Thrash, doom and death metal belong at the top of any metal subgenres tier list that grades by a single stated test, and glam belongs near the bottom of it, for a reason that has nothing to do with whether its songs are any good. The test is influence on the sound. A style ranks by how many of the styles that came after it still carry a tool it put into their hands, and by nothing else.
The Irish hydrographer who, in 1805, graded the wind by what it did rather than by how fast it blew was Francis Beaufort. The meteorologist who added the land descriptions ashore, in a year given as either 1906 or 1916, was George Simpson, and those descriptions ranked a gale by damage any passer-by could read: at force 9 the chimney pots and slates come crashing into the street, at force 10 whole trees are ripped up by the roots. Nobody needed an instrument. The street was the instrument.
Grade a subgenre the same way. Not by sales, not by the quality of its best record and not by the loyalty of its fans, but by what it tore loose in the styles that came after, the tools still lying in other people's music ten, twenty and forty years on. The parent style stays off the table, because every branch carries its tools, and how each branch broke away is traced in the chapter above. Ranking a trunk against its own limbs measures nothing.
The metal subgenres tier list, graded by what each style left behind
| Tier | Subgenre | The tool it left | Where the tool turns up later |
|---|---|---|---|
| S | Thrash metal | The fast, downpicked, palm-muted riff | Death, black and groove metal, metalcore |
| S | Doom metal | The riff slowed and lowered until each chord rings out | Sludge, stoner, death-doom, funeral doom, gothic metal |
| S | Death metal | The growled vocal | Melodic death metal, metalcore, deathcore |
| A | Black metal | Tremolo-picked melody under a shriek, the raw production | Post-black metal, blackgaze |
| A | Speed metal | Double kick drums under a clean voice at double pace | Power metal, thrash metal |
| A | Groove metal | The mid-tempo syncopated riff that stamps and waits | Nu metal, metalcore |
| B | Progressive metal | Odd metres and long forms | Djent, technical death metal |
| B | Gothic metal | Doom tempo carrying gothic rock melody | Symphonic metal |
| B | Power metal | The soaring chorus over double kick | Symphonic metal |
| B | Nu metal | The low-tuned seven-string riff built on rhythm | Metalcore, deathcore |
| B | Epic heavy metal | The long song built on myth | Viking metal, epic doom |
| C | Glam metal | The power ballad and the video shoot | Pop metal; little on later riffs |
| C | Neoclassical shred | The harmonic minor sweep | Solos inside power metal; no style built on it |
Two rules settle the close calls. A tool counts only when it turns up in a style that did not exist when the tool was made, so a subgenre whose only heirs are its own younger bands earns nothing for them. And the tool has to be audible: a lyric subject, a stage costume or a logo can travel round the world without moving a single note, and the test does not see it.
S tier: the tools nobody put down
The flint hand axe was knapped to the same teardrop pattern for more than a million years, a nodule hammered with a pebble until flake after flake split away and left two edges that could open a carcass to the bone, and the design barely changed from one side of the Old World to the other across some one and a half million years, from long before Homo sapiens to well within it. Thrash left a tool of that kind. The downpicked, palm-muted riff at speed is the first thing death metal, black metal, groove metal and metalcore pick up, and thrash's own story sits in a silo of its own.
Doom left weight. Slow the riff, lower it until each chord needs a bar of its own to land, and that single gesture is what sludge, stoner, death-doom, funeral doom and a good half of gothic metal stand on, and a style that can found five others on one gesture ranks beyond dispute.
The Florida guitarist who put the style's name on his band and dragged its voice down to a roar on Scream Bloody Gore in 1987 was Chuck Schuldiner, with Death, and the growl turned out to be the most portable tool in the whole family. Melodic death metal carried it into harmony, metalcore into the breakdown, deathcore into the pit. Its bloodline runs through every harsh voice recorded since.
A style ranks by the tools still lying in other people's music forty years on, and by nothing else.
A tier: tools that travelled well
The Kolbotn duo that stripped its production down to a hiss and a buzz on Transilvanian Hunger in 1994 was Darkthrone, Fenriz alone driving guitar, bass and drums before Nocturno Culto's voice was layered over the top, and its tremolo-picked melody, one note hammered sixteen times a bar under a shriek, became the raw material of post-black metal and blackgaze. Speed metal left the double kick under a clean voice, the engine both power metal and thrash still run on. Of the three in this tier, black metal's tool has travelled furthest from home, into bands that would never paint their faces or record in the cold.
The Arlington band that slowed thrash to a strut and made the gap between the notes hit harder than the notes themselves was Pantera, and "5 Minutes Alone", from Far Beyond Driven in 1994, is that tool in its plainest form, a riff that stamps on the beat, waits, and stamps again like a boot coming down on floorboards. Nu metal and metalcore both took it. Neither gave it back.
B tier: tools with a single heir
The five Swedes whose guitars lock into cycles that refuse to line up with the drummer's four-four for bars at a time are Meshuggah, and "Demiurge", from The Violent Sleep of Reason, released in 2016, shows where progressive metal's odd metres went once they left the concept album: into djent, a style that took one band's riff and made a garrison of it. The long form stayed behind with the old guard.
The Yorkshire band that dragged death-doom towards slow minor-key melody and a chorus meant to be sung on Shades of God, released by Music for Nations in 1992, was Paradise Lost, and "As I Die" is the hinge, Nick Holmes's voice half out of the growl over a riff that has stopped trying to crush and started trying to haunt. Gothic metal's tool, doom's pace dressed in gothic rock's melody, fed symphonic metal and little beyond it.
Power metal's chorus over double kick went the same single road into symphonic metal. Nu metal's low-tuned seven-string riff, built on rhythm rather than melody, was hauled bodily into metalcore and deathcore, low string and all, and epic heavy metal's long song of myth survives in Viking metal and epic doom. One heir each. Enough for B.
C tier, and where the test goes blind
The Los Angeles quartet that sold Shout at the Devil in 1983 on hairspray and pentagrams was Mötley Crüe, and what glam left behind it was the power ballad and the video shoot, tools of the chart and the screen that no later riff ever needed. Its weight on the business was enormous and on the stage it was total, but on the sound of the next thirty years it was slight, and the sound is all this test weighs. Neoclassical shred left the harmonic minor sweep, which lives on inside power metal solos while no style was ever built on it.
A ranking without a stated test is only a list of what the ranker owns.
Declan Rourke, KaosMetal
Change the test and the table turns over. Grade by durability, by what still fills halls and radio playlists forty years on, and glam's ballads climb past half the list; grade by records sold and nu metal climbs higher still. A pantheon built on taste has no floor under it, and the barrage of rival rankings passed round online proves the point by never agreeing on anything.
Below the C tier sit the styles that never set out to leave a tool at all, the costumes, the jokes and the one-band movements, and they belong among the weirdest metal subgenres. They lose on this test. They were never sitting it.
The question comes first. The order follows.
