, have become a game that really is pretty difficult to try to master.
Movies and print have been dedicated to the topic, but the genres are ever evolving, and quickly the info changes.
The need for the subgenre in the Metal world, and the titles that separate the classifications, were somewhat understandable at first, but in order to understand it today, you sort of have to live it.
I feel like some others that have written about subgenres, really reached to created subgenres that didn't exist until they made it so. Looking backward and plugging in genre names in hindsight is something that isn't necessary. It's easy to say Black Sabbath is Doom Metal, but in 1969, it was heavy blues, and once the term caught on, it was Heavy Metal.
It could be argued that originally the term Heavy Metal was specifically describing a subgenre of Hard Rock, which was actually a subgenre of Rock and Roll. Heavy Metal described the bands that were a bit heavier than the radio rock of the day. The idea of "heavy" was much more than just guitar distortion, it encompassed an attitude as well.
Led Zeppelin sounded nothing like Black Sabbath, Kiss sounded nothing like Deep Purple, and Judas Priest sounded nothing like Queen. The lines were blurred back then. The 70's were a simpler time because a music fan could like Floyd, Skynyrd and Zep and still be considered cool by his peers, and absolutely be considered a Heavy Metal fan.
At the same time, Punk Rock (yet another subgenre) was on the rise. Both Punk and Metal had distortion and roots in rock and roll, but generally speaking Punks and Heads didn't really get along.
Punk subgenres and Metal subgenres started around the same time, but Punk really divided quickly. Hard Core Punk, was very raw, much heavier and was in response to the New Wave movement some of the Punk bands of the day capitalized on (Blondie, Talking Heads etc) and the commercialization of the genre's big bands (The Clash).
At the same time, Metal really was finding a voice and a direction. NWOBHM (New Wave of British Heavy Metal), which was heavily influenced by Judas Priest and UFO, was really the first defined subgenre of Metal. Iron Maiden stood on top of that movement.
On the other side of the Atlantic, Los Angeles bands, led by Van Halen, somehow adopted the Heavy Metal name and really set the course for the next 10 years of the genre.
Iron Maiden had very little in common with Motley Crüe, yet they were lumped into the same category at the record store.
The first subgenre I was aware of was "Thrash Metal."
Thrash was a direct descendant of Punk and NWOBHM. It included, and was championed by, the "Big Four" bands of Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax, yet was also heavily influenced by the likes of Venom and Motörhead.
It was important for this era to separate itself from what eventually became known as "Hair Metal." At the time, it was all considered Heavy Metal, yet couldn't have been more polar opposites in content and aggression.
Hard Core Punk started to cross a line into the Metal world, and dropped the Punk suffix, same as Metal dropped the Heavy prefix eventually.
Doom, Progressive Metal and Black Metal existed in content early on, but they weren't given solidified genre names until some point in the late 80's/early 90's. Death Metal came along in the 80's, and was quickly defined as such (a rarity in the early metal world).
The subgenres of today are directly related to other subgenres crossing each other, or at very least incorporating an element of a metal subgenre into an exiting music style. Confused? Yeah, me too.
DJENT is a category named after the actual guitar sound prevailing in the song structure, so that is an easy one, but before DJENT was DJENT, it was dangerously considered Math Metal, but it also needed to seperate from other bands that were more Prog and called Math Metal.
Nu-Metal, which started its life as Rap Metal actually charted for a few years, and Metal Core rose up the chain to a lesser degree as well.
Technical Thrash, Technical Death Metal, Grind Core, MetalCore, Industrial Metal, Stoner Metal, Folk Metal, Symphonic Metal, and so on.... It's hard for me to get my head around it all. I'm positive that I'm not the only person who can't imagine a young Metal Head who only listens to Cello Metal.
At the end of the day, diversity in the Metal world is a good thing, but the question remains: can a house this divided actually stand? After all, it's all Metal, isn't it?
The answer is yes, as Metal lives and breathes through all of its bastard children. Unfortunatly, along with the subgenre and the rise of the Internet, the infighting became a mainstay as well, which is pretty trivial, but just as people need food, water and air, they need something to bitch about. Gone forever are the simple days of Kiss vs Led Zeppelin, which Zepplin wins every time, except for when Kiss wins, and Sabbath Rules.
Sleep well my friends.
Nago.
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