Requiem

I'm definitely going with Amon Amarth. I wouldn't say I love them, but I have all their albums and find a lot to be entertained. Obituary are pretty cool I guess but don't have the staying power for me that AA has. I feel personally closer to AA as well, like an old comfort blanket, if you get me. 

A lot of weird posts in this thread. I'm going to vote leather, because it has a lot more potential and appeals more broadly. Denim is a bit more specific and represents a style of music I'm not super keen on. 

The great debate! 

For me it's definitely Black Sabbath with Ozzy that wins out. Those first 6 albums are amazing for me, musically, atmospherically and historically. Obviously 'Paranoid' is a brilliant album, but as others have mentioned, albums like 'Sabotage' are first class. Throw into the mix the understanding that they're practically inventing heavy metal and it's pretty hard to beat. I'm also a massive Ozzy solo fan, so I'm pretty biased. 

The Dio stuff is definitely awesome but apart from 'Heaven and Hell' it doesn't come close to the Ozzy material. Even 'Dehumanizer' doesn't live up to the hype. It also has a very strange drum sound - has anyone else noticed it? 

I love all Black Sabbath though and they're one of my favourite bands - I even love the Tony Martin era, but for me there is only one Sabbath, and it's got Ozzy Osbourne in it! 

This is a pretty cool album, but after several months of living with it, I'm not sure I love it as much as I used to. I almost feel that people were a little carried away with it when it first came out. I definitely rate it highly, and 'Empire of the Clouds' is a great song. 

I love these guys, although looking at their humour now I realise it's 90% sexual harassment 'jokes'... It's a little uncomfortable to watch hahaha.

Humour can sometimes have a place in metal, but for me not often. It works really well in a rock band like Steel Panther, who are simply hilarious and surprisingly engaging, but I always found the joke stuff in Type O Negative as fairly annoying, especially late in their career. Give me 'October Rust' over the god-awful 'Dead Again' any day. 

But yeah, I don't think humour should be entirely excluded. Certainly there's a lot about metal that's funny - as has been pointed out in this thread. 

Interesting topic. For me there is no doubt that music has a spiritual aspect to it. It's not just background noise or something to listen to in the car for me - like it is for a lot of other people. There is something transcendent about certain types of metal.

Whether it's Dissections 'Storm of the Light's Bane' or Anathema's 'Alternative 4', music contains aspects of the luminous that I would describe as spiritual. I get this from classical music as well. 

Having said this, however, there is certainly a lot of metal that is less emotionally based and it doesn't really do a lot for me when it comes to spiritual responses etc. 

I go back to tape days as well, but I really can't remember the very first 'metal' album I ever got. 

I remember when I was 10 in 1990 listening to Motley Crue's 'Dr Feelgood', which isn't exactly extreme metal, but certainly them with Guns n Roses and Skid Row had a huge impact on my future music exploration.

I think Metallica's 'Black Album', Megadeth's 'Countdown to Extinction' - both around 1992 for me, were probably the first of what you would call metal. Around 1992/1993 there was a lot of tape trading going on at my school, with most of the gateway bands, Iron Maiden etc. 

That's where this glorious journey began. 

Hi Everyone, I'm new too, clearly. I've loved forums for about 16 years now although for the last few years with the rise of social media I drifted away from them. Having rejected the profound narcissism of facebook and the like I'm back and exploring what i consider to be a much more refined and effective way of talking about music.

I'm going to give this forum a shot and see what comes of it. Looks like quite a few people around which is a cool thing these days. I'm going to go and post a whole lot and see what happens to decide whether I'm going kick on with it or not!