Punk vs Metal

like I remember seeing Nirvana in early 1991, and thinking, as a 16 year-old wearing my favorite joy division t-shirt and punk jacket and combat boots, "wow, I like this metal band!" ... but then apparently they were also considered "punk" (i.e. The Year That Punk Broke).

Yeah, totally.xp

hmm. I mean I was born in 1976 but I never thought Nirvana were metal

I hadn't heard of them before -- they were the opening band at a rare 16+ club night I went to a few months after I turned 16 lol.

serious answer is even through the 90s to me metal seemed to be a totally different scene to punk/indie whether that was in my head or in reality, it was this other thing

not saying there weren't differences -- just like, the music that is "popular" like ... what you'd hear on the radio or see on MTV as say, a 13 year old ... the music that was "metal" and the music that was "punk" had intermingled more in the 90s onward than say prior to that? idk again, maybe American thing.

actually, I think I'm just gonna walk that back and stick to the i don't know and "it really depends on how you define each one" position.

though i stick to my assertion about skateboarding as a factor in the intermingling.

no I think we did have that here but I think more towards the end of the decade, and probably not really stuff I was into tbh

nirvana were seen by kerrang readers as metal (except by the people who didnt like them)

indie weekly mags saw them as indie. Manic Street Preachers also straddled both. As did anything grunge really.

Wasnt til later really that rock/metal were seen as separate things.

your punk knowledge is very impressive to me, Colonel, just fyi ... like, seriously, I bow down

It wasn't exactly uncommon for folk to have sabbath,zep,purple, pistols, ramones, metallica, killing joke, megadeth, the cult, the mission, sisters of mercy, ac/dc,motorhead,maiden, whitesnake ,priest, slayer, janes addiction and nirvana in their collections.

esp when bands like metallica and megadeth played punk songs live

colonel poo is the daddy

i forgot faith no more in that list.

and g n' r

skid row covering ramones got a few of my younger pals into them actually.

Infact I can pinpoint the moment young kids stopped listening to the older heavy rock bands here. It was nu metal where anything traditional was seen as old fashioned.

I remember seeing Jello Biafra speak in 2000. He praised someone in the crowd for having the 'courage' to wear a Metallica T-shirt with a punk spiked jacket. It seemed strange to me bc I had never known anyone who wore spiked jackets that disliked Metallica.

I think Megadeth's version of "Anarchy in the UK" might have been the first one I heard.

i think Motley Crue covered it too?

https://i.imgur.com/UWIVUCg_d.jpg?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium

fwiw I saw Jello Biafra speak in 2015 and he criticized the staff at 924 Gilman for losing the actual vinyl record of "Little Marcie sings to ($1.98) Children" and only having the album sleeve lying around ... it is a classic album of the creepy christian ventriloquist genre tbh.

Creepy Christian ventiloquists are p metal.

My rule of thumb: are the vocals obnoxious? If the answer is an unqualified 'yes', then it's punk.