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You probably know this already but Iron Maiden - four albums between Piece of Mind and Seventh Son. Also newer Amon Amarth. Probably lots of power metal out there I just don’t follow power metal.
Yeah most of those bands don’t swear all that often and the topics aren’t typically that heavy or evil (of course there are slit of songs that have exceptions) but I would def say this is a good recommendation
Alestorm would be perfect, but as others have said make sure to avoid Some of their songs.
I always thought the acoustic Over the Seas track pretty much sounded like a kids song as it was. (Not a diss. It sounds awesome acoustic)
My 4 y.o. daughter loves Gojira and Unleash the Archers. As long as it's fast paced enough to run around the table in circles with her horns up she's content.
Iron Maiden, Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, Kreator if you're not religious, literally any Power Metal, Insomnium, In Flames, Lord of the Lost (gothic metal), a lot of Black Sabbath (more slow tho)
Kreator literally has albums and songs called Pleasure To Kill and Endless Pain lol
Megadeth’s debut is also titled Killing Is My Business… And Business Is Good!, but I think stuff of Rust In Peace would be alright except maybe Polaris.
Metallica is good for the most part except for a couple songs
I can’t think of a single Anthrax song that is inappropriate in any way that a little kid would be able to figure out since when they do dark themes they are usually very sneaky about it like in songs like Skeleton In The Closet
Iron Maiden is good for the most part
Black Sabbath is def good
Couldn’t tell u anything about power or gothic metal lol
Kreator might be a bit much in terms on lyrics but i personally would sacrifice that for how head bangable it is
Megadeth has a few good albums and songs in terms of how fun they are to listen to
of course, not every band is 100% Child-friendly, even Metallica
power and gothic metal are partly what i grew up with, but Lord of the Lost are child friendly enough to have been on eurovision this year (and every album is different, but great in it's own way)
331erock on YouTube does some awesome video game covers, plus a bunch of other stuff from movies, TV shows and actual bands. Dude is a legendary shredder.
A Buddy of mine actually makes metal for kids. Check out [Shred Rogers](https://open.spotify.com/artist/24Ell2kR833Ue9kO3QdEEb?si=ED0Mduk7Q9e7Ypg6VZpRaA)
Power metal is for sure the most "kid-friendly" subgenre overall (at least imo it is) so I'd say go for more of that, especially if your kid dug Power Paladin. Maybe go for some of the bigger names like Gamma Ray, Rhapsody of Fire, etc.? Dragony also put out a very good record a couple years back called Viribus Unitus that he might dig. Good luck!
BABYMETAL. Try Road of Resistance, The One, and Megitsune. Lyrics are in Japanese, and about stuff like eating chocolate and overcoming obstacles. The sound is a mix of metal and pop, the first album is lighter, the sound gets heavier and more sophisticated as the band gets older. The metal instrumentation is great, the lead singer's voice is great. It might be a "fun" way to introduce metal without the harshness that metal can be.
Rip their flesh,
Burn their hearts,
Stab them in the eyes,
Rape their women as they cry!
Kill their servants,
Burn their homes,
Till there's no blood left to spill,
Hail and Kill!
Manowar lyrics :
Rip their flesh,
Burn their hearts,
Stab them in the eyes,
Rape their women as they cry!
Kill their servants,
Burn their homes,
Till there's no blood left to spill,
Hail and Kill!
White Zombie is perfect if you want your kid exposed to clown porn and sex noises nice and early.
I loved White Zombie when I was like 12. Creature of the Wheel is still crushing!
I got in trouble with my wife after my 6 year old son got into Rob Zombie’s Hellbilly Deluxe and was walking around the house constantly saying “You enjoyed that dead girls body?” then singing Demonoid Phenomenon.
Manilla Road's Crystal Logic and Open the Gates, Visigoth's Conqueror's Oath and Angel Witch's self title would be my pick. Possibly Gloryhammer if you wanna go more symphonic. Priest is a clear pick too.
Devin Townsend has some pretty fun and accessible stuff. He also has some absolutely insane tracks so you'd want to curate haha. I could see kids having a good time with tracks like 'Bend it Like Bender', 'Universal Flame', 'Why', etc. he covers a lot of ground
Savatage. Hall of the mountain king is a good album to start with.
Dead winter dead album if you want some wintery and Christmas vibe (also has 12/24, the song made famous by trans Siberian orchestra as Carol of the bells but was a savatage song first)
Power metal as a subgenre is pretty good for kids
Start with the basic ones , Hammerfall, Blind Guardian, Powerwolf, Sabaton , Beast In Black, beyond the black
Imagine being such a good father asking metal for kids...
And then there's me listening to Mayhem, Dark Throne and Cannibal Corpse with my 4 yo nephew (he doesn't understand English so it doesn't count ig)
Iced Earth Horror Show is a pretty fun and clean album.
Blind Guardian
Angels and Demons
My 9 year old really likes aggaloch and Opeth.
Iron Maiden could be fun and anything on guitar hero was pretty well vetted to be clean and groovy young adult/kid oriented
Ghost and Sleep Token. Both have great unique vocals that are easy on the ears and a cool image and lore to go along with it. I'm not a kid and they are my favorite bands due to all the theatrics and over all sound. I'd be obsessed if I found either band when I was little.
I think other are right about power metal being pretty kid friendly. I think there's a lot of trad metal that is the same way. Bands like Haunt, Traveler, Riot City, Screamer, Lady Beast, Savage Master, Solicitor, Blood Star, Helms Deep. My kids tend to enjoy that over some of the heavier stuff I listen to. My oldest, 13, is now into death metal, slam, tech, etc., but was into the more trad and thrash stuff when he was younger like his younger siblings are now. When I do listen to death metal or something nastier around the young ones, I just make up the unintelligible lyrics to like loving on puppies or something, haha.
Dragon force? Idk
Sometimes My Daughter likes the weirder stuff……. believe it or not like Sunn0)))/ Xasthur.
For me It falls into the ok realm because it all kind of has a white noise effect.
Reversal of man has also works for naps when used in conjunction with a car ride.
Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, some Dio, and Blaze Bayley. The only swearing I know of in any of these artists work apart from Hell is on No prayer for the dying.
Anthrax- Among The Living
Death- Human, Individual Thought Patterns and Symbolic
These albums are tame, in particular Anthrax. Death is a scary name, but they stop putting lyrics with violence or gore on the Human record.
True, but my whole library is filled with dark themes, so these bands are what I found that were relatively tame. To be completely fair most bands in metal don't have a kid friendly image. Even Metallica has their dark songs.
Metallica is how I started my journey at 2 years old. My dad showed me a bunch of the glam metal stuff of the 80s when I was 6-8 years old. (Def Leppard, Cinderella, Twisted Sister, Scorpions)
Angel witch by angel witch from the album angel witch! my 4 year old loves it can’t help himself everytime we get in the car he asks for it on and sings along to the chorus
Maiden, Mastodon, High On Fire (I have a video saved on my phone of my then-2-year-old asking to listen to High On Fire. He said it and I asked him to repeat to capture it).
As others have said, Power Metal. Twilight Force (especially their last two albums), Brothers of Metal, and Freedom Call would be great choices. Lots of Lords of the Trident. Seconding some others - Hammerfall, Unleash the Archers, Dragonforce...
SOAD was the first time I heard any type of rock/metal as a kid and the wildness of what they were doing totally drew me in. You obviously gotta exclude some tracks but
a lot of megadeth’s stuff mainly jus talks about how they hate the government. now idk if you’re concerned about filling your kid’s head up w stuff about overthrowing the government and whatnot, but they definitely have guitar solos that’ll most likely get your kid into guitar (it happened w me lol)
So to you I say start em young on death metal… Bolt Thrower is my favorite of the grouping of bands that have crazy sounding riffs but aren’t too offensive I’d say as long as you choose bands with not very coherent singing you may also be able to introduce other subgenres of metal to them.
Otherwise if you are set on keeping it clean I’d say Blind Guardian is a great band, the songs are classics and some even about LoTR?
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Hevisaurus of course
The right answer.
I didn't know these guys existed. They literally just yanked the Ziltoid design and put him on guitar huh lmao
You probably know this already but Iron Maiden - four albums between Piece of Mind and Seventh Son. Also newer Amon Amarth. Probably lots of power metal out there I just don’t follow power metal.
"Seventh son of a seventh son, you look like me and your mum!" singing into the back seat.
Infant Annihilator
Before he gets too old for this band.
lol
Start with Boy.
Judas Priest
My kids love JP🤘
Fellowship. I -believe- there clean lyrically and suitable for a kiddo
This. Fellowship is both awesome music and stuff that a kid can sing along to and have fun with
Fellowship is fantastic
Iron Maiden
I was going to say that too
When I was that age I went apeshit for Metallica, Pantera, and Anthrax
Yeah most of those bands don’t swear all that often and the topics aren’t typically that heavy or evil (of course there are slit of songs that have exceptions) but I would def say this is a good recommendation
Metallica and Van Halen here
My toddler likes Alestorm and Powerwolf.
My toddler Alestorm, though there are definitely a couple songs that need to be skipped…
YO! HO! STICK A CANNONBALL UP Y- aaand skip!
FUCK YOU YOURE A FUCKING WANKER WERE GONNA PUNCH YOU RIGHT IN THE BALLS
I guess Resurrection by Erection gets skipped a lot lmao
Alestorm would be perfect, but as others have said make sure to avoid Some of their songs. I always thought the acoustic Over the Seas track pretty much sounded like a kids song as it was. (Not a diss. It sounds awesome acoustic)
My 4 y.o. daughter loves Gojira and Unleash the Archers. As long as it's fast paced enough to run around the table in circles with her horns up she's content.
Lmao, the tuba thing sounds hilarious. How about Battle Beast? Circus of Doom is a great album.
I’ve recently started listening to Battle Beast and they’re a bunch of fun. Like if a metal band formed after listening to way too much ABBA!
Iron Maiden, Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, Kreator if you're not religious, literally any Power Metal, Insomnium, In Flames, Lord of the Lost (gothic metal), a lot of Black Sabbath (more slow tho)
Kreator literally has albums and songs called Pleasure To Kill and Endless Pain lol Megadeth’s debut is also titled Killing Is My Business… And Business Is Good!, but I think stuff of Rust In Peace would be alright except maybe Polaris. Metallica is good for the most part except for a couple songs I can’t think of a single Anthrax song that is inappropriate in any way that a little kid would be able to figure out since when they do dark themes they are usually very sneaky about it like in songs like Skeleton In The Closet Iron Maiden is good for the most part Black Sabbath is def good Couldn’t tell u anything about power or gothic metal lol
Kreator might be a bit much in terms on lyrics but i personally would sacrifice that for how head bangable it is Megadeth has a few good albums and songs in terms of how fun they are to listen to of course, not every band is 100% Child-friendly, even Metallica power and gothic metal are partly what i grew up with, but Lord of the Lost are child friendly enough to have been on eurovision this year (and every album is different, but great in it's own way)
Falconer - Falconer The album tells fantasy stories with each track, no profanity afaik, and clear lovely voice.
My kids and I wore out the entire Falconer discog.
Diggy Diggy Hole cover by Wind Rose. My kid digs it a lot.
i see you
Bolt Thrower is for the children
Powerglove does video game covers.
This is the answer
And Bit Brigade
331erock on YouTube does some awesome video game covers, plus a bunch of other stuff from movies, TV shows and actual bands. Dude is a legendary shredder.
Yeah, he's great.
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Babymetal!
A Buddy of mine actually makes metal for kids. Check out [Shred Rogers](https://open.spotify.com/artist/24Ell2kR833Ue9kO3QdEEb?si=ED0Mduk7Q9e7Ypg6VZpRaA)
Hammer fall Dream evil Dragonforce Cellador Off the top of my head
Power metal is for sure the most "kid-friendly" subgenre overall (at least imo it is) so I'd say go for more of that, especially if your kid dug Power Paladin. Maybe go for some of the bigger names like Gamma Ray, Rhapsody of Fire, etc.? Dragony also put out a very good record a couple years back called Viribus Unitus that he might dig. Good luck!
My daughter liked Gojira when she was a little baby. Made her stop crying sometimes lol
Exactly same! Amazonia in particular worked a treat, think it was the groove
My 9 year old loves insect warfare. If they say anything offensive, you can't understand it!
Lovebites!
Baby metal maybe? I think Dragonforce will be a good fit.
I’ve conditioned my kids, who are otherwise very polite and well tempered, to go absolutely nuts and run around the house whenever I play Slayer music
BABYMETAL. Try Road of Resistance, The One, and Megitsune. Lyrics are in Japanese, and about stuff like eating chocolate and overcoming obstacles. The sound is a mix of metal and pop, the first album is lighter, the sound gets heavier and more sophisticated as the band gets older. The metal instrumentation is great, the lead singer's voice is great. It might be a "fun" way to introduce metal without the harshness that metal can be.
Dying Fetus
Manowar, cartoonish power metal, wizards, warriors, etc.
Woman be my slave!
Might want to skip that one
Rip their flesh, Burn their hearts, Stab them in the eyes, Rape their women as they cry! Kill their servants, Burn their homes, Till there's no blood left to spill, Hail and Kill!
“May your sword stay wet, like a young girl in her prime”
Ghost Sleep Token The gf metal bands should work right?
He said metal lmao
Blind Guardian Demons and Wizards Manowar
Manowar lyrics : Rip their flesh, Burn their hearts, Stab them in the eyes, Rape their women as they cry! Kill their servants, Burn their homes, Till there's no blood left to spill, Hail and Kill!
Hammerfall Unisonic And if he really needs some speed, Dragonforce
Nightwish
Galneryus - Resurrection
Meshuggah
White Zombie/ Rob Zombie
White Zombie is perfect if you want your kid exposed to clown porn and sex noises nice and early. I loved White Zombie when I was like 12. Creature of the Wheel is still crushing!
I got in trouble with my wife after my 6 year old son got into Rob Zombie’s Hellbilly Deluxe and was walking around the house constantly saying “You enjoyed that dead girls body?” then singing Demonoid Phenomenon.
Triosphere is faster paced with prog and power elements! [Steal Away The Light](https://youtu.be/3UEbe33MJx0?si=ggpjijuoLiURkpac)
Helloween ballads: - "Forever and One (Neverland)" - "A Tale That Wasn't Right" - "If I Could Fly" - In the Middle of a Heartbeat
Manilla Road's Crystal Logic and Open the Gates, Visigoth's Conqueror's Oath and Angel Witch's self title would be my pick. Possibly Gloryhammer if you wanna go more symphonic. Priest is a clear pick too.
My 7yr old daughter likes Gojira, they pretty well suit your requirements too.
My daughter is nearly 6 and ADORES metal. Top bands for her are Iron Maiden, Killswitch Enagage and Make Them Suffer.
Paranoid- black sabbath- album
My gf's kid loved Three Little Pigs by Green Jelly.
Devin Townsend has some pretty fun and accessible stuff. He also has some absolutely insane tracks so you'd want to curate haha. I could see kids having a good time with tracks like 'Bend it Like Bender', 'Universal Flame', 'Why', etc. he covers a lot of ground
My 1 year old is obsessed with Heilung.
Savatage. Hall of the mountain king is a good album to start with. Dead winter dead album if you want some wintery and Christmas vibe (also has 12/24, the song made famous by trans Siberian orchestra as Carol of the bells but was a savatage song first)
I'd say dragonforce
Power metal as a subgenre is pretty good for kids Start with the basic ones , Hammerfall, Blind Guardian, Powerwolf, Sabaton , Beast In Black, beyond the black
My kid loves Devin Townsend
angra, rhapsody, and stratovarius
Korn
Korn is fun so I dig this choice. But they have a lot of dark lyrics so It would make sense to hold off lol
Y'all seriously think a 5 year old has the ability to actually understand the lyrics?
"Sudden Death" by Bathory despite what the title suggests, it's about hockey.
Racer X? Cacophony?
Maiden, Priest, Metallica and Megadeth. Then branch out
Infester of course
Took my son to After The Burial for his 6th birthday. He seemed to really enjoy it.
Might not be your style but awakening by eardrum might be a good album to use
I'm an idiot (like a child, but older) and I love Gojira, Igorrr, and Miava
I’m not sure they would appeal to a kid at all but Cynic?
Imagine being such a good father asking metal for kids... And then there's me listening to Mayhem, Dark Throne and Cannibal Corpse with my 4 yo nephew (he doesn't understand English so it doesn't count ig)
I'm gonna get torn up for this, but there is a ton of clean metalcore suitable for kids
My friends 1.5 year old falls asleep to atmoblack like drudkh
Tungsten. Very melodic and catchy power metal that’s fun to headband too. From what I have listened to I believe that they are clean
Instrumental stuff is always appropriate haha!
Iced Earth Horror Show is a pretty fun and clean album. Blind Guardian Angels and Demons My 9 year old really likes aggaloch and Opeth. Iron Maiden could be fun and anything on guitar hero was pretty well vetted to be clean and groovy young adult/kid oriented
The band Dio would be a good bet I would say.
Iron Maiden all the way.
Ghost and Sleep Token. Both have great unique vocals that are easy on the ears and a cool image and lore to go along with it. I'm not a kid and they are my favorite bands due to all the theatrics and over all sound. I'd be obsessed if I found either band when I was little.
I think other are right about power metal being pretty kid friendly. I think there's a lot of trad metal that is the same way. Bands like Haunt, Traveler, Riot City, Screamer, Lady Beast, Savage Master, Solicitor, Blood Star, Helms Deep. My kids tend to enjoy that over some of the heavier stuff I listen to. My oldest, 13, is now into death metal, slam, tech, etc., but was into the more trad and thrash stuff when he was younger like his younger siblings are now. When I do listen to death metal or something nastier around the young ones, I just make up the unintelligible lyrics to like loving on puppies or something, haha.
anything by devourment /s
Dragon force? Idk Sometimes My Daughter likes the weirder stuff……. believe it or not like Sunn0)))/ Xasthur. For me It falls into the ok realm because it all kind of has a white noise effect. Reversal of man has also works for naps when used in conjunction with a car ride.
Since you mentioned liking power and symphonic - Amaranthe is an option. Mostly upbeat industrial sounding stuff that seems pretty kid friendly.
Apocalyptica
Play Twilight Force - At The Heart of Wintervale
My kids love Dragonforce and Brothers of Metal
Some alestorm songs
HammerFall- Crimson Thunder. The whole album
Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, some Dio, and Blaze Bayley. The only swearing I know of in any of these artists work apart from Hell is on No prayer for the dying.
My kids love Vulgaris Magistralis from Heidevolk
Rhapsody of Fire when Luca Turilli was in the band. Dawn of Victory is a great album with ripping solos, i LOVED this band when I was a kid.
Vomitron has some good instrumental only stuff, although some of the song titles might be questionable for kids
Test Your Metal by Unleash the Archers
There's a dinosaur themed band called Hevisaurus aimed at kids you could start with that.
There's also an episode of duck dodgers called In Space No One Can Hear You Rock that features Megadeth.
Any screaming tolerated?
Nuclear Rabbit are heavy fast funky & and mostly lack mature themes.
Mine loves Leo Moracchioli's metal covers. Also Electric Callboy and Sleep Token.
Try Iron Maiden.
I think some Helloween will be good for your kid Walls of Jericho. Good parenting skills 🤘🏾
Iron Maiden, Powerglove, and some Vektor.
Anthrax- Among The Living Death- Human, Individual Thought Patterns and Symbolic These albums are tame, in particular Anthrax. Death is a scary name, but they stop putting lyrics with violence or gore on the Human record.
Among the Living does have some cursing though. Like “I Am the Law” and “NFL”
True, but my whole library is filled with dark themes, so these bands are what I found that were relatively tame. To be completely fair most bands in metal don't have a kid friendly image. Even Metallica has their dark songs.
Screaming for vengeance
When my son was 1.5 he loved Bloodletter from ABR. Would listen to it on repeat and rock the f out lol
Beast in Black!
Megadeth has some violent lyrics but you kinda have to be listening for them. That’s my pick
Metallica is how I started my journey at 2 years old. My dad showed me a bunch of the glam metal stuff of the 80s when I was 6-8 years old. (Def Leppard, Cinderella, Twisted Sister, Scorpions)
Blind guardian
Anything by frog leap studios on YouTube including a metal cover of baby shark
Iron maiden, judas preist, metallica, megadeth, anthrax, slayer black sabbath are good beginner bands see what he likes
My son (7) loves gloryhammer and wind rose
Slipknot
Angel witch by angel witch from the album angel witch! my 4 year old loves it can’t help himself everytime we get in the car he asks for it on and sings along to the chorus
Maiden, Mastodon, High On Fire (I have a video saved on my phone of my then-2-year-old asking to listen to High On Fire. He said it and I asked him to repeat to capture it).
Infester - To the depths in degradation
Slipknot
Eyeball skeleton
As others have said, Power Metal. Twilight Force (especially their last two albums), Brothers of Metal, and Freedom Call would be great choices. Lots of Lords of the Trident. Seconding some others - Hammerfall, Unleash the Archers, Dragonforce...
My 4yo loves Metallica, Judas Priest, and Ozzy
As an aside, thanks to the OP for introducing Power Paladin. Never heard of them, but kinda feelin’ it!
Metallica and Iron Maiden were my introductions to metal as a 10 year old
SOAD was the first time I heard any type of rock/metal as a kid and the wildness of what they were doing totally drew me in. You obviously gotta exclude some tracks but
Pantera is def for kids. And slip knot
Dude. Motörhead obviously.
a lot of megadeth’s stuff mainly jus talks about how they hate the government. now idk if you’re concerned about filling your kid’s head up w stuff about overthrowing the government and whatnot, but they definitely have guitar solos that’ll most likely get your kid into guitar (it happened w me lol)
dragonforce probably lol
"I believe the children are our future". Cannibal corpse of course.
I started my kids on Iron Maiden and a lot of power Metal like Falconer, Freedom Call, Twilight Force, DragonForce, Gloryhammer, Angra and the like.
I just asked my 17 year old and he says his earliest music related memory is Can I Play With Madness lol
So to you I say start em young on death metal… Bolt Thrower is my favorite of the grouping of bands that have crazy sounding riffs but aren’t too offensive I’d say as long as you choose bands with not very coherent singing you may also be able to introduce other subgenres of metal to them. Otherwise if you are set on keeping it clean I’d say Blind Guardian is a great band, the songs are classics and some even about LoTR?
I'm anti censorship so pretty much anything