Absolutely, and that's my point: I like these contests that
@TVvoodoo puts together like these votes and the guitar god challenge thing we did. It was fun and got people talking. So there's no disrespect here on my end, rather the opposite.
And Im cool with this being a multifaceted era of rock, vs just the hard rock/metal thing. But where I dug my heels in, was having metal itself kind of being passed over and diminished as noise without judging it fairly. And the irony of it is, that while I am biased towards hard rock and metal? I'm also very personally rooted in old classic rock first and foremost, as well as even the more off-beat genres that a lot of people like myself don't normally listen to: i.e, Motown, Soul, Blues and even some older country.
I'll be the first to admit that there is a LOT of metal that IS noise. Ever listen to Norwegian Black Metal, Grindcore or Tampa Death Metal? It's... rough lol not my usual cup of tea but even still, I can find something good in it, like the drums or guitars. Vocally? No, almost never because it's the cookie monster or a dying crow.
But that's been the unfair assessment of metal by non-metal fans: that its ALL Noise or it lacks any melody or talent. Iron Maiden for example? Is the best case of not judging a book by its cover. You look at the album covers and you see this zombie, Eddie. To the passerby, you assume it's this fast, dark, evil music right? But you listen to them, especially outside of their debut album and suddenly you're surprised by harmonized guitars, melodical interludes, intricate song structures and soaringly clear vocals that are singing songs about novels and history.
So maybe out of this? Hopefully out of all of this? Some other people might open their ears and eyes to the idea that metal and hard rock IS something bigger. And I hope that if there are the true devout metalheads? They'll be just as open to classic acts like Steppenwolf or The Doors for example, who would be totally opposite of what they listen to normally.
Like I said earlier, I can legitimately say I listen to every single band on this list and with the exception of 2 bands, I listened to all the nominees too. Because I try not to pigeonholed myself and just really just enjoy ALL forms of guitar driven musicll