Metallica

I will but for the love of god don't listen to the actual album, listen to Guitar Hero rip on Youtube. It's just normal studio recording without the brick compression. Also Hetfield's best solo is on that record.
 
I've listened to ...And Justice For All and... it's not good. I honestly can't tell if that's related to mood, the actual content of the album, or that godawful mix they did for it, so in the hopes of giving the material a better chance, does anyone know of a good quality upload where the bass isn't dead, the drums aren't drilling a whole into your eardrums, and the whole thing doesn't sound like a fucking brick wall? Maybe that will make it a better listen. Hopefully.
 
Diesel 11 said:
I figured I'd try to clear up what I knew from the band before going into the discography listen, so here's a list of every Metallica song I heard before now.
  • Hit The Lights
  • The Four Horsemen
  • Jump in the Fire
  • (Anesthesia)—Pulling Teeth
  • Whiplash
  • No Remorse
  • Seek & Destroy
  • Ride the Lightning
  • For Whom The Bell Tolls
  • Fade To Black
  • Creeping Death
  • Battery
  • Master of Puppets
  • Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
  • Disposable Heroes
  • Leper Messiah
  • Orion
  • Blackened
  • ...And Justice For All
  • One
  • Harvester of Sorrow
  • Dyers Eve
  • Enter Sandman
  • Sad But True
  • Wherever I May Roam
  • Nothing Else Matters
  • All of St. Anger
  • All of Lulu
  • Hardwired
  • Atlas, Rised!
Hopefully that clears up where I was before going into this. This does not take into account which songs I could remember everything from and which ones I'd only heard once, so bear that in mind.
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Did you forget The Unforgiven?
 
Shmoolikipod said:
Justice is extremely great, I've heard it a week ago again after a year, the songs rush my adrenaline and take my to another place...
The production I got used to because it's one of the first albums I've heard and I didn't know how albums usually sound.
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No weak song on it and every member gave their best performance at the time.
 
AJFA is actually my favourite, once you get over the obvious production issues Diesel mentioned. When you get used to that sound, it even works in its favour, creating something really unique, similar to SIT. Although they could have turned up the bass, it's still that similar dry sound, but there is an extra instrument which makes the music richer in any case.

Regarding MOP, I also felt like Diesel when I first heard it, but I got weary of some songs pretty soon. For instance, Disposable Heroes is a fantastic showcase of James' virtuoso rhythm guitar playing, but after some time it seems almost like a stunt, those riffs get repeated far too many times (especially at the beginning), and it doesn't flow well (like some more recent Maiden :ninja:). Thing That Should Not Be has a great atmosphere and is very heavy, but it's plodding. Leper Messiah is very groovy rhythmically, but it's very simplistic and can get boring. Damage inc is very similar to Battery, but it's not so good so it almost sounds obsolete on the same album (and it's at the end so it's easy to skip, at least on the mediums I used to listen to then :D). What remains is MOP, which is really a masterpiece, Orion, which is just dandy, Sanitarium (which actually IS better than Fade To Black, and btw One is even better), and Battery, which is cool, but there are other bands that made that type of fast songs better. So after a few hundred listens :p you'll see it fades a bit
 
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Diesel 11 said:
Is that a good or bad omen?
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Depends what you think of it. But then I saw this:
Diesel 11 said:
I've listened to ...And Justice For All and... it's not good.
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Bah, you're still young (I suppose), you'll learn...

KidInTheDark666 said:
90s Metallica is excellent.
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I wanted to comment on this but @Zare said it couple of posts later much better than I planned to. We can discuss numbers, commercial success, critics review and so on, but take a step back, look at both band's career and it's pretty obvious Megadeth "survived" 90's better.

Oh, and "Jump in the Fire" and "Seek and Destroy" are absolute delight to play on a guitar if you're beginer.

Diesel 11 said:
I figured I'd try to clear up what I knew from the band before going into the discography listen, so here's a list of every Metallica song I heard before now.
  • All of Lulu
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What?! How? Why?

Collin said:
You're in for a treat when Death Magnetic comes up. Not many people here will agree with that statement though.
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I, for one, am not one of them. To me, it's one of their better ones.


Zare said:
...listen to Guitar Hero rip on Youtube. It's just normal studio recording without the brick compression.
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Good advice. I remember when the game came out that people were more excited about that than about their upcoming tour.

frus said:
AJFA is actually my favourite, once you get over the obvious production issues Diesel mentioned. When you get used to that sound, it even works in its favour, creating something really unique
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Agreed.
 
srfc said:
I didn't mean that the tracks in question where the only deep cuts on the particular albums, but for the sake of drawing comparisons between the albums the share roughly the same positions in the running order on the albums and maybe have roughly similar statuses to each other as tracks in the Metallica canon.
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Well you're aligned with my opinion that both RTL and MOP take a dive on side 2. The final part of both albums isn't universally praised like the rest of them...Trapped Under Ice, Escape, Damage Inc, Leper Messiah.

For me AJFA is consistently excellent. As Frus says, exactly like SiT. Nothing without the sound.

The issue with AJFA sound is that Hetfield partially intrudes bass guitar's frequency space. If it was constant, then a whole different bass sound might sonically work, like Korn does it for instance. The other issue is that Newsted is actually gluing bass and drums note by note most of the time, and doing a fine job at it. (listen to Blackened drum/bass only). The rhythm guitar sound is better and more powerful than on deth's 1990 masterpiece, and so are the drums (but not compared to RiP remaster). Mustaine and Menza went for a more classic sound while Hetfield and Ulrich went way more punchy, in essence overstepping into bass guitars bottom and high ends. Why am I comparing to Megadeth? Because on Holy Wars, Ellefson does the same thing, however his output has a certain "shape", because it is not drowned by other instruments.

What I'm trying to say is, there is nothing wrong with the bottom end on AJFA, it's a production choice to realize it more via rhythm guitar than bass guitar, the bass still does its primary function very well and mute the bass track and you'll notice the absence at once.
 
The Flash said:
There's nothing in between, they were recorded simultaneously. Meant to be released as a double album.
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I'm a bit late on this, but this isn't actually true. The only thing ready and done when Metallica entered the studio in 1997 were most of the drum tracks, with only a couple of songs being redone because of arrangement changes. The guitars, bass and vocals were all recorded from scratch in a couple of months and they barely made it in time for release and so Kirk and James did all of their solos in 1997.

Funnily enough though I completely disagree with the assessment that ReLoad has better solos than Load. There's a few standouts but most are boring, typical wah-laden pentatonic noodling if you ask me. Load's tend to be more experimental (see The Outlaw Torn for example) and I just think they're more solid overall. James's solo on Thorn Within is brilliant, for example, if a little short.
 
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Ruflux said:
Funnily enough though I completely disagree with the assessment that ReLoad has better solos than Load. There's a few standouts but most are boring, typical wah-laden pentatonic noodling if you ask me. Load's tend to be more experimental (see The Outlaw Torn for example) and I just think they're more solid overall.
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I've only recently become familiar with both albums, so I might come to agree with you, but for now...

Load's are more experimental, which is good, but the problem is that Kirk's playing doesn't work with what he uses. The slide solo on "Ain't My Bitch" is kinda cool but not really anything special and the solo on "House Jack Built" is basically the same pentatonic shit he does on every album just with talk-box abuse instead of Wah-Wah abuse. Off the top of my head, the only solo on ReLoad where he does anything different is "Devil's Dance" with the whammy pedal*, which is one of his weakest on the album. I think he sticks to what he does best with the others.

*Actually, does he use this on "Where The Wild Things Are" too?
 
Kirk was actively involved in rhythm guitar both of those albums. He wasn't before, when he'd have more time for solo development. It's sad, because he didn't do that bad in the 1980s when chord progressions were wonky and achromatics everywhere. You'd expect when facing more straight grooves and more common progressions it would open many more paths for invention, but no he kept on sticking to his usual 1970s rock solo idiosyncrasy.
 
Edington said:
I've only recently become familiar with both albums, so I might come to agree with you, but for now...

Load's are more experimental, which is good, but the problem is that Kirk's playing doesn't work with what he uses. The slide solo on "Ain't My Bitch" is kinda cool but not really anything special and the solo on "House Jack Built" is basically the same pentatonic shit he does on every album just with talk-box abuse instead of Wah-Wah abuse. Off the top of my head, the only solo on ReLoad where he does anything different is "Devil's Dance" with the whammy pedal*, which is one of his weakest on the album. I think he sticks to what he does best with the others.

*Actually, does he use this on "Where The Wild Things Are" too?
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The issue with your point is, James plays the solo on The House That Jack Built. I find it very difficult to see how it's the same pentatonic noodling Kirk usually does when it's not even him playing!

I will agree that in general Kirk's not that creative on either album, but I still like the end results on Load a lot more on average. Besides, it's not like he's solely to blame since every single solo Kirk has ever played was essentially a joint composition between him, Lars and whoever was the producer at the time. Therefore I think a part of Kirk's repetitiveness is a general lack of creativity and another part Lars's preference for pentatonic noodling over anything else. The producer is the balancing act between the two.
 
Ruflux said:
The issue with your point is, James plays the solo on The House That Jack Built. I find it very difficult to see how it's the same pentatonic noodling Kirk usually does when it's not even him playing!
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...really? Wow. That feels insulting to James. :oops:

You mentioning Lars and his control over Kirk's solos reminded me of this part in the Making of Hardwired series. During... I'm pretty sure it's "Atlas, Rise!", Kirk's doing his thing and it actually sounds really good. Then it cuts to Lars standing over him, pointing at the fretboard and going "Then play that one, then play this and end on that one" and the end result is the same boring shit we always hear. It's stuff like that that makes me think Kirk isn't very interested in Metallica anymore.
 
The poor guy had to drop his own ego in order to survive in between those two. It's no wonder he isn't interested.
 
I don't think James is that difficult to deal with behind the scenes. I find this snippet from an interview with Dave Pickerel (blender of Blackened) to be pretty telling:

In general, Lars is the leader, until James is the leader (laughing). You can see it during practice. Most of the time, Lars takes the lead until James is like ‘something didn’t feel right’ and then it’s a sudden stop. “What do you need James?” and then James is in charge.
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Something tells me that it's harder for Steve and Bruce to work together (and with the rest of the band) than it is for Lars and James to switch roles as leader. Kirk doesn't have the care or ego to fight for anything, that has never changed. He knows his place, always as, and he's comfortable with it. It's his physical playing that got lazy.
 
Spambot said:
it's pretty obvious Megadeth "survived" 90's better.
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I'd rather say that Megadeth really "happened" in the 90's (while being very slightly not ready to compete with Metallica in the 80's), while Metallica were already sloughing in the same period (for better or for worse).
As for the end of the decade, I'd still take Reload (or Garage Inc. , or S&M) over Risk anyday.
 
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MrKnickerbocker said:
I find this snippet from an interview with Dave Pickerel (blender of Blackened) to be pretty telling:
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I find James quite intimidating, to be honest. That quote makes it sound like Lars does too. :lol:

MrKnickerbocker said:
Kirk doesn't have the care or ego to fight for anything, that has never changed. He knows his place, always as, and he's comfortable with it. It's his physical playing that got lazy.
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Well... I suppose Kirk isn't that bothered by it, he could walk out at any time and start his own thing if he wanted. He could form a new group in a heartbeat, not like there'd be any shortage of people chomping at the bit to play with the guitarist from Metallica. I don't know, maybe I'm looking too much into it. Personally, if I were in that situation I'd have left years ago.
 
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