Please help settle a bet, which band is better Radiohead or Metallica?

Thanks.

Isn't that a matter of personal taste?

Old Metallica is better, but Radiohead beats new Metallica.

based on what criteria?

if you're just looking in terms of general popularity then metallica wins by a ridiculous amount. any record sales site could tell you that. shit the black album alone has probably sold more copies than radiohead's entire catalog. considering that OK computer sold 1.9 million and the black album sold 14 million i think it's a safe bet.

if you're looking in terms of personal preference then what difference do the opinions of a bunch of music snobs on some website matter? learn to debate or agree to disagree.

if the bet is all about getting votes for your favorite vs. your friend's favorite then why not just post this on one of their fan sites? otherwise this is like comparing apples to oranges and if you're just looking for favorites then.....

hahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Radiohead.

dont let pan go on about "apples and oranges"- its an objective fact that Radiohead are far superior to Metallica. ihope that settles it for you.

Objective.

Objectively it would be tough.

Radiohead, for example, have been more or less uninteresting from the get-go, with a handful of notable moments but nothing that was unrealistically exciting or unspeakably bad. There are even a few songs on Hail to The Thief that are worthy of serious discussion, for example.

Metallica, on the other hand, released albums such as Ride The lightning and Master Of Puppets, both of which still stand as high marks in rock music, but when they fell, they plummetted. The self-titled "Black" album, Load, and St Anger are almost undiscussable in that there are not yet negative adjectives to describe them in our dictionary, but they most definintely rest far below music's Mendoza line, which Radiohead sits at or near most of the time.

Tough one, there. definintely tough. Considering how COMPLETELY DIFFERENT the bands are, tougher yet.

This may well be a dumber comparison than the Tool vs Barenaked Ladies thread that was around for a while.

I don't care what basis you use. If you have a big Metallica tatoo on your back and you named your first born lars, then pick metallica.

If you want to be more scientific, and use sales...well that's a no brainer, metallica wins that one hands down, concert attendance also falls into that category.

If you want to go to allmusic.com view the album ratings then average them out like I did, Radiohead wins.

if you take out the stylistic differences, this really isn't "apples and oranges".

for example.
Substance of Lyrics
Song formation (into-rythem-melody-bridges) all that crap. How well it was put together. aka. production quality.
Complexity of music - whether or not lars just beat on a drum with his penis, or if he used some intricate techniques.
Overall grouping and harmony.

etc.
this can go on forever.

I'm actually a radiohead fan, but on a lot of these topics I find my self picking metallica, although overall, I still consider radiohead better, strickly because of their ability to evolve, and experiment with new styles and sounds, while metallica went limp, and played what the dj's would consider playing.

if you don't care what basis we use to decide then what's the point of polling opinions?

(and don't let chris fool you, i generally agree with most of his opinions )

because it is objective. If i run up to somebody on the street I want their honest immediate response, who's better, x or y. I want them to tell me what they think otherwise it doesn't matter.
also, there is ABSOLUTELY no point in polling opinions. just as there is no point in most threads on the internet.
It's just curiosity

In terms of "general popularity" there was a time when the "New Kids On the Block" were as popular as Metallica has ever been. Does that mean that there is even an argument about which is better? I do really dig some early Metallica but comparing Metallica to Radiohead is like comparing The Monkees to The Beatles. What a joke.

I guess it does make sense, though, to contend that Metallica is better than Radiohead.........if you have a mullet, that is.