Symphonic metal, from the outside in. Each step is a genre and the single record this encyclopedia would put on first. Play them in this order and the last one should sound like a next step rather than a wall.
- 1 The way in
Heavy metal 1970
It split off from hard rock and blues rock when Black Sabbath tuned down and wrote riffs on the tritone. Volume, riff and a code of its own - every branch below starts here.
Sung. Melodic singing throughout.
Put on
Black Sabbath - the song Black Sabbath. The first thirty seconds are the genre's birth certificate.
Black Sabbath, Black Sabbath (1970) - 2 What you asked about
Symphonic metal 1996
Full orchestra and choir treated as equal instruments, usually with an operatic female lead. Metal's most visible face in the European mainstream.
Sung. Melodic singing throughout.
- 3 Where to go next
Post-grunge 1994
The grunge formula cleaned up for radio: same dynamics, less dirt, vastly more airplay.
Sung. Melodic singing throughout.
Put on
Foo Fighters - The Colour and the Shape. Dave Grohl played nearly all of it himself.
Foo Fighters, The Colour and the Shape (1997)
Assembled from the tree: every genre Symphonic metal descends from, in order. Symphonic metal has no subgenres, so the last step is the genre that rates closest to it by sound.