Depends what you define as power metal.. some would say Manowar or even Maiden are power metal (I disagree), but I think it's universally accepted that Helloween's Keeper albums kind of kick started what we call power metal nowadays.

Everyone seems to forget that europower does not equal power metal. USPM was well-established by the time KotSK came out.

I'm going to have to go with Queensrÿche's self titled EP as well.

Everyone seems to forget that europower does not equal power metal. USPM was well-established by the time KotSK came out. While there were some bands that certainly influenced power metal earlier, I'd say the earliest legitimate power metal release was Queensryche's EP.

...except for the fact that articles on Wikipedia need to cite sources, are patrolled by autonomous bots, usually don't have crudely drawn penises, etc.

It's a false front. It's easy to insert false information into Wikipedia, and much of their published sources say nothing like what they're cited as supporting.

I'd rather cite the bathroom graffiti. At least I could work in a cultural angle.

It's a false front. It's easy to insert false information into Wikipedia, and much of their published sources say nothing like what they're cited as supporting.

Everyone seems to forget that europower does not equal power metal. USPM was well-established by the time KotSK came out. While there were some bands that certainly influenced power metal earlier, I'd say the earliest legitimate power metal release was Queensryche's EP.

For some, first "proper" power metal song is Fast as a Shark by Accept, released in 1982.

just to clarify, i have an undergraduate major in linguistics and that article is spot-on. and your argument is more or less unapproachable, so i'll respond in kind and say this: i guarantee that, in any given amount of time, i could find infinitely more random pages that are cited properly than you could that aren't.

Does Yngwie's debut count as power metal?

no one has forgotten this, no one at all. certainly can't when someone brings it up in EVERY THREAD, in any case.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_change

read this, and please take note.

(edited for good taste)

That may be one of the defining speed metal songs of all time, and a massive influence on thrash, but what on earth is "power metal" about it?

Otherwise I think the whole USPM categorization is a bit misleading historically. To my knowledge, power metal didn't find much use as a solidified genre term (as opposed to just meaning metal with power) until a number of years after the Keeper albums came out. That is to say, the USPM bands probably weren't referred to as power metal and especially not under the separated category of USPM until after the euro power phenomenon became more prominent. So it's not that bands like Helloween "stole" the term from the American bands, since they were the first to be called that in the sense of an actual genre. I could be a bit off historically though so if anyone was around to see the term develop feel free to correct me.

USPM is mostly a bullshit term used by kids nowadays, thanks to this new obsession of categorizing everything in metal into further subcategories until the whole thing is actually meaningless.

The term "USPM" wasn't needed in the 80s, but the term "heavy metal" was less ambiguous back then. There's a lot more stuff that came under the metal umbrella since then and other terms have come into more specific usage.

I tend to think that "heavy metal" is a term like "classical music": both a specific sub-genre/time period/style, and a catch-all for the whole type of music. As a result, many things can be suspended within those two definitions without being wrong or inspecific.

Just chiming in to point out my dislike for this notion of yours, Riffs. I understand having a bit of an aversion towards nowadays' almost obsessive compulsive tendency for labeling, but I think that separating American and European power metal is not without its merits.

Linking a Wikipedia article about a concept you're referring to when your explanation is so lazy that you don't even use capital letters is obnoxious, especially because you aren't contributing anything to the thread. Turning a discussion of metal on a metal website into pedantic arguments is annoying, don't do it.