Whilst wending a course over and through this Walpurgian wilderness, trying to make sense of the cacophony and put like with like, I have kept in mind a favorite passage from Chuck Klosterman's indispensable Fargo Rock City:
But what makes metal "heavy"? Good question. It becomes a particularly difficult issue when you consider that rock fans see a huge difference between the word "heavy" and the word "hard." For example, Led Zeppelin was heavy. To this day, the song "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" is as heavy as weapons-grade plutonium. Black Sabbath was the heaviest of the heavy (although I always seem to remember them being heavier than they actually were; early Soundgarden records are actually heavier than Sab ever was). Meanwhile, a band like Metallica was hard (as they've matured, they've become less hard and more heavy). Skid Row and the early Crüe were pretty hard. Nirvana's first record on Sub Pop was heavy, but Nevermind was totally hard, which is undoubtedly why they ended up on MTV's Headbanger's Ball (that was the fateful episode where Kurt Cobain wore his dress, thereby providing the final death blow to the metal ideology).
Clearly, the "hard vs. heavy" argument is an abstract categorization. To some people it's stupidly obvious, and to other people it's just stupid. Here again, I think drugs are the best way to understand the difference. Bands who play "heavy" music are inevitably referred to as "stoner friendly." However, "hard" bands are not. Find some pot smokers and play Faster Pussycat for them — I assure you, they will freak out. It will literally hurt their brain. They'll start squinting (more so), and they'll hunch up their shoulders and cower and whine and kind of wave their hands at no one in particular. I nearly killed my aforementioned drug buddy by playing the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage" when she was trapped in a coughing fit. Her recovery required a box of Nutter Butter cookies and almost four full hours of Frampton Comes Alive.
Sociologist and Teenage Wasteland author Donna Gaines described the teen metal audience as a suburban, white, alcoholic subculture, and she's completely correct. The only drugs that go with "hard" metal are bottles of booze (and cocaine, if you can afford it, which you probably can't if you spend all your time listening to Who Made Who). Conversely, "heavy" metal meshes perfectly with marijuana, especially if you're alone and prone to staring at things (such as Christmas lights, the Discovery Channel, or pornography).
It's tempting to suggest that "heavy" metal came from acid rock (like Iron Butterfly), while "hard" metal came from groups who took their influences from punk (that would explain Guns N' Roses). This seems like a logical connection, but it rarely adds up. A better point of schism is side one of the first Van Halen album ...
And then Chuck goes on to pontificate about the "shackled genius" of Eddie Van Halen for two pages and never really finishes his point. I happen to think that the acid/punk account adds up nicely. Heaviness is the very quick of doom metal, the parthenogenetic offspring of Sabbath. Contrast the buzzkilling lethality of black and death metal, enervated by the seed of hardcore (not heavycore) punk. It's stupidly obvious.
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