Onhell
Infinite Dreamer
As we all know Metallica "sold out" ages ago catering to radio stations and fans with shorter attention spans and forgeting their awesomeness of days before, however, when exactly did this happen? Was it the black album? Before or after? It was after the black album. The Black Album was still heavy, their hair was still long and they still wore black. The Black album was just a very good album that caught the eye of the mainstream. A lot of bands go through this as well. Green Day's Dookie, No Doubt's Tragic Kingdom, Pearl Jam's Ten AC/DC's Back in Black etc. All these are very good albums that give the respective artists momentary notoriety, 15 minutes of fame. What they do afterwards is up to them. most choose the path of making the big bucks because I bet it is a very nice feeling, almost vindicating to finally get some attention. Tragic Kingdom was No Doubt's THIRD cd after having two commercial flops. Once they hit it big the SOLD OUT, they found their "formula" for selling and stuck to it. So did Green Day after Dookie, releasing an album in the same vein with a bonus, a BALLAD that would be played in EVERY SINGLE radio station and make them gain wider appeal. Personally I think that says a lot about them as musicians since it is a good song, but its purpose was to widen the fan base. Pearl Jam is the only band that I know of that has done the complete reverse of this trend. After a HUGE commercial success with Ten they kept doing their own thing, they didn't care for MTV (in fact they refused to make music videos), they boycotted Ticket Master, and became an underground band with a cult following... and that is exactly what they wanted. That is Metallica's Black album, the album that let's the world know "hey here we are", but it wasn't until AFTER that album when the changes occured. Short hair, pimp suits, shorter, catchier songs with mindless lyrics (Give me fuel? the fuck?"). However I've gotten in plenty of debates over this. The "real" metallica is from kill them all to the Black album, the rest is crap. Others say Load and Reload aren't so bad. Then there is this one friend of mine who actually got rid of ALL his metallica cds after they sold out. His arguement? They sold out betraying their loyal fan base making them hypocrites. If you even buy their back catalog you are still feeding the hypocrites, still funding them which makes you a hypocrite as well. I countered with, if you buy their back catalog maybe they'll notice that its selling more than their stuff from Load on and say "hey, maybe we should go back to our old sound, people like it". Therefore that is why I own the black album, because it is a Good album, their last stroke of genius before genuinly selling out. If I am a hypocrite for feeding the current monster shoot me, i don't care, The music is what matters. If the music is good, i'll buy it, if it sucks i'll stay away from it (and that is why i still buy Pearl Jam cds as well).