I remember Peter Steele appeared on The Jerry Springer Show around the time that he posed for Playgirl magazine in the mid-1990s. (I did not see this when it aired, obviously, but it was many years later, when someone uploaded it to YouTube.)

Jerry actually presented Type O Negative as an alternative rock band, not a metal band.

Jerry's musical tastes probably included nothing remotely close to those genres, and I guess you could argue that maybe the PR of Type O Negative chose to get Jerry to promote them as an alternative rock band instead of metal because metal was seen by many as being at it's "all time low" popularity-wise when that happened.

With that said, alternative rock leaning listeners during that time period who would openly admit that they liked a few metal bands would have the metal they admitted to liking be something like Type O Negative than something that would be considered power metal or death metal.

What distinguishes Type O for me from what we typically consider “metal” is the strong sense of melody and hooks, and usage of synths. Lots of metal bands have melody, sure. Lots also utilize keyboards. But there’s something about the way type o combined these two factors in their unique way to create something different and unique. Then there’s the sarcastic irony and dry sense of humor about the whole thing. Take BN1 for example. It’s a campy vampiric goth song about fucking hair dye. Nothing deeper to it. Total piss take. And glorious for it.

Also for every kill all the white people or white slavery (more “metal”), they also had a set me on fire or can’t lose you (absolutely no metal).

When it comes to people wondering about whether or not if "Band X" had only released "Album Y", what about Sepultura's Roots? If Roots had been their only album, do you guys think they would they be on Metal Archives?

This thread had me wondering that.

Eh, I definitely agree that their foot is more in Sabbath, but the drabby, low vocal style with anthemic background vocals (christian woman), subject matter and keyboard approach is similar enough for me to see how the Sisters/Fields of Nephilim/dead can dance influence fits into their sound on quite a few songs.

No. They wouldn't be, it's pretty obvious. Especially bc Soulfly wasn't let on for years until they finally released something that was unambiguously metal.