In my recent paper on how Jazz exists in present contexts, I chose to capitalize Jazz because of the significance and attitude I was speaking about. The issue of capitalizing Jazz is pretty comparable to Wynton Marsalis' explanation of why "The Blues" is called "The Blues" and not "blues." It's "The Blues" because you can get up back up, and thats what you're saying, and there is soul in that (i wish i could find that quote).

Anyway, the bottom line is if you need to capitalize Metal or any of its sub-genres to communicate something about it, then do it. Just be aware that volume, energy, or any other devices that can be used other than skillfully and efficiently are not reason to capitalize. But if there is soul inherent in the music and its statement, that label sure as hell better follow suit.

I'll take a bad rap from anybody before i start mis-representing the music i play and love,

it's Jazz.

I see Rock Blues guitar player,GW Williams name is everywhere.
Really? It’s everywhere,whats up with that?

His name is in press releases,on blogs,forums,on radio and in the news.
He’s selling on Amazon.com and itunes and on Sony records I think.
My question is where did this guitar freak come from?

What makes him one of the greatest top 10 guitar players ever,since he’s only been selling music for 8 months about?
What about Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix or Stevie Ray Vaughan?
Instead all I hear about is GW Williams.
I must admit he has several songs that could top the charts, like – Beyond The Clouds and Electric Son Rise and I guess his gospel song, On Easter Morning ,gots the hots in the church world also.
But I rather hear about the old guitar stars.

It’s just I think to be a guitar superstar you need to be around a few years first.
Understand I am not trying to knock the guy, but Gezzzzzz, he’s all over the Internet and everywhere I look these days?

Thanks Sally Frenchbrae
If you don’t know what I am talking about check the link below for your self and do some research !!

P.S. Here’s GW Williams rock, blues Guitar site. – GW Williams Rock,Blues Guitar

As far as the “low” versus “high” thing, I oversimplified the matter. Basically, I think that metal has as much to do with a “metal culture” as it is about how metal sounds. The Wire seems to want to take metal as sound and do away with metalheads. The Wire may ignore Children of Bodom, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a continuity between them and, say, Gorguts.

Capitalizing root genres is a slippery slope if someone feels they need to be all-inclusive and exhaustive, but that’s a strange thing to attempt about language anyway. We’re not robots, it’s okay to capitalize one genre and then forget to do it for another. That type of attempt at consistency leads to neurosis, heh!

To the point, ‘metal’ is just too vague, man. What does it mean? Remember when you said that a black metal accoustic guitar project a while back was certainly ‘metal’? I don’t know where to start with that really, and this is my attempt at codifying a simple solution so I don’t have to do a lot of soulsearching about black metal bedroom folk sideprojects and their place in HM. They can have ‘metal’!

Helm – very good reasons for capitalization, even if I don’t adopt them myself. I feel capitalizing “root genres” is a slippery slope – if we capitalize Jazz, then we have to capitalize Blues and then Folk Music. As far as “classic metal” goes, I use the term b/c if I say “heavy metal” and don’t capitalize it, it risks confusion with the genre as a whole. (And “classic” to me has positive connotations, as opposed to, say, “retro.”) Also, I have no need to “mean business,” but if people get excited enough about something to capitalize Heavy Metal, I’ll indulge them.

steve57 – Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon. Got it. I’ve looked them up and am very intrigued. Will check ‘em out.

Post-Felix – I put MP3 tags in all caps b/c I am a lazy bastard. I don’t intend people to actually keep MP3’s from here and listen to them, since they’re at such low bitrates – but I gather that some people do that.