My father is a pastime blues player and I always grew up around plenty of old school music genres like blues, classic rock, southern rock, jazz...so as a kid growing up I was always looking for a specific genre or style my father wasn't that much into I could devote more of my personal attention to. Most of my friends were mostly into classic hip hop and others were into electronic music. I went to plenty of hip hop shows and raves throughout the years and while I definitely like stuff from both genres, I never really felt a real "connection" to it.

While growing up I came across the heavier rock stuff that was more popular with the youth at the time, starting with grunge like Nirvana and Pearl Jam going into bands like Linkin Park and Korn (who were huge when I was a kid). From there on I began to listen to Metallica, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Slayer...etc...and it was down the rabbit hole for me where I started to discover stuff from all kinds of subgenres and sub-subgenres and so on.

I'm open to all types of genres and I like to listen to Led Zeppelin, CCR, Wu-Tang Clan, Miles Davis, Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Robert Johnson, Mobb Deep, Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Rush, Stevie Ray Vaughn and so on and so on...but the heavy stuff is the stuff I devoted a lot of time and attention to throughout my lifetime and it has always stayed with me. I like to think I'm open minded in this as well as I still like stuff I started listening in the past as well as the stuff I discovered later on, I gathered albums from every kind of subgenre and I don't really care about a band's politics (left or right) or an artist's flaws in his personal life - if I like what I'm hearing, I'm buying.

Over the years I built a solid collection. Of course with new upcoming releases and stuff that's still on the list it's always expanding. If anyone's interested you can find the stuff I own in the genre below;

https://www.discogs.com/de/user/TheKillingJoke1991/collection


Any other fans of the heavy stuff over here?

Not me.
Like many people of my generation (I suppose), I was influenced by "Communications Breakdown" and "Whole Lotta Love" on the first two Zep albums to think of them as heavy metal. But, it didn't take me long to figure out that they were really an electric English folk-rock band ("King Arthur Rock" is how I characterized them later--"Ramble On" is my favorite on Zep II). I watched videos of some of the metal bands you mentioned in the early days of MTV, but I didn't particularly like them--I liked ZZ Top and Stray Cats in those days.

My father has the complete Zep collection; I listened to them as well a lot throughout the years. Definitely like them and they were certainly an influence on metal - especially the 80's "glam metal" scene with bands like Whitesnake, Def Leppard, WASP etc... was very much influenced by the "Whole Lotta Love"-side of Zep - but compared to what's regarded as "heavy" nowadays, a lot of people regard them as just classic rock and not in particular heavy hard rock or metal.

I like the early ZZ Top stuff the best tbh, when they were still a full on blues rock band.

Try..even though that was my fav stuff...what they called back then (Progressive Rock)..mainly my favorites YES...the older the better..Kansas...Genesis , again, the older the better..even Styx kicked ass back in the day & maybe lastly but not least..Jethro Tull.

Yes, Genesis, Jethro Tull, Wishbone Ash...are all great stuff. That's mostly the stuff my father listens to.

Wishbone Ash,,Damn... I've not heard that name yrs...Jeeez. what a throwback.!!

Metal turned to mostly shit after the early 90's. Korn and all that garbage.

I lean towards Exploited, Dead Moon, Discharge, GG Allin, early Budgie, Hawkwind etc after the usuals like Metallica, Testament...

I wish Zeppelin wasn't played on the radio, ever. Imagine getting to be a kid and truly discover them album by album...

Nah, there's tons and tons of good stuff coming out. I mean, if you mainly gravitate towards the "classic" stuff like old school heavy metal/hard rock and thrash I can see where you're coming from, but if you're open minded to more "underground" sounds like death metal, black metal, doom metal...there's great new stuff being released every month.

I saw iron maiden with their original singer on the killers tour. I was into maiden, priest, motorhead, saxon, ufo, van halen, acdc, sabbath. I liked the first 2 albums by ozzy and thats it.
Later i got into metallica, anthrax, slayer, and harcore. I lost interest in metallica after master of puppets which was their last good album.
Zeppelelin is my favorite all time band. Rock is truly dead now as far as good new bands . I cant stand hip hop, its sucks.

R.I.P. Eddie Van Halen

This is quintessential Van Halen for me...

From 1981

These are some of my favorite Led Zeppelin Hard Rock songs:

Thats my favorite van halen song from my favorite van halen album ( fair warning ).

Yup , Fair warning is a top 5 desert isle disc ...thanx.

Eddie was heavily influenced by Clapton and Page def top 5 greatest guitar players.

No one had better, more memorable riffs than Eddie Van Halen. Unchained has to be one of the best riffs of all time.

I'd have to go with ATBL (Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love) or Mean Street for best riffs.

For Best riff of all time, I'm partial to LZ so that would be WLL or Heartbreaker...

Jethro Tull was mentioned, and there are many great riffs from that band.

Here's a favorite riff of mine from Tull that may not be as well known as their earlier stuff:

Alicecooper, check out Germany, Norwegian, and other Scandinavian heavy metal.

Randy Rhoades was another great guitarist with great riffs. Suicide solution and I dont know. Both off the first Ozzy Album.

For the "Metal" part of this discussion, I was turned onto the self-titled debut album by Metal Church, by way of a cassette, in the 90's.

I don't remember how I stumbled upon this band, but I enjoyed the debut album by Pro-Pain, "The Foul Taste Of Freedom."

Then there's the best of Megadeth.

And the best of Judas Priest.

"Dazed And Confused" 1972 Sydney, Australia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcKJ6F79qsM&t=3683s

Led Zeppelin were definitely very important to the development of heavy music. My father always tells me that they used to call Led Zeppelin "heavy metal" back in the days, even though nowadays most people think of them as just classic rock and not all that heavy. Still one of the greatest bands of all time.

Of the 70's heavy rock bands, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Motörhead, Judas Priest, Scorpions, Rush, AC/DC and Budgie all have stuff that still holds up in terms of being heavy.

1977 was a good year for Rock Music

When I hear 1977, I automatically think of Kiss-Love Gun, ACDC-Whole Lot of Rosie, Rainbow- Man on the Silver Mountain, and Ted Nugent's- Cat Scratch Fever. Yeah that was a good year, UFO Lights Out, Quiet Riot, Motorhead, Rush- A Farewell to Kings, Judas Priest, there are others I can not remember. Hands down the best album for me from 1977 is UFO Lights Out followed by ACDC Let there be Rock.

We apparently have the same tastes -- I love all those... but haven't thought of "Lights Out" in a long, long time -- I used to love that song! I was the "Rush guy" in high school (1980-84) and first heard them with Tom Sawyer (then everything before/after, but always loved the earlier stuff (Kings, 2112, etc.), along with the other pop-rock of the time (REO, Styx, Journey, etc.) and most classic rock.

Loved Van Halen -- to me, it was Women and Children First that started my love for them (I believe Van Hagar had its moments, but it wasn't Van Halen). To me, "Everybody Wants Some" is what sucked me in... along with "And The Cradle Will Rock"...



Metal? Love a lot of it -- Metallica, Anthrax, Racer X, Dio, Sabbath,.... I'll be 90 (God willing) and still be listening to all of it!

But I also like tons of other music, from most genres -- early country (Hank Sr, Willie), pop (MJ), easy listening, prog rock, bluegrass, doo-wop, 80s Top 40, 70s, 60s, 50s.... on and on...

Metallica Black Album Boxed Set Unboxing