Metallica is a great band. Great songs, cutting edge, history-making, etc. And stuff. Cliff Burton was part of all that. For that, he was a very important artist.
But he was far from a "shredder."
I love everything off of "Kill 'Em All" except for "Pulling Teeth." ... .... Basically, all he did was plug his bass into the worst-sounding guitar distortion pedal that was available at the time, and proceed to play arpeggios, diatonically.
It was neither difficult nor creative.
As far as tightness, groove, and maturity goes, the best thing ever to happen to Metallica was Rob Trujillo.
I sincerely agree with everything you said.
Errr...
Harris was much more cutting through and audiable than Burton, though he didnt distor and wah, and play guitar solos on bass..
(BTW, when was the first Manowar album when we are on that topic)
Yeah.. I am one of thoose who always have prefered Newsted...
Burton did the works, but noway he revolunized (is that a word?) the metal bassists, they still mostly follow the guitars or play straight root notes.
Manowar's first album was released in 1980.
But yeah, I think every argument made that
falsely qualifies cliff burton can be made about Harris, and all those facts are even more so in effect.
Basically what I'm saying is, only a few people have actually brought up his playing. They bring up other reasons to say he's good, which don't make him a good bassist. Because he was in a certain band he's automatically supposed to be good or because the band was influential or he had a lot of influence on his band. All that can be said in an even greater effect to Harris, Lee, or Kilmeister.
Dude... I was there too. You're forgetting the short line of great metal bass players before him. Steve Harris and Geezer Butler did a lot more for metal bass playing on one album each than Cliff did. ....
He died in a bus accident. I was saddened. RIP Cliff. There isn't any way to die that isn't f&*#ed up when you're as young as he was. But that doesn't make him a musical genius.
See this guy knows exactly what I'm saying
Huge +1
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But I digress. No one will ever bring up how much they like Cliff's tone. And with all respect, he really played his solos, like he wish he had played guitar; really high, really distorted, and with wah. I think the first arpeggios are cool, but simple. If i were to show someone what I would play, pulling teeth would be the last example I would show them. It is almost embarrassing honestly. I don't think anyone thinks of him as a bad bassist, but he is supposed to be a bass God, but he plays like an Okay bassist.
But that's All I'm going to say right now. I think it's become pretty apparent that it's nothing more than hype.
And I don't think you can compare randy to Cliff.
Randy Got best new talent before he died. He was one of the best at applying classical music to rock, not the first, but it was before the whole Malmsteen thing. Rand Rhoads was seriously genius. Wasn't the greatest, wasn't the fastest, but he was very skilled musically, educated musically, and he was going places when he died. I'm not saying Burton wasn't going places.
but I think you get what I am saying.
I just really like talking about metal \m/
).
