Metal
Metal is a 'heavy' genre of rock music that originated from hard rock in the beginning of the 1970s mainly in England and United States of America. This genre of music is characterized by "heavy" guitar riffs distorted by special guitar effects, prolonged guitar solos and aggressive rhythm. There are quite many 'sub-styles' of metal from comparatively mild (like the classic heavy metal) to very 'heavy' and unacceptable not only for those who prefer classical or traditional music, but also for many of those who consider themselves to be rockers. Among such excessively heavy and aggressive styles are death metal, black metal, doom, etc. Different sub-genres in different ways use the major elements of metal like the distorted sound and aggressive rhythm by emphasizing or removing some of them and thus acquirig their unique features. Typically there are 5 people in a group, although the number of musicians may vary. There is usually a drummer, a bass guitarist, a solo guitarist, a rhythm guitarist and a vocalist who, as a rule, doesn't play any instrument.
The metallic music is now widespread almost in all countries, but the greatest popularity of this genre is in the Northern Europe (Great Britain, Scandinavia, Germany) and North America (USA, Canada). In all countries of Europe including the former USSR metal is also quite developed, as well as it is developed in Brazil, Japan and other non-European countries. Although there are also countries where metal is forbidden by law due to strict legislature (in Turkey and Israel there are no such strict censorial restrictions).