Molly Hatchet (Proto?, Classic?)

Holy beefcake! I though they were already here.

I actually think I�ve suggested them for the hard rock list we once worked on.

topofsm wrote: Southern rock. The only metal element in them is their awesome album covers. After that, the only connection to metal is that they have drums, guitars, bass, and a singer.

Well I suppose you have to start somewhere 

From an old cronies perspective and experience you may be interested to know that the 'edbangers I hung around with in the seventies played "Molly Hatchet" as often as Maiden, Motorhead et al.

Don't forget the definition of metal as we know it today does not bear any resemblance whatsoever to its formative years.

You disagree with me completely? You don't think their album covers are metal as fuck? 



In all seriousness though, I don't see the connection whatsoever. They sound pretty much like your standard southern rock band, though maybe a bit grittier. I have to concede that I'm not really familiar with their stuff too much, but I have heard nothing to earn them anything metal related.

I consider "You Really Got Me" a rock song as well. The repeating riff isn't metal, it's a very pop-based repeating melody found in rock at the time, just played with guitar a little more distorted than what the public was used to. When I hear the same song played on hard rock instruments a la Van Halen, it's still a poppy hard rock song, and metal was arguably at its mainstream popular peak.The drums are not metal, it doesn't evoke anything at all found even remotely in the most borderline hard rock/ traditional heavy metal bands found in the late seventies. Sure, it may have been culturally jarring at the time, but it's not really metal.

Metal does not have a monopoly on these elements:
Grittiness
Heaviness
Technicality
Loudness
Distorted guitars
Shocking elements

Molly Hatchet, among other bands, has a few of these elements in spades. Yet they don't have to be metal. Their riffs still evoke southern rock, and riffs are basically the foundation of metal. There are plenty of these bands with elements and people hear them and lump them into metal, even though they really don't have anything beyond a couple of these elements.

I realize that among the rest of the forum, I seem to disagree with everyone else on what metal actually is. I definitely have a narrower definition of metal than everyone else here, and I'm ok with that. If anything else, I think a diversity of opinions is helpful, and If I have to be the buzzkill so we can get an idea of what people think, that's ok too. But we're a lot like Prog Archives in the sense that we'll take anything metal related at all, and you have to admit that is one of Prog Archives' biggest criticisms. For every one of me who comes to Metal Music Archives as a regular user there will be a hundred more visitors who come by here, see a Molly Hatchet album review on the front page and decide this website doesn't know what it's talking about.

I hope this doesn't come across as strong, I'm just defending my argument. Cheers!


Edited by topofsm - 01 Sep 2011 at 6:08pm

Added to hard rock.