Does Heavy Metal music benefit from a high end audio system?

@wturkey,

"Absolutely! Unfortunately, a percentage of this genre has marginal recording quality at best. For example, Iron Maiden, to me is rough on the ears. Still enjoyable albums!"



Agreed.
By some dastardly quirk of fate, or twiddle of a post production engineer’s knob, it would seem as if Heavy Metal (also Heavy Rock, Punk etc) seems to suffer more than other genres.

There just seems to be an inordinately amount of bad digital transfers that seem to go against the very ethos of the music they are supposed to serve.

In particular the use of compression/loudness for this type of music is hard to stomach.

When you think of all the poor digital Motorhead releases through the years, it’s pretty obvious that those doing the transferring could not have been fans.

At one thoughtless stroke, casually discarding all of the theoretical advantages that digital had over analogue.

@noske,

Quite right.

It would be equally wrong to deny that Led Zeppelin were not Heavy Metal as it would be to say they only played metal.

Clearly they were a multi faceted band with a wide range of influences from blues, folk to rock.

Yet it would be extremely pendatic to say that tracks such as Rock and Roll, How Many More Times, When the Levy Breaks were neither metal nor heavy, wouldn't it?

Heck, even the Beatles could be Heavy Metal at times.

Helter Skelter anyone?

Or how about the lovely guitar sound of Revolution?
https://youtu.be/BGLGzRXY5Bw


Hmm... maybe someone should start a thread on well recorded Heavy Rock and Metal albums available in the digital format?

Certainly not me, I just don't know of that many but I might check out some of the Sabbath suggestions above.

Must learn to love Ozzy, must learn to love Ozzy...

@noske,

Dave Grohl quoted Lemmy (late of Motorhead) - "Lemmy’s the king of rock ’n’ roll—he told me he never considered Motörhead a metal band, he was quite adamant."



Quite right too. Motorhead were never JUST a metal band.

On the other hand, just like Zeppelin, they are automatically considered to be one of the most famous metal bands to emerge from the UK.

Basically, you don't have to be a 'metal' band to play metal. There are no such rules and distinctions in music where crossover is often king.


In fact here's another great metal track that wouldn't normally be associated with this artist.
William Shatner's awesome take on Pulp's Common People

https://youtu.be/zI3UfxyIdgs

Perhaps the definitive answer to what might be considered genuine Heavy Metal can be found here?

1983s Comic Strip Presents - Bad News Tour.
https://youtu.be/7ZSOB-bUwCU


or alternatively on Dailymotion if you don't have uBlock and happen to live where it's blocked.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4mir4r

Or perhaps not! 

In any case, don't you think this gem of a comedy really ought to be better known?