While I listen to almost every different type of music out there (my music folder has everything from Metallica and Opeth to Sarah McLachlan and Johny Cash in it), the main type of music which calls to my soul comes in three general category for the past couple of years
- bands centered around strong female vocals (think Janis Joplin, Aretha Franklin, Lacuna Coil, Sarah McLachlan, etc)
- bands and songs that have a sort of legacy value to me, my favorite band Metallica for example currently sits in this category, as does Ozzy
-melodic death metal, particularly stuff like Opeth, Amon Amarth, In Flames, Tristania (black metal I suppose here)... I must have spammed Doom Over Dead Men (Amon Amarth) at least 2 or 3 times per day for the last month, along with their Without Fear.
I don't know about categorization anymore. I mean all these categories are largely marketing driven anyway. From a strictly musical pov metal is the same as rocki. When I was a kid through my teen years, there were basically five types of broad general metal categories
-Rock Metal...bands like Kiss, Alice Cooper, AC/DC, Blue Oyster Cult, Motorhead, etc
-Pure or Heavy Metal, bands like Ozzy or Sabbath,
-Speed Metal .. bands like Iron Maiden or Metallica's first 3 albums (their latter stuff i more in the line of the above categories)
-Thrash Metal ... bands like Slayer, Pantera or Testament
-Death Metal... bands like Morbid Angel, Nihil, Vader or Napalm Death..
then bands started jumping out of their categories for one reason or another, like Metallica no longer playing speed metal after their 3rd album and basically becoming more like Black Sabbath... or Fear Factory (truely an awesome band) who regularly went back and forth between Speed, Thrash and Death in one song...
And you had the rise of alternative music, where the marketeers started to try to pigeon hole bands like Alice in Chain and Korn as some sort of numetal or alternative metal and those bands said fuck that.... I remember the obsessive alternative media and fan base being shocking when Korn blew off alternative media outlets and only did shit like Ozzfest and toured with other metal bands, lol.
From there, metal subcategorization exploded. Goth-death-emo-metal, industrial-metal, viking-metal, power-metal and whatever other category they made up.
Now I just have a broad categories in my itunes called "metal". I don't care about pure categorization anymore, and I just not the general trend of what I listen to as I opened the post with above.
(Lol, I thought that I was having a brain aneurism the other day, Katy Perry's fireworks came on the radio at work and I was like "that's kind of catchy", of course that's probably influenced by my desire to bend her over the end of my couch and thrust till my penis falls off, lol, but female sex appeal is always part of their musical appeal).
I suppose if you need to know my favorite metal acts right now..
Metallica, Amon Amarth, Opeth, Alice in Chains, Slayer, Fear Factory, Ozzy, Lacuna Coil, Tristania.. with lesser known bands like Spineshank, Inflames and a couple of others in play.
My advice, if you are looking for a new band like one you know, hit up some internet radio stations, I listen to hardradio at times or seton hall pirate radio.
come to think of that, I am reminded of a couple of bands I associate with the latter station.. nothingface, puya, nj bloodline, Life of Agony...