Define "Heavy"

[Sirjack]

Look at the crazy fucking Barbarian at 1:27

 

[jimmy101]

Only in 'Murica...

 

[Slammed]

Heavy is as heavy as a real heavy thing.

 

[Bruticus]

The lead guitarist in my first band way back was very old school in his taste and he considered Iron Maiden to be "heavy". Being knees deep into Sepultura, MachineHead, Pantera... at the time myself, all the groove bands with chunky power chords and muffled palm muted sections, I couldn't even wrap my mind around the concept someone could even consider Iron Maiden "heavy". Otherwise I've come across many acceptations of the term "heavy" I didn't agree with, so thought it'd be interesting to read opinions..

 

[Bruticus]

This.

I think people tend to mix up heaviness with brutality and extremity. Well at least my interpretation of heaviness anyway. I consider something like Candlemass’ The Well of Souls to be heavier than a lot of death metal for example - the riffs are just so weighty and forceful.

Right. And one of the main differences is you can't manufacture heaviness, you can brutality. Like sure you can boost all the settings to max and just play random palm muted power chords on a 4/4 kick-kick-snare-kick pattern, and be 'heavy'... but as far as brutality you could pick up a guitar and jam technical gibberish, add 300bpm blasts, vomit into the mic'.... you're brutal. I mean I basically just described Braindrill there, huh. But with heaviness, you do need song-writing cleverness and some thought to really organically tap into that beastial headbang mode in the listener.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

The lead guitarist in my first band way back was very old school in his taste and he considered Iron Maiden to be "heavy". Being knees deep into Sepultura, MachineHead, Pantera... at the time myself, all the groove bands with chunky power chords and muffled palm muted sections, I couldn't even wrap my mind around the concept someone could even consider Iron Maiden "heavy". Otherwise I've come across many acceptations of the term "heavy" I didn't agree with, so thought it'd be interesting to read opinions..

There are levels of heaviness. Iron Maiden are not heavier than say Black Sabbath, that doesnt mean they arent heavy when compared to the rest of the music that was being played at the time. I bet you argued with them that Iron Maiden aren't even a heavy metal band, right?

Anyway, are these not heavy enough for you?

 

[The Butt]

2heavy4u to be ironic

"ironic"

 

[jimmy101]

Maiden aren't very heavy. They're metal as fuck though. Powerslave is probably their heaviest song.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

Maiden aren't very heavy. They're metal as fuck though. Powerslave is probably their heaviest song.

i think the Sabbathy crushing main riff on Children of the Dead is the heaviest they've been. But i havent heard a bunch of their newer albums so i could be wrong.

 

[jimmy101]

i think the Sabbathy crushing main riff on Children of the Dead is the heaviest they've been. But i havent heard a bunch of their newer albums so i could be wrong.

Actually come to think of it one of their newer albums showcases a little bit a visceral low-end type of stuff. If you haven't heard this you might be shocked that Maiden can produce this kind of stuff. The first 4 mins in particular.

 

[Oblivious Maximus]

All various forms of "heavy" that don't sound anything alike:

Spoiler

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

All various forms of "heavy" that don't sound anything alike:

Spoiler

One of the greatest tracks of all time! One of the heaviest opening riffs of all time! Fuck i love that song.

 

[Bloopy]

Heavy is thicc. Campbell of BBA said slow is heavier than fast and I agree. The physical presence of a wall of bassy sound leaning on you. Fast and heavy is more like an earthquake shaking you, but it just doesn't seem as 'weighty'.

 

[CiG]

In the old music rags most things referred to as "heavy metal" were slower paced songs, so there's definitely something to that conceptualization of heavy.

 

[jimmy101]

Indeed. You'd also have to think that concept of heaviness came about before the genre was infused with punk rock and speed metal became a thing.

 

[CiG]

Yeah, the 60's bands that wrote long, jammy bad acid trip songs were the first "heavy" songs basically. Listen to fucking "Death Warmed Up" by High Tide for example.

Mad River are HEAVY.

 

[Slammed]

I remember seeing a band back in the 90's (on the fucking Midday Show of all things) they were from Perth and they were trying to be the loudest band in the world. I think they were named Rawkus or something and they were the actual definition of heavy.

The lead guy was something like 2.2m tall, 190kg and the outfit he wore on stage weighed a further 50kg or something. He used a guitar that had extractors and an exhaust pipe which blew smoke and it was reported that many a stage had to be reinforced for the band to play because of the weight of the entire band. I'm pretty sure the myth was better (and lasted longer) than the band but the guy was still fucking heavy!

 

[jimmy101]

Leaf Hound were fuckin' heavy man

 

[Bloopy]

I think referring to music as "heavy" probably came from the 60's hippie culture, which meant that something was serious or intense and in the cultural lingo of the time it was something that wasn't a fun time or a kind of buzzkill.

There's long article on it here. You can see when it really took off in the late 60s just by searching for the word 'heavy' on Discogs. Seems both the hippies and reviewers got it from several sources, including the writing of William S. Burroughs, Steppenwolf describing cars/motorbikes, and chemistry:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19401159.2013.846655?scroll=top&needAccess=true

Heavy metal was also in the air, in the water, and in the news throughout 1969. Heavy metal was the popular term for one heavy metal, mercury, which was polluting the air and poisoning fish and those who ate them.