"The Roots of Metal" Project

It could easily have been taken from a Beatles record in my opinion but has a slightly more muscular blues rock vibe. There's no metal there as far as I can see.

It could easily have been taken from a Beatles record in my opinion but has a slightly more muscular blues rock vibe. There's no metal there as far as I can see.

Yeah, I refrained from saying that the chorus reminded me of I Am the Walrus, guess I wasn't off.

"Into The Fire" has a more Sabbath-like direction, slower marching hard rock/heavy metal, coming close to proto-doom metal. This may seem like I'm stretching the truth, but that's how I hear it. My genre verdict for "Into The Fire": Hard rock/heavy metal/proto-doom metal

Just listening to "Speed King" again now. I could be wrong but the verse riff sounds very much like a variation on the verse riff from Jimi Hendrix's "Fire" only with crunchy open-string guitar chords that wouldn't sound out of place on an AC/DC song layered over the top. The way the bassline goes into double-time was a technique that AC/DC used quite a bit to build tension too. Seems like Hendrix was a major influence on that song after the raucous intro's guitar histrionics which pay homage to Jimi's take on the "Star Spangled Banner". The chorus riff is a classic example of blues rock.

I don't disagree on Child in Time, it wouldn't be out of place on a metal record, but it's not necessarily a metal song. Gets a bit metal in places, but mostly just prog rock.

Flight of the Rat sounds borderline to me. It's got a nice amount of aggression and the pre-chorus (or perhaps pre-verse) riff is metal, but the rest is distinctly rock. A mix.

Into the Fire sounds like a KISS song, but one of their metal ones. I didn't think this one would be so controversial. Rock/metal.

I've taken a tally of our votes.  To keep it simple, I didn't bother with every vote that said "hard rock" and "heavy metal" at once, so I counted our votes to tally which of up think of each song as "metal" or "non-metal."

Speed King (5:54): Non-Metal - 1, Metal - 3
Bloodsucker (4:16): Non-Metal - 0, Metal - 4
Child in Time (10:20): Non-Metal - 4, Metal - 0
Flight of the Rat (7:57): Non-Metal - 1, Metal - 3
Into the Fire (3:30): Non-Metal - 2, Metal - 2

We're all agreed on two songs, two groups overtake one person favoring metal and we're currently tied on one.

Not counting Into the Fire for its clear tie, the times match up as follows:

Metal: 18:07

Non-Metal: 10:20

I think since Into the Fire is a tie, I think I should half it, giving 1:45 to each side, which would make the times 19:52 and 12:05.  This makes our total amount of metal 62.18%.

Sure seems like Deep Purple in Rock might be metal enough for The Guardians based on our votes, but let's check out the final two songs before coming to a conclusion.

To be clear Andi, this thread is just healthy discussion. The Hall of Judgement is the vessel for clan change requests as it’s not up to people like you or me to make decisions for The Guardians clan members. It’s gotta be a unanimous clan position.

There was already a Hall entry before this, and we'll see if that turns out to be the eventual change when non-forum regulars get around to it.

I started that.  Although, I do agree that the meta article and the halls should be consistent, but let's tackle that issue when it actually raises, because right now it's still non-metal.

Our sample size in this thread is far too small to be making any firm conclusions based the outcomes of the discussion to be honest. If anything, the exercise is just proving that people have very different understandings of what metal music is so they aren't using the same criteria when forming their opinions. There were several senior members of our community that didn't feel comfortable taking part in the conversation simply because they felt it would prove to be divisive & they certainly weren't wrong. I thought it would be a bit of fun though & it's delivered in that regard. It's very clear to me that the Hall of Judgement needs to remain the overarching source of truth for genre/clan assignment though as it allows for a) a larger sample size & b) a level of anonymity. For the record, the Hall of Judgement votes from The Guardians members to date are not unanimous on the metal credentials of "Deep Purple In Rock" so we'll have to wait & see how that pans out.

Anyway, "Living Wreck" then. Metal or not?

Parts of it feel kinda AC/DC-esque.  Going hard rock on this one.

It's only just heavy enough to be classed as hard rock in my opinion.

OK, even if Morpheus voted metal, which I don't think he will, we still have a 3/4 lead.  So this track's officially hard rock.

Speed King (5:54): Non-Metal - 1, Metal - 3 = Metal

Bloodsucker (4:16): Non-Metal - 0, Metal - 4 = Metal

Child in Time (10:20): Non-Metal - 4, Metal - 0 = Non-Metal

Flight of the Rat (7:57): Non-Metal - 1, Metal - 3 = Metal

Into the Fire (3:30): Non-Metal - 2, Metal - 2 = Half-Metal

Living Wreck: (4:34) - Non-Metal - 3, Metal - 0 (to update after Morpheus votes) = Non-Metal

Metal: 19:52

Non-Metal: 16:39

Metal percentage: 54.44%

Adding Hard Lovin' Man (7:11) to metal would make the times 27:03 vs. 16:39, but adding it to non-metal would make the times 19:52 vs. 23:46.

If it's added to metal, the metal percentage is: 61.89.

If it's added to non-metal, the percentage is: 45.46.

So either way, the album makes it.

Yeah, there's no question that Living Wreck's hard rock.

So what about "Hard Lovin' Man" then? What are we thinking' there?

That main riff has a metal progression to it, and the Jon Lord's pulling off some major soloing with those keyboards.  IMO, this is the most metal song on the album.

Absolutely Rex. This track is the only track that fully indulges in metal in my opinion. It's much faster & more aggressive than the remainder of the tracklisting. It's where the Iron Maiden gallop originated & that could never be mistaken for hard rock.

After having given every track a detailed investigation though, this exercise has only once again proven to me that "Deep Purple in Rock" falls well short of the mark required for metal qualification. I know that Rex, Morpheus & Andi disagree with me on this but in my view it's only really one & a half tracks that have any reference to metal with the remainder being so clearly centered around hard rock that it seems absurd to be claiming it as metal. I'll be surprised if the Hall of Judgement vote ends in a YES to enable this release to qualify for The Guardians & our chronological list.

To our The Guardians clan members, it'd be greatly appreciated if you could give this release an unbiased listen over the next week or so & then contribute your vote in the below Hall of Judgement poll so that we can see how you feel as a group on this matter.

https://metal.academy/hall/394

Tomorrow we'll start on Black Sabbath's "Paranoid". I'd imagine it will be a little more straight-forward but it'd be great if everyone can keep an open mind on which subgenre & clan you feel each track should rightfully sit under. As with the debut, we've always accepted "Paranoid" as a "heavy metal" record but could it possibly qualify for another or an additional genre at the Academy? Who knows? Let's find out though.

Sooo... do we get a say in the article list or not?

The answer is that this forum thread does not override the parameters we've put in place for the site. These are the things that need to be taken into account:

1. "Deep Purple in Rock" was added to the site as "Non-Metal" due to that being the consensus at RYM which currently has 385 votes on the matter with 199 of those being negative votes. Now, I don't have any faith much in RYM's genre-tagging but we've gotta have some sort of guideline & that's the one we've chosen so it is what it is.

2. There is currently a Hall of Judgement entry to overturn that position which only has two positive votes from the two members that have nominated the release for consideration on this thread. The only other vote was a no.

3. There are only four members contributing to this thread which is obviously less than I was hoping for. Two of those members are the ones that nominated "Deep Purple in Rock" for consideration which meant that there was never any chance of the average outcome leaning towards the negative.

4. If the final list is incorrect then it reflects poorly on the brand that Ben & I have built up over the last decade. I haven't spoken to Ben about what we might do with this list as yet but if it turned out well then I was thinking we could attach it to the relevant clan/subgenre as a guide for new players so it's important that it's accurate.

At the end of the day, I've penciled "Deep Purple in Rock" in for inclusion but that's subject to the Hall of Judgement outcome as it just makes no sense whatsoever to have a release show as Non-Metal on the site database but to be in a list of the earliest genuine metal releases on the same site so I want that resolved before moving ahead. It would be exactly the same if I had nominated a Non-Metal release for inclusion myself.

So it would be safer to see the hall for In Rock end before we actually make the list.  Good.  I was hoping there would be a more consistent outcome.

"Hard Lovin' Man" is another song that I initially thought was hard rock, but listening to it again, I can definitely hear metal in the riffing/soloing momentum. So another hard rock/heavy metal track there!

Now here's how I would genre-tag the 7 tracks in the album:

1. Speed King - Hard rock/heavy metal/proto-speed metal

2. Bloodsucker - Hard rock/heavy metal

3. Child in Time - Progressive rock/psychedelic rock/hard rock

4. Flight of the Rat - Hard rock/heavy metal/proto-speed metal

5. Into the Fire - Hard rock/heavy metal/proto-doom metal

6. Living Wreck - Hard rock

7. Hard Lovin' Man - Hard rock/heavy metal

Primary genres: Hard rock, heavy metal

Secondary genres: Proto-speed metal

Little late to the party here. My opinion is that "In Rock" is metal. If this album came out today it would be in the metal circles more so then just in Rock. I also think rock as a term in 2023 is dead and has been eaten up by the 100s of new genres that pop up every day but that's a different story. I'm glad that this album is such an easy listen to as well, been basically on repeat since this conversation came up and even my initial thought was, yeah of course this is metal. 

Now I will also say that if we're being very strict on this album and the definition of what is metal, then I don't believe Deep Purple, or Black Sabbath debut, or any of these 60's and 70's bands are metal. "Sad Wings of Destiny" by Judas Priest maybe the first "metal" album in a certain sense of the term but I would need to do more research. That doesn't take away what Deep Purple or Sabbath or these hard blues rock acts did to bridge the gap and make the sound heavier and intense. 

For intents and purposes here on the metal academy, In Rock should be included in heavy metal. If this is an academy then it is absolutely a record deserving a place amongst it's peers. 

If you're still adding votes to the songs, every song on the album gets a metal vote for me.

Speed King, Blood sucker,  flight of the rat, into the fire are heavy metal. Child in Time is a psychedelic/progressive metal track. Living wreck could also be psychedelic metal and maybe the least metal track lacking in the aggression but it works here.