Non-Metal Metal: Cast Your Votes and Pick Your Favorites

Today's post again comes from our friend HIM.

While Allyson is dealing with her hand issues, I wanted to revisit a topic I brought up months ago: what does it take to be metal when you aren’t? At that time, I heralded the end of David Letterman’s reign as a sign that the metal in late night was gone. I still think I am right (it is a bleak landscape months later, though Samantha Bee and Jon Oliver do a good job of hoisting a politically-biased liberal flag, a comparative flag that conservative jokester Greg Gutfeld squandered when he left Fox’s Red Eye). 

Enough politics though. I want to return to the topic with music on my mind. So who is metal enough without being metal?  I am going to provide three candidates, of different pedigrees. They are no longer with us (one in fact; the other two in line-up). I’d like you to supply additions, perhaps with links to evidence backing up your claim.  

The first is, to me, a no-brainer:  

What sort of Faustian bargain did Perry sign? How in the heck was he capable of that? Putting aside the snugness of his Mom jeans, or the distraction of his little Perry (and the assorted Cains, Schons, etc.) therein, one has to stand in awe of what this pop juggernaut was capable of presenting on a stage that gave them no place to hide. Even Schon was fro’ flying and puckerless in this blast from the past. This is AOR at its metal best. You would have to tap Boston for something that comes close to transcending Journey.  

Speaking of which:  

A damn shame this isn’t live (in sound, not imagery). Then again, Boston were always about Stoltz’s studio magic. But that voodoo was nothing without Delp handling vox. I will, however, offer a bit of a qualification to that point. Seeing them on the Walk On tour proved that they could, with a bit of trickery, replicate the sound of the albums live. Point in fact, Delp and then-other-singer Cosmo traded range-shattering vocals on this very song, during that part where you wondered how a person could shift octaves so amazingly . . . and before you realized it was Stoltz’s nobs, gears, and air-pumps massaging the steampunk sound into your earholes on the original waxy vinyl.   But enough of AOR fondue. I want to push further (without indulging my love for more esoteric, though metal, bands). I want to go a bit farther back and simply ask you to bask in the warm, sweaty glow of a comet that was crashing back to Earth:

That is cheesier than most Glam bands. And it is as rehearsed as anything that Letterman made seem spontaneous. “Shove it up your nose?”  Okay, I can handle that when you give me a sly nod and a crooked smile. The ham-fisted background singer taunt? I bow to you, King. And those gyrations? No one else can make exercise look so erotic and sexual and effortless (if exhausting). This was Elvis on the back end of a career. But, boy oh boy, what a career. And the Bachs and Roths (yes, I said it) of our era and genre would love to have that sort of impact on fans as they bring metal to increasingly smaller masses.

So there you have it. Two AOR legends. One musician who can, even in death, smack most musicians around while liberally borrowing from the American songbook, wiggling his pantsuit-encased body around like a seizure victim. All three of them are METAL. Yes, I just yelled.  

So I ask you again: who is metal without being metal? Bring it. We can take it.

Comments

[Kixchix]

Lemmy. He transcends categorizations.

George Takei

Christopher Hitchens

...now that's a motley metal without being metal crew!

[Gary]

Agreed with all 3 of your picks Him, along with Kixchix.
I'd offer up for consideration Blue Oyster Cult, Sammy Hagar ( hell, he wrote the ass kicking song "Heavy Metal"for that movie!) Sweet ( hugely underrated precursor to a lot of the bands we love) and Queen ( Tie Your Mother Down and Fat Bottomed Girls alone have 2 of the most hellacious head banging riffs ever composed). Great topic and I'm sure folks will chime in with a load more that my age addled brain can't think of at this early morning hour. Lol

[fletch]

I like KC's perspective, but Lemmy 'is' metal (or god), so going along with her thought process and completely knowing that greg gutfeld is not funny, he's simply smug,

I'll offer

1) Bill Maher

2) Sam Harris

3) Ann Coulter (C'mon, I'm joking!)

Real #3: it's a tie...Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, they crank it up to '11' because they can!

[fletch]

Bill Maher should do this joke:

Ah good 'ol Ann Coulter and her love of Donald Trump...She's like NAMBLA without the empathy.

[Gary]

LMFAO fletch!!!! Or like Atilla The Hun without the compassion...

[Kixchix]

Gary. Yes!!!

QUEEN- So much of today's music is Freddie & Co. They are unabashed love of what one loves, put into art and culture. Truly an inspiring group.

[Steverox]

Totally agree with Queen. One of my favorites. I'll add Cheap Trick to the conversation. Any band that wrote a song called "She's Tight" is metal in my book. Steel Panther agrees.

[Bob]

Okay, I'll probably get slaughtered for this, but I offer up Miles Davis and his third great quintet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYjINJ8QCgg

as you will hear, this is not cocktail jazz. this is raw, explosive, and shredding long before Yngwie ever picked up a guitar.

[London]

For me the most metal of all the divas. Saw Tina during this tour at Wembley Arena and her command of the crowd was complete.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLi-KJJTSyc

[Bkallday]

Wow. Journey and Boston "metal" lmfao. Ummm........no. What next, a nod to Boy George? And no, for the record, neither of those bands are "metal without being metal". Opinions are good and all but that may be the most far fetched theory that I've ever heard in my entire life. I am now dumber for having read this!

[Shawn]

Splitting Hairs - when I was younger and not opinionated and just discovering screaming guitars and pumping 8th notes and 16th notes - if it moved me - that is what I considered metal. The problem with most music we now call classic rock is that radio killed great songs by overplaying. to add to your list Him - Foghat, Euriah Heep, Bad Company just to name a few.....

[Him]

Kixchix, Hitchens was a rare bird. Caustic and nasty, but also funny and sharp. Not a man I often agreed with . . . but, boy oh boy, when he took the stage (or raised his pen) he owned it. Bob, the nod to Miles Davis is well deserved. Bitches Brew is metal for certain. Shawn, nice to see the Heep get a mention. I can certainly see that (no less Foghat or Bad Company). And, Gary, without BOC, there would be no Ghost or countless other bands who straddled genres in search of a sound.

I partially agree with you Fletch, about Gutfeld that is. He is smug. But when he was on, he was on . . . increasingly rare now that he is being given free reign on his own show. He worked better on Red Eye.

Wow. I made you dumb(er), Bkallday (your comment, not mine)? What can I say? I love you. I honestly love you. Thanks for contributing.

[Bkallday]

No problem. Btw, i have no problems with those with that choose to live "alternative lifestyles". Just a FYI for ya!