Metallica...what went wrong

[hdracer]

the snare drum sound on DM just kills it for me.
like it grates on my ears, I have to turn it off.

 

[Larry V]

Actually, they invented pop metal with this album and turned it mainstream for the first time. Nobody did before them and this alone makes it a very important album in music history.

I can't agree with that. Judas Priest did it with Screaming for Vengeance and their single, "You've Got Another Thing Coming" which became a mainstream hit that reached #4 on the Billboard rock chart in 1982. I remember it well... Judas Priest got lots of radio play.

...and I agree, the Black Album was the beginning of the end and for me, their greatest album is Ride the Lightning.

 

[SturmUndDrang]

metallica was wrong from the start. lars is the most pathetic excuse for a drummer. the only metallica albums worth listening to are ride the lightning, master of puppets, kill em all, and justice for all

This is also worth listening to.

 

[steamthief]

+1 on Death Magnetic - I listened to it the other day, and I think it's my favorite. I hope they work with Rick Rubin again.

This opinion comes from one who has the first three albums on vinyl - before the advent of CDs, not 21st Century hipstervinyllove.

 

[Korladis]

I just wish the relationship with Bob Rock was the Black Album and then "Nice working with ya. Bye now." And that Death Magnetic was released right after it. They have released what is arguably the best metal album of all time and also some of the biggest '*** is going on with this band' albums of all time. First 5 albums is all I need.

Kinda. I actually like a few songs off of Load and Reload, but I feel that if they were going to change sounds that drastically, it might have been better received if they'd released that stuff under a different name. Also, if it had been one album of like 8-10 songs, instead of two albums of 14 songs each, most of which seem like filler.

Just my two cents.

 

[DeathFromBelow]

As a Norwegian black metal musician, I strongly approve this post. Gylve FTW!

 

[lustersilk]

I am sitting here listening to the Black album, which seemed to be their peak.

IMHO, musically, this was past their peak.

 

[Korladis]

I downloaded ...and justice for jason. Pretty much the same I would guess. Sounds great too. ;-) ya gotta love the internet!

Yeah, it's so goddamn heavy with the bass audible, all the way from "Blackened."

I was going to say Master was already a slight decline
Ride the Lightning was their peak for me.



Abbey Road is easily my favorite Beatles album--by a huge margin.

I kinda don't get people hating Yoko Ono for supposedly "breaking up the Beatles." For one, Paul McCartney was the one who left the band, publicly, first, and second, even if Ono did somehow break them up, in my opinion, that's a good thing. Prevented them from ever really declining, since, as you say, Abbey Road is a fantastic album, and it was the last thing they recorded.

You guys don't like Death Magnetic? I think this one is freakin' AMAZING! All of the songs are great.

I like it, but not as much as Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets. I think partly that's because I heard the older albums when I was about 13-14, and I'm just not in that same frame of mind anymore, since at the time I was just discovering metal, and when Death Magnetic came out, I'd been listening to metal quite a bit for a decade.

Strange. Metallica was 'wrong from the start' but you then recommend their first four albums.

Lars may be a bit of a gimp, and their are a ton of drummers around that can play circles around him...but he's hardly a 'pathetic excuse' for a drummer.

He's not the best, and pretty basic compared to a lot of other thrash bands, but Metallica is kinda his band.

Of course metal hipsterism. It's been that way forever. As soon as a band becomes popular, they start to suck according to the cool kids who were into it first.

On the other hand, they're not always wrong. Sometimes bands do sell out, weaken their sound, run out of ideas, or lose the raw energy they started with.

Doesn't always happen though--I think the Dio years were Sabbath's best.

I somewhat agree about Black Sabbath. My favorite Sabbath studio album is Master of Reality, but my favorite album by them overall is Live Evil. I've seen the Ozzy version and the Dio version of the band live, and greatly preferred the Dio version in concert.

Sometimes band don't even actually get worse, they just move in a direction, musically, that a lot of their older fans aren't as into. Enslaved is like that, for me. I prefer their earlier material, but that doesn't make their new stuff "bad." It's just not as much what I'm into (though I still think it's quite good).

No doubt they had some killer tunes with RJD (Die Young, Children Of The Sea etc), but I think those first four Sabbath albums are stand-alone classics.

I think, for me, in terms of how much I like the album, it's probably Master of Reality, The Mob Rules, Heaven and Hell, The Devil You Know, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, then Vol. 4/Sabotage/Dehumanizer tied, and then Paranoid, I guess.

How many awesome albums should a group be expected to put out ? Look at how many of us didn't come close to one.

That's an interesting question. Some bands release so many albums, and some release relatively few, even over the same time period, too.

+1 on Death Magnetic - I listened to it the other day, and I think it's my favorite. I hope they work with Rick Rubin again.

This opinion comes from one who has the first three albums on vinyl - before the advent of CDs, not 21st Century hipstervinyllove.

I like Death Magnetic but am not a big fan of its sound. I wonder if the vinyl mix sounds any better?

 

[Korladis]

As a Norwegian black metal musician, I strongly approve this post. Gylve FTW!

I don't like Darkthrone, but he's pretty hilarious.

 

[Tituscrow]

I don't like Darkthrone, but he's pretty hilarious.

Darkthrone are just plain badass. Great, great band.

 

[hdracer]

As a Norwegian black metal musician, I strongly approve this post. Gylve FTW!

I knew you would

 

[DeathFromBelow]

Darkthrone are just plain badass. Great, great band.

Epic. The black metal blueprint. Oh, and then there's Isengard...

 

[Concr3t3]

I first heard MetallicA the day after Cliff died and I have been a fan ever since. DO NOT confuse that with "I love everything they have released". You know what happened to MetallicA? Life. Life happened and they did the best they could in handling it. Of course they failed at times; they're only human.

Cliff and Jason are in my top 5 list of bass players who molded me into the bass player I am today.

The Black Album was decent; it servered its purpose and put them on top. After that, it was train wreck after train wreck. Death Magnetic does have some what I call "MetallicA Gold Moments" but over all the final product was nothing more than a pretty good demo.

I saw MetallicA's concert at San Diego Comic Con and I saw Through The Never and I can say that for the 1st time in 20 years, I am actually excited to hear their next album. You can kind of see that inner angry Metalhead trying to push through the rich millionaire persona with them, which leads me to me next point. Age.

Age doesn't have **** to do with the level of anger that's used when writing Metal. Look at MetallicA's peers: Overkill, TestAmenT, Exodus, Slayer, Anthrax, and Death Angel are all still writing with the same vigor that they had 30 years ago; some of them are even pushing themselves harder than they did way back then. And look at Saxon. These guys are in their 60's and they're destroying a lot of bands who are in their 20's. So the age argument is moot.

If you think about it, MetallicA isn't really a "band" anymore. They're more a of big show production. You ever try to count how many people it takes to make today's MetallicA happen? You're literally talking hundreds of people and not just 4 guys. For what MetallicA has become, James, Lars, Kirk, and Robert are exactly where they're supposed to be.

 

[Korladis]

Darkthrone are just plain badass. Great, great band.

Could never get into them. For early black metal it's Bathory, Mayhem, Satyricon, Immortal, and Emperor, for me.

 

[blue4]

I like that Lars is a basic drummer. I cant stand that "pound the double bass as fast as I can" sound.

 

[DeathFromBelow]

I like that Lars is a basic drummer. I cant stand that "pound the double bass as fast as I can" sound.

That has nothing to do with it. Lars is a hack.

 

[blue4]

That has nothing to do with it. Lars is a hack.

What has nothing to do with what? The fact that I don't like most thrash style drumming? I don't understand what you mean. Why exactly is he a hack?

 

[fmoore200]

What has nothing to do with what? The fact that I don't like most thrash style drumming? I don't understand what you mean. Why exactly is he a hack?

Don't worry about DFB. It's Friday and he's probably had a couple. Remember, he's a few hours ahead of us

 

[ster]

What has nothing to do with what? The fact that I don't like most thrash style drumming? I don't understand what you mean. Why exactly is he a hack?

People don’t like his personality so they call him a hack.
He may not be the greatest, but he’s no hack.

 

[lowfreq33]

People keep talking about their hair. That's the most superficial, girly thing I can think of when talking about a genre of music that's supposed to be the epitome of brutal masculinity.