Come on now, you are talking out your arsch...Cliff did NOT have a "good" bass tone. It was a farty tone and his playing was far from "tight" and on point with Hetfield's tight picking style. There was nothing wrong with Jason's tone, funny that you mention Blackened as that was Jason's riff and his first writing credit with Metallica so how could he not play his own riff right?
You obviously have an agenda in your blatant defense of Cliff Burton while trashing Newsted. The fact is Newsted had not yet grasped the real rythum section role until the "Black" album and there are various reasons why the Justice tracks are sloppy. Did you not know that nobody produced those sessions? He did what he knew to do at the time, start the track, blast it out and move on..even I had to re-do tracks multiple times in a recording session but Newsted states it was go, done and next..go done, move on next....From the Black album on, he WAS produced and coached (as everyone should be, that's the job of a producer) his bass formed a solid foundation and he really developed into a solid bassist, see his work outside of poopieallica as well.
You can nitpick almost every musician to fit your agenda. Shall I do it with Cliff? Ok, not hard...here you go:
If this is "tone" then wow..it's a mess...
Whereas I don't have an agenda to knock someone down, with the sound and type of music Metallica had going, this "tone" and playing fit well beneath the wall of guitars so when listening to it all together it's quite fine. Also remember that with their style, the bass doesn't always form it's traditional role of rythum section hold down, it merely doubles the exact notes as the guitars and that was precisely what Newsted new to do at that time, so Justice was mainly double guitars but it did have some bass moments here and there
So here is a nice bass line holding down the rythum section quite nicely and again lended punch and overall a heavy rythum section - People give these albums hell but what's funny they have some of the best guitar tones/drum sound and production of their catalog - if DM would have had those values it would have been epic.
One last thing is you pick out a live performance and trash it, that is one performance out of how many hundreds? Live is NEVER perfect, you are musician and know that but imagine performing live multiplied by 100 what we will ever do and you can be a little forgivable yes? Your 4 minute mark you mentioned, yep not that great..but in context it's not the "OMFG" moment you have made it to be. Again, I can pick out almost any musician and find something live like that...
Cliff was NOT the greatest bassist to roam the Earth but you know what he doesn't have to be, he was good for what he did and what those 4 people were able to create when together is what mattered. He died tragically but that doesn't immediately propel one to "God" status...there is no "best" musician at anything...there are however millions of "great" musicians some of whom YOU personally will consider the best to your ear. Cliff can be appreciated for what he did in his short time and how he did it, Jason is no different as he contributed what he did from 1986-2001. I like both for different reasons, Cliff had some Lemmy/Ramones/Punk vibe, coupled with his finger picking style and that meshed into that Metallica thrash sound we love. Jason has a Geezer/Lemmy/Punk vibe and attacked the bass in a completely different way, he didn't just pick the strings, he attacked the strings and has a very aggressive pick attack. Two different approaches, they are two different human beings afterall.
Again, I think it is better to take away the positive in both Cliff, Newsted and even Robert's playing, they each bring something different.
A lot of Cliff's love seems to come from the fact he played with his fingers, I get a chuckle out of the kids who make that an iconic thing and make it this scale of who is great and who is not. It's not, it was a preference and something that developed in him as a musician same as why Hetfield downpicks while someone like say Dimebag alternate picked more.
You might like this interview, he has remained a very down to earth person: Check out 14:19 specifically as it might address some of your comments on Justice and the Bass, 2 days..recorded in 2 days..***?
I will leave it with this, guess why I started playing bass? The kids told me if I got a bass/amp/distortion pedal I would sound just like...can you guess who? Cliff ****ing Burton...yes sir....Cliff was why I picked up a bass....needless to say I got the bass/amp/distortion and sounded NOTHING like him but alas it didn't matter. Pick or fingers? Started with pick because of...yep..Newsted...love his attack (hate bass players who strum pick a bass but thats another thing altogether)...wasn't until later I played with fingers and to this day I only use my fingers, feels normal and weird to use a pick now, I like the sound and it fits better for me and it's something just developed over 20+yrs or so
Cheers...
