Quote:
Originally Posted by Blarobbarg
Yeah yeah, but listen. Hey have metal stuff yes. But most of their songs are just rock n roll songs sped up with a crapload of distortion added. Plus, Lemmy's voice wouldn't really work with rock n roll. And he himself hates the term "metal." He just plays rock n roll.
...Regardless, yes, some of their songs are metal. Or at least metalish. But much of this not.
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I think an important thing to keep in mind in the "is Motorhead rock or metal" debate is that, when Motorhead started out, metal was simply a sub-genre of rock music. So they were both rock and metal in the same sense that Charlie Parker was both jazz and bebop. These days I would consider metal and rock to be two separate genres and I think that's what causes trouble when people try to retroactively label metal bands from the 70s and 80s.
As to Lemmy's claim that they don't play metal: musicians are forever labeling their music in ways that only really make sense to them. They're too close to it to really evaluate it in any way. The fact is, despite what Lemmy says, Motorhead
don't sound very much Bill Haley or Chuck Berry. They have much more in common with the punk and metal of the 70s and 80s.