What would y'all think would count? I'm thinking about this mostly in reference to the 70s/80s hard rock scenes. Does King Crimson have any metal songs? Blue Oyster Cult? Hell, what about Queen or Van Halen?

I've always considered 'Princes Of The Universe' by Queen to be essentially a metal song - that song fires on all cylinders. It's hard, heavy and extremely good.
Also 'Get it On' by the Power Station. Andy Taylor's guitars are at the fore here.

Porcupine Tree flirted with metal in the early 00s, and I'd say Anesthetize fully crosses over into metal territory.

Just straight-up a power metal track from 1983:

Also, Nirvana's Bleach tends to cross into sludge territory, like their contemporaries in Melvins:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Md4icxT6K60

Van Halen II and Women & Children First had some pulverizing fucking metal...

Ogre Battle by Queen is a Blind Guardian song, long before Blind Guardian ever existed.

A modern doom metal band needs to cover this.

Queen's ''Princes of the Universe'' was mentioned, but I'd also add their song ''Stone Cold Crazy'' which is almost like a groovy proto-thrash metal song.

I think their entire first album is metal. The above track isn't even the heaviest, that cake goes to "Seven Doors Hotel". Seven doors hotel, one of seven gates to hell.

Europe of all bands doing a song with lyrics based off a Lucio Fulci movie isn't something I didn't know existed. To add to the thread, Rush's finest hour into the more metal realm of music has to be "Witch Hunt", one of the very best doom metal songs ever made.

There's some debate about whether Alice Cooper's Kane era albums (Constrictor and Raise Your Fist and Yell) are metal. Songs like 'The World Needs Guts', 'Freedom', and 'Roses on White Lace' are most definitely metal. There's probably some songs on the early '00s albums (Brutal Planet and Dragontown) that are open for discussion too.

I always thought 'Round and Round' by Aerosmith was very Sabbathy. 'Nobody's Fault' is pretty heavy too.

Hmnnn...obviously Rammstein & Nine Inch Nails...and Fields Of The Nephilim.

War Machine from KISS is pretty damn heavy. Could easily see early 80s Judas Priest performing it.

Angel with the Scabbed Wings and Little Horn off Antichrist Superstar.

Yep. Kiss has a score of songs that are unabashedly metal. "Parasite" and "Unholy" immediately come to mind.

"Machine Gun" by Hendrix/Band of Gypsies is one of the first true metal songs ever, IMO. So friggin' heavy:



"Set Me Free" by Sweet is often cited as one of the first speed metal songs. (And the number of metal bands who've covered it are too many to count.)

Great song, and found it really surprising that Bryan Adams was one of the writers for it

Bro, do you even Europe?



(How this band isn't listed is beyond me)

Sum 41, lol.

Gary Moore had a few during the 80's, like Hiroshima, Out in the Fields and Speak for Yourself, all bangers.

Definitely. Dude was a killer guitarist and both his hard rock era and his blues era were fantastic.

Thin Lizzy had a few that went fairly close to metal, but Thunder and Lightning definitely would make the cut

I'm not going to lie, I've always thought this sounds pretty good.

Princes of the Universe is perhaps the closest Queen has ever gotten to power metal.

Anyways I'm gonna bring up 21st century stuff here:
K-pop girl group Dreamcatcher is known for having rock elements, but this Japanese song goes straight-power metal territory:



I don't think this counts as metal by any means, but this track by Kelly Clarkson is surprisingly heavy and reminds me of 2000s Within Temptation so I guess it's worth bringing up; I guess it's not too surprising since the song is co-written by David Hodges and Ben Moody of Evanescence:

Haha, I hear you. Europe was my first love, I was 7 when they broke through (you know the song) so they've always had a place in my heart. What I meant is 'heaviest song on their first album'. Wings of Tomorrow definitely has its bangers (my favourite is "Stormwind") although a bunch of tracks on that record pull it into hardrock territory. When comparing the two albums, I'd say Wings... has a heavier mix but the debut has the killer riffs.

By the way, thanks for reminding me I have to find a t-shirt of that artwork. So epic.

The title track of Juggernaut by Frank Marino is most certainly METAL! As is the cover art.

https://youtu.be/efq1RVm6cjw

(The rest of the album is most certainly NOT metal, however).

I’d go as far as to say that the albums Creatures of the Night, Lick It Up and Animalyze have a ton of metal on them.

Kansas with Mysteries and Mayhem!! One of their heaviest, fastest tracks. A speedy and busy prototypical progressive metal song. Child of Innocence and Icarus from the same record, Masque, are some of my top Kansas songs and while they, too, flirt with old metal, Mysteries and Mayhem is just a killer in this regard.

Even before that


The Oath is plain epic metal. And an awsome song as well

This Bad Brains song has pretty Sabbathy riffs. The vocals aren't metal but if I imagine Ozzy or Dio singing I'd say it's unambiguously metal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5WkZ_M1PPQ

To paraphrase another post here, "do you even Sum 41?" lol. Gotta love 'em. (And yeah, I know it's basically an unofficial Metallica tribute.)

Jack off Jill is in a weird spot. They would never be considered metal here, but some of their songs absolutely are, and a lot of others come close."Surgery" "Everything's BRown" "Swollen" "Clear HEarts, Grey Flowers" "Losing His Touch" and "French Kiss the Elderly" fit that. "Cinnamon Spider," "Yellow Brick Road' "Girlscout" and "Working With Meat" come pretty close.

The rest is basically equal parts metal, goth rock, riot grrrl music, whatever Marilyn Manson is/was. Would probably be called Traumacore today.

I feel the same about dokken actually it's just this feeling of it's played from the guts there's just something in there that channels a level of aggression

Achilles Last Stand by Led Zeppelin swings pretty closely to metal, I would say. It sounds like Iron Maiden, even.

At least the beginning's pretty thrashy.

Bands like Papa Roach and Sum 41 like mentioned above flirted with more riffy tracks in the early 2000's. Those were fun times as a kid before getting into actual metal music. This one riff sounds ripped off (tribute? ) from Iron Maiden or something:



Many bands like Muse had some metal-ish moments but calling it metal would be a stretch. When non-metal bands try to do a "metal" song nowadays it often sounds closer to metalcore.