Well, I have a question for all the metal-and-other-forms-of-music experts out there. What precisely is the difference between hard rock and metal? Where does one draw the line? Do the lines cross sometimes?

Examples of blurriness:

- I've seen Within Temptation classified as both Gothic Rock and Gothic Metal (and their earlier work as Doom Metal)
- Nickelback, which I'd usually call rock (or even pop-rock with songs like Photograph), is sometimes labeled as General Metal or Alternative Metal
- Evanescence is sometimes classified as Alternative, sometimes as Hard Rock, sometimes as Gothic Rock, and sometimes as Metal (when I loaded Fallen and The Open Door onto iTunes, it did indeed label the albums as Metal)
- After Forever is sometimes known as Gothic/Atmospheric Doom Metal, sometimes as Gothic Metal, and then a couple songs I downloaded are labeled as Gothic Rock.

So how do you tell the difference? Or <i>is</i> there a concrete difference?

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Owh... I have been wondering the same... but before someone gives the link to a proper Wiki -definition I'd like to say... Isn't the 'problem' with all those sub-genres that people just get confused. There may be a few die-hard fans inventing the genres and labelling their favorite bands because they have this exact little distinct twist from other apparently similar bands... Or maybe I'm all wrong.. maybe it's the fairies... or the garden gnomes... who knows...

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It becomes very difficult to label certain bands because genres and sub-genres have a tendency to cross-over.
Even hip-hop/rap has mixed with rock and metal.

Labelling isn't really all too important...okay I'm way too ill to be thinking at the moment

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I agree with Raiv. Labels are a bit pointless. The important thing is that it's good music and that you like it.

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Faith isn't the ability to believe long and far into the misty future.
It's simply taking God at His Word and taking the next step Joni Erickson Tada

I can't tell the difference though I seem to love both lol

NEVER label stuff when the border is thin... man I'm poetic.

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Fair enough I was just wondering, because I've seen endless heated debates over whether Evanescence is metal, whether Nightwish is really metal (and if it is, whether it's power metal, since supposedly they got less power metal-y after Oceanborn)...eh, yeah. Then I read someone (an After Forever fan) say that Epica isn't metal; they're pop Why can't people just get along...

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IMO..which doesn't count for too much

Evanescence - Alternative
Nightwish - Metal
Epica - Metal.

Again, just my humble thoughts.

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And to answer your other question Arwen, Nightwish is classified as a Symphonic Metal band although they have Power Metal elements in their music and is sometimes labeled as such.

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I agree with you Raiv.
Some people also label Evanescence as gothic rock or hard rock. But for me, they are more alternative.

Okay, well I did some research into this.

Metal is desribed by Wikipedia as:


And Rock is



At this address: http://answers.yahoo.com/rss/question?q ... 202AAtgWRr

You can view peoples reviews on the question. I believe the answer, best in my opinion is:

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Rock, like metal has a lot of sub-geners. Some songs from a lot of bands are... i don't know... power metal, other are hard rock, glam rock, heavy metal... The line exsistes, but sometimes you can't tell for a bend that is only one genre. Rock is softer than metal, it's simmilar to hard rock, but not at all to death or black and so on.

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There isn't a "line" between Hard Rock and Metal, they are just different genres. They are not classified by the heaviness, but more by the different use of instruments and the construction of the music itself, but then again there are tons of different sub-genres for both.
For an example some gothic metal bands can be really soft, with female vocals and mostly classical instruments, while hard rock can be much harder. It's hard to explain, just listen to them a lot and eventually you'll be able to draw a line between them.

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Faith isn't the ability to believe long and far into the misty future.
It's simply taking God at His Word and taking the next step Joni Erickson Tada