Whenever I hear of the term 'glam rock', I always return to thoughts of 'glam metal.' On the outset, there is little to no real connection to the two, but because they share the glam name, as well as the fact that their connection to heavy metal has been disputed by metal heads for decades, I've always been interested as to whether many people consider glam metal to be heavy metal- just with the over the topness of theatre and glam rock.
My opinion has always been that glam metal is heavy metal. Listen to it without viewing any of their videos, and anyone who calls them "pseudo metal" or "fake metal" should be shamed- it's obvious there's a heavy metal sound. The problem is that there is not a real heavy metal vibe. Most of the songs are, at core, today's pop songs over traditional heavy metal. But it was the image that thrusted glam over the top- and if you know your music history, you'd see that flamboyancy on stage wasn't new at the time.
Although not the start of it either (I'm sure artists from the 1800s, probably even cavemen who beat rocks together, tried looking excessive), it was the glam rock movement of the 1970s that featured the craziness of feminine-esque men with wild stage antics.
Glam metal merged NWOBHM with this. Glam rock was already heavy for its day. Glam metal never tried to go as hard as thrash or speed metal, and owed its success to this.

But I know that there are some who despise everything glam stands for and believe that, because of its commerciality, androgynous nature, and overall pop-sex first attitude, it's the furthest thing from metal. Just like glam rock a decade earlier, as well as traditional heavy metal's roots in older music- which led to punk- glam metal led to a style of music that featured simplified structures and a darker, more world-reality driven sensibility- we know this as grunge, itself something of a heavy metal-inspired version of punk rock. The grungers didn't see glam as "real music." (It's also arguable if grunge was a product of glam, or just happened to come at a time as to help lead to a demise that was already beginning to occur.)

Since then, most have admitted that glam was definitely "flamboyant," but whether it's heavy metal or a heavier form of glam rock still divides.

Who said that glam metal led to grunge, that's bullshit. The music's totally different, the look is totally different, grunge bands hated glam metal, because it was everywhere, on TV and on the radio. They were against that, but ironically some years later they became something similar. I don't know much about glam metal history, but they pretty much took Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and such and took influence from KISS, Alice Cooper and those glam rock bands probably T.Rex, Slade... Glam metal sounds metal, but not all of it can be called that. I would not call Warrant or Poison metal ever, hard rock maybe. Motley Crue or WASP those are glam metal bands that I would call metal. In my opinion it started out as flamboyant heavy metal, they wanted to shock the audience by their look, and everyone picked up on it, the press the people and money waters down everything.

Heavy Glam Rock is pretty good description, but again it depends what band we are talking about. For me most glam metal bands are closer to hard rock than metal. At first it was more metal, but then it became Watered down hard glam rock with pop influences very very fast.

The term "glam metal" is, in my eyes, yet another case of the media using a rather non-descriptive umbrella term for a group of bands who have more of an aesthetic similarity rather than a musical one, just like it happened years later with grunge and nu metal. Really, when you think about it, you can take Ratt, Skid Row, Twisted Sister and W.A.S.P. and find very few similarities between each other. Some are much more metal oriented, others never stray too far away from poppy hard rock, and then you have the Poisons of the world which..... Well, you get it.

It happens in degrees, like most things in life. There are some "glam" albums that are unquestionably metal - most WASP and Slave to the Grind, there are some that are undoubtedly not metal - Nelson and the like, and there are some where you just can't tell - Girls Girls Girls, the first Cinderella album, etc. Nothing's ever so black/white

edit: one thing to be cautious of here though, is using the concept of these bands "metalness" as a yardstick to measure quality by.

To me its totally metal, the thrash look its also over the top, the jackets with the same fucking patches, the studs and the leather, the nuclear/radioactive obsession, those over the top names...i mean, musically i love it, but the attitude its a bit funny, every thrasher tries to look like Snake Plissken with a jacket full of patches.
Look at Motley Crue, Wasp and shit like that...sounds metal to me, despite their girly look, i do enjoy a lot of glam metal.

I just see it as a mini-movement within heavy metal. Not necessarily a separate sub-genre of metal either.

I'd say most of this movement is more hard rock than heavy metal; some bands like W.A.S.P., Dokken etc. are more in the vein of heavy metal. Also, the glam look was often, at least partially, present in your more traditional 80's metal bands, that were never associated with glam genre.

For a long while, I listened almost exclusively to hair/glam bands, and still musically take a lot away from them. I used to pretty stubborn about it, insisting all hair bands were metal, but really, it is more so a style that crossed over metal, rock and into some pop groups.

Part of the problem is the term glam rock itself. I'd be inclined to call White Lion, Poison, etc. glam rock bands, but the term is tied up with the rather stylistically different T-Rex, David Bowie, The Glitter Band, and so on. That being said, genres change, and I find most people into glam rock of the 70s also have an appreciation for the 80s stuff, and I think you can see a link from Mott The Hoople to Quiet Riot.

The other problem is the heavier bands who honestly weren't that glammy in sound. If you think Twisted Sister's "Under The Blade" or "You Can't Stop Rock n Roll" are glam records I don't know what to tell you. A couple of songs might have some influence from cheesy 70s bands, but for the most part, the glammiest part of this era of Twisted Sister was the image.

You then get the term "sleaze" thrown around to try and differentiate the harder edged bands like WASP and Skid Row from early Tigertailz and Pretty Boy Floyd, so the whole thing becomes a bit of a mess. It isn't really cut and dry, some bands were heavy as hell just with a lot of hooks and stuff, whilst others were ridiculously poppy.

The image I have no problem with, metal has been flamboyant since the early days, and a lot of the bands didn't look any more over-the-top than some speed and thrash bands.

Motley Crue, Dokken, WASP, Nitro, Skid Row and Ratt were pretty metal, Poison, Faster Pussycat, Great White, Night Ranger and Cinderella were pretty much Kiss/Ac/dc Worhipping pop rock.

It's just rock and hard rock, the only reason people think they're metal is because the pseudo-genre has "metal" in the name and generally the people that listen to it are dumb enough to believe anything.

How do you explain stuff such as this and this then, Nhor?

All you can do is look at it on a band-to-band basis - I think the flaw in the whole "glam" thing is that it's completely situated on the join between hard rock and heavy-metal; It's sort of a persuasion as opposed to a genre in it's own right.

On the other hand, it's certainly a useful category. I'm personally quite a glam fan, mainly of the heavy metal side, but the hard rock ones can be great too.

If there's anything I respect about glam metal, it's that I consider it a "gateway metal" genre. That means it has bands and songs that go from completely pop rock, but gradually build it up for fans to reach a level that purely heavy metal, and even sometimes speed metal. In that fashion, it would be easy for a person uninitiated in heavy metal to go from 'safe' pop to heavy metal without making a huge leap (i.e. going from The Smiths to Slayer in one sitting). There are quite a few people who began with the likes of The Clash and Billy Idol, discovered Cinderella, Poison, and Tesla, then found themselves listening to The Black Album or Killing Is My Business not too long after.

Then again, one might say that nu metal or classic hardcore are gateway genres too.

I've always found the distinction a pretty easy one to make. Glam metal has metal riffs (durr), heavy glam rock might just be some updated New York Dolls-isms with some more lightweight metallic lead guitar (EVH flashy stuff in general). The Glam tag, as far as I'm concerned, just refers to a larger-than-life image and often very hooky, flashy songs. It can be done in a metal context (i.e: a few Motley Crue songs or the first WASP album, Lizzy Borden etc) or even some of the Dokken stuff I've heard.

As vengefulgoat said, the glam look was pretty popular among a lot of straight ahead heavy metal bands, so I guess that's where the confusion lies. There are certainly bands that straddle the line, look at Fifth Angel, for instance, they always looked the part... and the debut certainly has those touches. What about Exciter's Unveiling the Wicked? Surely, they're too ugly for glam, but '(I Hate) School Rules' is more glam than anything W.A.S.P ever did.

90% of the glam metal bands that I listen to are listed on the archives as metal. Also I could have sworn RATT was here at one time, but the moderators insist they never were. Anyway I think they should be for their debut EP. It's basically NWOBHM.

I consider glam stuff like Gary Glitter, The Sweet, Slade, T-Rex, and David Bowie. I would take that stuff any day over anything glam oriented from the 80s, it rocks infinitely harder.

There is also the cross-over between the scenes....
lotsa concerts/tours where both kindsa 80's bands played : speed/proto-power/heavy metal AND glam / hair metal. i remember seeing a lot of photos and news items in old metal mags where both kindsa bands were mentioned, phtographed etc together

plus there is there is the look / sound factor on the first coupla Pantera records. Even the then "new" singer who ushered in the heavier style (phil) had a frickin perm on Power Metal.

Even seattle / grunge has such stuff in their closet : Alice in Chains (pre-debut)
Mother Love Bone - like hippy glam metal...ties in with pearl jam....it was th elder band Green River who were tapping the right sleazy roots

its really a matter of opinion of where the metal ends ....and there always exceptions!
but in my opinion its much more rock and pop then metal.

The problem with metal is that its so wide that it is really hard to tell when metal ends.
for example most of death metal is much closer to grindcore then to heavy metal and most heavy metal is closer to hard rock or glam metal then to death metal.
So its really hard to define on the edges.

Since you got to put the line somewhere for me glam metal(I say glam metal because glam rock is something completely different) is not metal!
because its very very poppy and the vast majority of it is much softer then many rock genres. So I don't see it as metal.

Dokken is an interesting band.

Their early albums were basically glam, with about 2 speed metal numbers per album.

Then in the mid 1990s, when no one cared for glam anymore and even metal was pretty unpopular, they started just putting metal with little or no glam on their albums.

I consider glam to be metal. Glam for me is a sound, not a look. It's just a more fun, party-like form of metal. And at least they don't fuck around when it comes to production quality. If not metal, it's borderline. Some of it is hard rock, but hey whatever. Hard rock, heavy metal, it's all pretty much the same isn't it?

Glam is closer to real metal than deathcore or metalcore. Those styles are derivative of hardcore punk, just with a very abrasive and noisy sound. Metal is not noise. Real metal has melody and powerful vocals. Core styles can get the fuck out.

Also, when people say glam sounds softer than real metal, well I can't say I agree with that. There was a lot of metal in the 70's that was soft compared to bands like Twisted Sister or Skid Row. I love 70's rock but I think glam is mostly heavier.

Its always very cool to say shit about deathcore even when its totally off topic.
Seems to me that according to you whatever you like is "real metal" and what you don't isn't metal.

I'm far from being a metalcore or deathcore fan, nor glam metal fan.

but I am a fan of (good!) metal, rock and punk.

And when I'm in a mood for metal i see metalcore and deathcore mix better with my metal playlist.
While glam metal will be a better fit with my rock playlist.
So i guess metalcore is much more metal then glam metal is.

About metal not being noise. Well metal is noise for people who don't like metal. So if you have a problem with noisy
music maybe you shouldn't listen to metal.

About Those styles are derivative of hardcore punk. As someone who can enjoy crust and hardcore punk i can tell you that most metalcore/deathcore bands i herd where much closer to melodic death metal then to any punk sub genre.
Also keep in mind that punk influences exist also in all extreme metal genres.