It's really hard to classify any band into a category. Most bands have different types of songs on every album. Take Black Sabbath for instance; they have always been classified as heavy metal, yet on every album there are songs like "Planet Caravan." or "Changes" Hardly metal songs, IMO.
Also, take one of my favorite bands, Led Zepplin. Considered by some as one of the greatest Rock bands of all time. IMO, they are a blues band. If you study the guitar chops of Jimmy Page, 90% of his playing is based in the major and minor blues scales and chords. Many of their most popular songs are covers of old blues legends like Ledbelly, Muddy Waters and Howlin Wolf. AC/DC is another band that derrives most of their chops from the blues. They are more in the Boggie Woogie vain of John Lee Hooker, but still it's just the blues.
I think the term Heavy Metal was invented as a term to describe the harder edge rock that was comming on in the early seventies from the likes of Deep Purple and Black Sabbath. People had to come up with antoher term to differenciate between the Rolling Stones/Beatles style and the long hair "devil" music of the time. Fast forward to the late seventies/early eighties and bands like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden took the genre to the next level; adding twin guitars blazing through riffs like Satan on crack. Then Metallica changed everything with "Kill em All" (should have been on my list, I forgot) With Metallica, they were so different from everything esle, a new category was invented. "Thrash" was born. And so on and so on. Rock continues to evolve every year. It seems to be in a "lag" of sorts right now, as sales clearly demonstrate, but the future is bright. On any given Tuesday something new can come out that will change everything once agian. I hope so, I really miss real guitar players that actually play solos and lyrics that are poety, not just about some chick you just broke up with or you really want to bang.
I chose the albums on my list because IMO they best represent the evolution of rock guitar. My list should really be top 50 albums to demonstrate what I'm talking about, but you get the idea.
A few examples of what I'm taking about: give Dio "Don't Talk to Strangers" a spin and listen to Vivian Cambell tear it up. Or, try Holy Wars and listen to Dave and Marty rip it in total syncopation. Like it slower, try "Children of the Dammed" or "Hallowed be thy Name". etc. etc. Oh, and Joe Satriani is really in a league all his own.
Well there's my nickel...
