Why is 'Metal' Called 'Metal'?

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I'm talking about the musical genre.
Are head-bangers localized positive ions arranged in a lattice of free electrons...?
what's 'heavy metal'? Is it metal that presumably has more mass per unit volume (whereupon it actually should be called 'denser metal')?

Does 'rap' really stand for Rhythmic American Poetry?

And what's up with 'bluegrass'? I actually like bluegrass, but was quite astounded to learn that it was called, well, bluegrass.

Most metal seems heavier than rock, and since metals are stronger than rock, there might be a connection and origin there.

Nobody seems to know for sure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_meta ... #Etymology

For me anyways Metal is metal simply because it is and the gods of rock have deemed it as such. In other words, I could care less and good music is good music regardless of genre.

No.

Almost every pretended "explanation" of a word using a backronym like that is also a lie.

"Rap" is an old word (linky).

This is an interesting one, isn't it? I was under the impression that 'heavy metal' used to be the full name of the genre, later often shortened to 'metal'. I would agree with To7m on the 'metal is stronger/harder than rock' theory. So back in those days you'd have 'heavy metal' growing out of 'hard rock'. The funny thing being that 'rock' in 'rock music' has its origins in 'rock & roll', where the word 'rock' is a verb that, although homonymous to the noun 'rock', actually has a different etymology from it (the former being of Germanic origin, the latter Latin): http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=rock

Because its awesome.

love it

Really? You've never heard this?

"I like smokin' lighting
Yeaaaaah, heavy metal thunder!
Racing with the wind
And the feelin' that I'm winnin'

Born to be wild? Steppenwolf. The term started being used a lot right after the song came out. Nobody can really prove this is what started it, but it makes perfect sense to me, and more sense than any other theory I've heard. First, because I remember the song and the term first being used around me at about the same time, and second, because it just makes sense. The song is about riding motorcycles. Biker clubs were already well known for preferring many of the bands before the song came out, with similar sound and feeling, that are now known as "Heavy Metal" bands.

There is another story related to Tonni Iommi of Black Sabbath having worked in the foundries in Birmingham U.K. It is said that "Heavy Metal" was a reference to his having worked in a city where the dominant industry was dealing with metals. I don't find that story quite as believable as the Steppenwolf reference. Sabbath, before they were called Sabbath, were a bunch of Jazz and Blues musicians before they developed the sound they are now known most for.

EDIT: Oh! I almost forgot! There's another theory that it refers to lead, from "Led Zeppelin."

EDIT again: Another reason that the Steppenwolf theory makes the most sense is because Born to be Wild was the first time ever that the term "heavy metal" was used in a song, and by some things I've read, the first written use of it anywhere in the music field.

To put it more plainly:

The word 'rock' has two unrelated meanings in English- a stone, or moving back and forth ( as in "rocking chair").

The term "Rocknroll" was about motion- moving back and forth- because it was music you could dance to! As oppose the rareified modern jazz that grown ups listened to in the fifties

Teens need something to dance to.

Except -that thats not REALLY what it means. Rocknroll music evolved out of the raunchy African American post war urban blues in which the commonly used phrase "rocknroll" meant the sex act ("I'm like a one eyed cat peepin' in a sea food store"- Big Joe Turner).

But even after the music got sanitized by Dick Clark and Pat Boone it was still about motion. But the two unrelated "rock" words lend themselves to word play to buttress each other.

The Muddy Waters blues song "Rolling Stone Blues" became the name of the British rock band and of an American magazine devoted ot rocknroll.

So the word "rock" in the world of Rock music has both meanings.

In the late sixties rocknroll suddenly spawned a whole bunch of subgenres: soft rock, hard rock, folk rock, acid rock, etc.

The press used phrases like "super hard rock" and "shock rock" for a new sound that was even harder than hard rock. Sometime in the seventies "heavy metal" became the term.

Maybe it was because proto metal bands had names like "Led Zeppilin" and "Iron Butterfly".

Metal isnt necessarily harder than rock. Quartz and emory are both harder than steel so I dont buy that theory.

Its heavy music with a metalic sound.

Actually, both the terms, "Jazz" and "Rock n' Roll" have been widely accepted as terms for sex from the very beginning of their useage.

Jazz; http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?ter ... in_frame=0

Rock and Roll: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?all ... hmode=none

Because it's not wood.

The whole explanation is in a book I have kicking around here somewhere. Apparently there was a novel in the early sixties called something like "Willy, the Heavy Metal Kid" and a critic who was an early fan of Sabbath applied the term to them as well since they were like nothing heard before.
"Heavy" in itself was hippiespeak during the sixties and described more mood than musical style.

I believe that when the Steppenwolf vocalist sang about "heavy metal thunder" he was only referring to the blare of motorcycles, not the genre itself, though this probably helped the term catch on as well.

It has its roots in hippie culture where it was connected to being stoned or something. Personally I think metal feels kind off heavy and shiny. Prog metal and power metal feels kind of shiny and silvery. Funeral Doom metal feels like dark liquid lead. Thrash metal has sharp edges.

Sounds like both genres came quite a ways from baby-making music.