Your way in
Neoclassical metal 1984
Bach and Paganini transposed onto a distorted guitar: harmonic minor scales, sweep arpeggios and three-minute solos.
- Heaviness
- 6
- Speed
- 8
- Melody
- 8
- Where from
- Sweden / USA
- Tempo
- 140-200 bpm
- Song length
- 4-7 min
- Written about
- Fantasy and the baroque, Virtuosity itself, Fire, ice and other elemental abstractions
- Vocals
- Sung
Why this one
| You said | Neoclassical metal | Match | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Singing When someone is singing, what should come out? | clean | 100% | ×3 |
| There, but not the point How much weight do you want behind it? | 6 out of 10 | 90% | ×2 |
| Quick and driving What pace? | 8 out of 10 | 90% | ×2 |
| The seventies and eighties Does it matter when it was made? | 1984 | 100% | ×1 |
| The inside of a head What should the words be about? | Fantasy and the baroque, Virtuosity itself, Fire, ice and other elemental abstractions | 100% | ×1 |
| Normal How long should a song be? | up to 7 min | 79% | ×1 |
| Weighted mean | 94% | ||
Ranked over all 150 genres in the encyclopedia, on the 6 answers you gave, weighted vocals 3, heaviness 2, pace 2, era 1, about 1, length 1 out of 10. Neoclassical metal ties with the next, and won on being the broader of the two. Where two genres score the same the broader one wins, because a genre with subgenres under it is somewhere to carry on from and a leaf is a full stop.
Five records, in this order
- 1The one to put on first
Yngwie Malmsteen, Rising Force 1984
Yngwie Malmsteen - Far Beyond the Sun. Instrumental, six minutes, unplayable.
The pick names a track. This is the record the encyclopedia holds by them.
- 2Then
- 3Then
- 4Then
- 5One step further in
Kid Dynamite, Kid Dynamite 1998
Kid Dynamite - Kid Dynamite. Seventeen songs, twenty-four minutes, zero fat.
The first is Neoclassical metal's own entry point. After it come Neoclassical metal's essential records in the order the encyclopedia lists them. Every one of these has a page here with links out to somewhere it can be played.
If that is not it
-
Alternative rock 94%
An umbrella for everything that grew outside commercial radio and then conquered it. Defined originally by the college-radio network, not by any one sound.
On the other branch of the tree entirely, and 4 steps from Neoclassical metal.
The way into Alternative rock -
Proto-punk 93%
Garage rock turned hostile and repetitive, with noise and nihilism. Nobody called it punk yet, but everyone at CBGB copied from it.
On the other branch of the tree entirely, and 6 steps from Neoclassical metal.
The way into Proto-punk
Not simply the second and third of the ranking: those are almost always near neighbours of the first, which is three names for one suggestion. An alternate has to sit at least 4 steps through the tree from the headline and from the other alternate, which is the same floor the "sounds like this, but isn't" panel uses.
What your answers ruled out
- Singing put 54 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Black metal, Death metal, Post-hardcore. Worth 3 of 10.
- The seventies and eighties put 4 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Kawaii metal, New nu metal, Progressive metalcore. Worth 1 of 10.
- The inside of a head put 88 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Punk rock, Hardcore punk, Black metal. Worth 1 of 10.
- Normal put 13 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Progressive rock, Krautrock, Acid rock. Worth 1 of 10.
Counted as genres scoring 20% or less on that answer alone. A recommendation that only shows what it chose is hiding half of what it did.