Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
It's tough to define who is metal now and probably many of those groups cited in here so far are a derivation of metal. Metallica is a form of metal but, imo, the groups I listened to in the 60s and 70s were the beginning of the overall metal genre. Iron Butterfly, Deep Purple (even though they despised that categorization), Led Zepplin, Black Sabbath, UFO, Grand Funk Railroad, Blue Oyster Cult, Judas Preist, and guitarists like Jimmy Hendrix and Robin Trower defined what metal was. Listen to some of the stuff that MC5 did back in the 60s too, which was not only metal but punkish long before anything was known as "punk." Many of those bands broke off to forge other sub-genres of metal as well. Motorhead was probably the beginning of speed metal. Nothing with the fast fury of "Ace of Spades" had been heard before they came out with that song.
All this argumentation concerning what's metal and what's not is pretty ridiculous, at least without some historical perspective. But all of the singers listed in the poll are definitely metal and Dio is certainly metal too. Hell, he teamed up with Blackmore, one of the founders of the metal sound. Just standing in close proximity to Blackmore makes you metal.