Maybe someone or even more than someone won't agree. I understand. But i want to tell my point of view.

So! I think that the most important things in metal riffs is that the riffs are "meant to stay underground"!
You read that! Something EXTREME in riff must be to be metal riff to not stay on radio. Something that shock mainstream and is both heavy is for me metal. f.e. doom metal have EXTREME slow tempo riffs, thrash and death metal EXTREMEly fast and complex riffs, black metal EXTREMEly fast and lo-fi riffs. Maybe someone will say that hardcore punk is underground genre. Yes it is! But is not meant to be underground. I mean that hardcore punk riffs are simple and could work together with nu metal riffs that are commercial and meant to be commercial. Commercial i mean heavy music that want to tell that it's metal cause it's heavy f.e. mallcore, hardcore, modern hard rock. Sometimes these are extremely underground bands but cause of being less popular, not cause of undergroundly heavy riffs. Take look that most of "metal" bands that are popular AREN'T METAL. Aren't both heavy and meant to stay underground cause of riffs. They are heavy but not underground! Can someone tell me is it good definition or not? I mean like it's my opinion. But maybe this will help some people to understand metal better.

Sorry for english, i'm 16 yo and from Poland.

The difference between commercialized music with metal influences (nu metal, metalcore, deathcore, hair metal, etc.) and heavy metal is not the fact that one is commercialized while the other isn't. Metallica is plenty commercialized and it's definitely metal.

Commercialization can create all kinds of issues but it's not inherently a "de-metal-ification".

Metallica was commercial when started to make less metal music, and i didn't mean that underground, but something that is too extreme to play it on radio(meant to stay underground, but not really underground in sense of popularity). Hard rock is played on radio while metal music really rarely. Why? Cause metal have that musical characteristics that doesn't let this music to be commercial.
Yeah something like that, but i can be wrong, it's just my point of view.

It doesn't make any sense, and I think anyone that has a little bit of judgement will say the same.
Plenty of genres outside of metal are meant to stay underground and plenty of metal bands and riffs don't aim at being underground.

I mean like metal have riffs that have musical characteristics that makes riff like no one will Play it on radio, no one will promote it like f.e. nu metal that have more Simple riffs And is on radio. But i can be wrong. I don't tell that's good or bad definition. And yes punk-driven grindcore is also Underground but you can take riff from aby songs like that And put it on hard rock radio song And tell that this is metal.

You say metal riffs have characteristics that mean they wouldn't be played on radio. Do you think that might be a cultural thing? Think about music which may not be acceptable on the radio at one time (let's say the 1950s) and acceptable in another (2020s). Do people have different ideas of what is "extreme" or not? I know my parents for example would find any music with distorted guitars (like rock) or swearing (like rap) to be extreme, while for most people in my generation or younger those things are not extreme at all.

The "Paranoid" riff will shock very, very few people today, but it's a metal riff. The same goes for "Children of the Grave" (and so on, and so on, and...).

I think the concept of metal riff is best understood as a family resemblance term. It's more or less useless to try and come up with even a handful of criteria that are then afforded the status of necessary and sufficient conditions while focusing on discreet, discernible patterns played on the electric guitar.

It gets even worse when people try to abstract what they perceive as common elements from the specific types of riffs that fall under the general category. It all gets nonsensical really fast.


Somehow I don't think you're familiar at all with all of the styles that get thrown together under the moniker "hardcore", or with the history of this overarching style. From the very start, it was explicitly meant to be underground music (and it was, it is and will be underground music, at least when a certain subset of all bands is taken into consideration).

Defining metal riffing by the fact it can be played on the radio or not objectively makes no sense. I'll go further: no music genre can be defined by the fact it can be played on the radio. Then I don't exactly understand what you're trying to say. Sometimes I feel like you're trolling...
And as someone said, you don't seem having much knowledge about what hardcore is.

Fuck, yes that's stupid, no one can really define metal riff unfortunately. how can i delete this post?

Yes, it can be defined with objective elements, but not the subjective way you're suggesting. Do you really believe a metal guitarist composing a riff thinks: "Wow this one is great, there's really no chance it will be played on the radio!".

Taken at face value, yes.

I'll probably never hear Witchfinder General on the radio, but it's not because of the riffs, which are among the catchiest I've ever heard.

What kind of radio station? Plus I imagine as others have pointed out this most likely depends on where in the world is Carmen Sandiego.