We all know about big four of American thrash metal; 'Tallica (yeah!), Megadave, (fucking) Slayaaaaaahhh & that other band with the VH1 dude. What about death metal? Be it osdm, tech death, brutal/slam death or even fuckin' deathcore. What about doom/sludge/stoner, the original bands & the retro-revivalists? What about the black metal & the whole modern post/atmo/dsbm scene? What about good ol' heavy/speed/power metal? Which bands, in your opinion, constitute the big 4 in these respective genres? Every sub-genre is fair game.

Here is a much broader one; what are big 4 of "metal itself" iyo?

Also, please provide some insight rather than just stating band names. Thanks!

Considering that the 'big 4 of thrash' refers solely to how many albums they've sold, well, just look at sales figures. This can be done for groove metal (Sepultura, Pantera, Machine Head, Fear Factory) and metal in general (Metallica, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath).

I guess for DM it would be Deicide, Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel and Death, for the same reason (commercial success.)

Darkthrone, Mayhem, Burzum, and Immortal take the cake for the second-wave black metal bands, easily.

That's probably the easiest one. I'd like to see someone attempt to argue for any other band's inclusion because I don't see how they could possibly be right.

If I had to round up the big 4 of sludgemetal I'd go with Eyehategod, Acid Bath, Neurosis and Melvins. I'm weighing in innovation/origination with Melvins, longevity and notoriety with Eyehategod, creativity and artistic vision with Neurosis and Acid Bath. I'm open to suggestions as sludge isn't one of my most well-versed genres.

An easy one is the big 4 of swedish osdm (Entombed, Dismember, Unleashed and Grave)

Tiamat, The Gathering, Type O Negative and Theatre of Tragedy for gothic metal.

The big 4 of Gothenburg metal: At the Gates, In Flames, Dark Tranquillity, Soilwork.

How do I do this without making it a list?

Oooh, I'll do a controversial one: the big 4 of black metal:
Venom, Mercyful Fate, Celtic Frost, Bathory.

Mayhem, Darkthrone, Burzum and Emperor for 2nd wave Norwegian

Edit: forgot about Immortal so big 5 I guess

Ehh I'd replace Soilwork with Amon Amarth (more popular[?], have their own identity), but I agree otherwise.

when i read the op i instantly thought of five bands - motörhead being the fifth

I wanted to say Motörhead as well because they're just as huge as the other four, though not entirely for their metal cred - half of their hugeness is with biker/rocker types. All the other bands - even those who did loads of dabbling in non-metal - are specifically famous for being metal bands.

Not so easy to do the specific four number sometimes. Like Florida DM - you got Morbid Angel, Deicide and Obituary being huge, but do any of the others even come close? Monstrosity, Malevolent Creation etc aren't really household names among those less involved in the genre.

I actually think it is fair to group Katatonia with the "Peaceville three" and make it a "Peaceville four", considering they live closer to the other three than Anthrax did to the other three big thrash metal bands.

But do people associate Amon Amarth with the gothenburg sound? They are not melodeath in the same vein as the others.

Indeed, Amon Amarth I always see referred to as melodeath (or variants) but never as Gothenburg.

The big four of German power metal: Helloween, Running Wild, Blind Guardian, and...who?

Possible contenders: Gamma Ray, Rage, and Grave Digger. Anyone want to weigh in on this? (And please don't say Edguy.)

Soilwork shaped Gothenburg metal... and Amon Amarth are not even a Gothenburg metal band...

Euro PM: Blind Guardian, Helloween, Stratovarius, and Rhapsody.

I think that's a pretty solid Big 4.

Helloween? Stratovarius?

Shouldn't the big four have at least half of their records not completely suck?

I'm going with the New York death metal scene. I have a solid foundation of Suffocation, Immolation, and Incantation. I'd probably add Morpheus Descends to that list as well.

By the way big 4 of Florida dm is: Death,Obituary,Morbid Angel, and Deicide.

Big 4 of British dm: Carcass, Napalm Death, Bolt Thrower, Benediction.

Norwegian bm is: Darkthrone, Mayhem, Burzum, Emperor.

Helloween and Stratovarius are awesome, what are you talking about? Helloween had God himself Kai Hansen and now have the ever-underrated Deris and Staratovarius had the fat Finnish shred-master Timo Tolkki and the guy from Yngwie Malmsteen who shows off a lot.

US doom: Pentagram, Saint Vitus, Trouble, Solitude Aeturnus

Euro doom: Candlemass, Count Raven, Reverend Bizarre, Cathedral (not sure about Cathedral, thoughts?)

Sludge: Down, Eyehategod, Melvins, Crowbar

Awesome thread idea!

I'd put Arch Enemy instead of Soilwork.

I swear 'gothenburg metal' literally refers to melodeath as a whole.

We could start using the term "gothencore" if you like.

And you would put which bands in their places?

We let Anthrax get away with all their albums sucking.

Here is my big fours:

Glam Metal: Motley Crue, Poison, Guns 'n Roses, Def Leppard

Grunge: Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam (STP is too derivative of PJ to qualify)

NSBM: Graveland, Nokturnal Mortum, Veles, Absurd

Dad Metal: Van Halen, AC/DC, Aerosmith, KISS

NWOBHM: Iron Maiden, Diamond Head, Angel Witch, Def Leppard(early)

Non-metal bands that metal heads always like: King Crimson, Rush, Blue Oyster Cult, Porcupine Tree

Well the original thrash list had Metallica and Anthrax.

Haven't we had a thread exactly like this before? I remember someone mentioning Kreator, Sodom, Destruction, and Tankard as the Big Four of German Thrash. Not sure I can dispute any of those four.

Anyone got a good four for USPM? I'm thinking Manilla Road, Virgin Steele, Helstar, and Savatage. Maybe Jag Panzer and Vicious Rumors make it, but I'm not sure who you would take out.

Queensryche, Fates Warning, Manowar, and Savatage or Helstar. The first two are mandatory, very clear influences on power metal on the whole, and they have the album sales behind them. Savatage doesn't really have much in common with the other USPM bands (aside from HOTMK and a few songs on the first album in a half, more straight trad metal), so I'd tend keep Helstar in there.

Fourth one is Mortician.

Adding another closely related Polish NSBM band is a bit redundant IMO; I'd personally replace Veles with either Hate Forest or Темнозорь.

There is many. Every few months this topic comes around, each more insufferable as before. Whoever started this "the big 4" retardation needs to be shot, summarizing genres down to 4 notable bands is moronic.

I was wanting to keep Veles out for that same reason and put Fanisk in their place but Veles is just a much more well known band. Hate Forest slipped my mind though and that is a good choice to throw in there. The other band I've never heard of so I will have to check them out.

This is what happens with every thread on every forum that deals with a Big 4 type of thing. People bring it up without clarifying whether they by "big 4" mean the objective "the four most popular" or the subjective "your four favourites". And in that lack of clarification, people who know that the Big 4 of thrash was an objective thing about the popularity of four bands at a particular point in time will post things based on what they consider to be objectively true about various bands popularity, whereas others will post about what they prefer or how they view quality.

Anyone interested in people four favourite bands should just ask that; what's your four favourite bands of any genre? Rather than talking about "we all know about the big four of thrash" and then ask what the big four of other genres would be, since "big" is usually not a word describing preference.

The big four of NSBM would be Absurd, Bilskirnir, Der Sturmer, and Graveland. While there are some other early standouts like Fullmoon and Veles, at least 90% of NSBM bands are more or less imitations of those four, regardless of a "big four" label. Trying to arbitrarily assign a "big four" is pretty silly for any genre, but oddly enough, it works out pretty well with NSBM.

Shouldn't there be a big 14 ?

4 inches ain't big enough, gentlemen.

Ok for Stratovarius. But Helloween has like... 5 good albums 30+ years career...



But you can't do that. They are far more important to the foundation of the genre than AE.



Dunno, it seems that the most commercially succesful PW bands have all released ungodly horrible albums at some point in their careers. There are good power metal bands with flawless discographies, but they aren't near as big as these guys. Maybe Edguy could fit somewhere in that big four?



But Helloween's best aren't as good as Metallica's bests. And Helloween's worsts are far fucking worst then Metallica's lowest points. I swear to God, albums like Pink Bubbles Go Ape, Chameleon, Metal Jukebox and Rabbit Don't Come Easy, makes me wish there were criminal charges against shitty music in Germany.



I was looking at it from a perspective that mixes both popularity and quality standards, actually. I'm not just going to list my favorites, cause they obviously aren't all the most popular of genres, but I'll list bands that I think are popular enough and that would fit in a big four of genre defining sound and song-writing.

In reality, there should probably be two lists for Euro PM, with bands like Edguy and DragonForce leading the second group. As far as popularity goes, DF blows everyone else out of the water. If we're basing this on quality and not popularity, bands like Crystallion, Excalion, and Orden Ogan would be up there, but that doesn't make much sense to me.

I'll bite. Megadeth have apparently outsold Judas Priest.