Megadeth

I'm working my way (slowly) through both discographies (like Diesel, but mixed up & in no particular order) & I have to say the similarities aren't as pronounced as I expected/recall/imagined. I can see why Diesel feels the need to reach for comparison; it's just not really there tho'. Listening to them now it's surprising, frankly, how better in every way Megadeth seem to me. They're just way more interesting from a musical point of view. As I said in the Metallica thread, it's really a mystery to me why they (Metallica) are so huge & (although I didn't say this there) Megadeth aren't. Or maybe it's that Megadeth are just rated where they should be in the grand scheme of things & Metallica are so massively overrated. Mustaine always seemed to have an edge to me (real or fake, I can't tell) that nobody in Metallica ever had; his singing, his lyrics, his riff making, his lead playing (in the early days). There's very little plodding or uninteresting about Megadeth. Anyway, I'm really talking 80's/90's here as I have heard little of either post-2000. But I think my opinion is unlikely to change judging by the seeming poverty of quality material Metallica have produced in the intervening time period; and how much Megadeth have produced whether of varied quality or not. I think the Megadeth discography exploration is going to be enjoyable, the Metallica one not so much.

Apologies to Wizzy (& the other on-topic thread police) for mentioning Metallica so many times in this little scribble; seven times I count...
 
Everything you said is dead on, Cried. The reason, IMO, why Metallica reached a higher plateau than Megadeth is literally down to one thing: vocals. Neither singer is great, but when Metallica started writing radio-friendly material, James leveled up his voice and simply has a tone that is more palatable to non-metalheads. Mustaine started writing more radio-friendly material but to everyone who doesn't like metal he always sounds like "HELLO ME! MEET THE REAL ME!" It's not a radio-friendly vocal.

I have no issues with comparing Megadeth and Metallica in terms of their careers. I think their discographies follow an identical progression in terms of overall sound, even though the music does not really sound that similar to one another.
 
CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
Apologies to Wizzy (& the other on-topic thread police) for mentioning Metallica so many times in this little scribble; seven times I count...
Click to expand...
:nonono:

CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
it's really a mystery to me why they (Metallica) are so huge & (although I didn't say this there) Megadeth aren't.
Click to expand...
Megadeth were pretty huge back in their heyday. They have three platinum albums in the US and were a hell of a lot bigger commercially than Slayer ever were despite playing second fiddle to them at the Big 4 shows. But as MrK says, Dave Mustaine's vocals don't work well when he was writing catchy, radio-friendly music. His snarling style was great when they were writing Thrash songs but on the post-Thrash Megadeth albums he sounds strained and whiny.
 
I've always preferred Megadeth to Metallica (back when I first signed up on MaidenFans, Megadeth was actually my favorite metal band, which changed soon after I went through Maiden's discography in full). It's unlikely that this will change, but there are definitely similarities that strike me now that I'm listening through both band's works in full. Megadeth retain their sound throughout the records, but there are some interestingly Metallica-esque moments through them. Obviously, I seem to be the odd person out rather than stating the obvious.
 
See, the funny thing is: James' vocals are one of several factors that really turns me off Metallica. He's just... not that interesting. Mustaine's vocals, paired with his lyrics, are just so much better in terms of matching the music e.g. the sharpness, the aggression, those feel real with Mustaine. I accept James' vocals probably do fit Metallica's more "hard-rock" orientated material; but I have no real interest in Metallica's hard-rock music. When you look at every other department Megadeth, to me, are a better, tighter, more dynamic Metal band; better riffs, better lyrics, better guitar work (lead and rhythm), just as good drumming, just as good bass playing (the last two I reserve judgement on, but they're certainly no worse than Metallica in those dept.) Anyway, Wizzy is going to be at boiling point here, so I'll quit before I start talking about Kirk...
 
That aspect of the Megadeth vs Metallica discussion is interesting because the two bands were quite literally cut from the same cloth. They were from a similar scene, they had similar opportunities, and they both had hits and decent MTV play. So why did one remain a decent mid tier popularity Metal band while the other became one of the highest selling bands ever? There are a few reasons and imo none of them are musical.

The first is personalities. Metallica are kinda like a heavy metal Beatles in that each member has a recognizable persona that has been with the band for the entire history. The obvious exception is the bass player, but there’s a mythos around the role of the bass player in Metallica that makes up for it. In essence, Metallica has a story. That’s vital for a pop audience to latch on to. Megadeth kinda has a story, but it goes to their detriment because it’s mostly just that Dave was fired from Alcoholica for being an alcoholic. It keeps Megadeth in the shadow of Metallica and means that everything they do is going to be compared whether it’s deserved or not.

Kinda going off the first reason, I think a lot of it has to do with the lineup changes. I know the more cynical among us will argue that nobody cares who is in the band, just look at bands like Yes and Judas Priest. This is true to a certain degree but it mostly works for bands that have been established already. I would wager that every band of any genre at Metallica’s caliber has at least had a few key members that people can associate with the band. Kinda like putting a face to a name. Megadeth don’t have that and when you’re dealing with a pop audience, these superficial things matter.

I’m not sure which band I prefer, but I don’t really think that’s important either. They don’t sound that similar and after a certain point they took pretty different paths. I will say that I’ll put Rust In Peace up against anything Metallica or most other Metal bands did.
 
Dave is indeed not a good singer, and was actually worse after he learned how to sing in the mid to late 90s. However, being a good singer is not a requirement for Metal. Dave Mustaine has a unique style that fits Megadeth's music and lyrics when they make proper Metal. Having the vocals fit the style of music is far more important in Metal than being a good singer.
 
I like James from Puppets to the Black Album. Other than that I agree he's pretty bland.
 
I prefer Metallica to Megadeth very comfortably. Prime-to-prime, I think Metallica put out the better records. Ride > Puppets > RIP > Justice > Kill > Peace > Black > Countdown is how I'd rank the Top 8 albums between them.

Megadeth always had better musicianship, but Metallica had an edge in songwriting imo. Few bands can claim to have had the decade 80's Metallica did in terms of being consistently great albums-wise.
 
I think I prefer Metallica to Megadeth too. I’m pretty critical of Metallica’s discography, but Megadeth’s has a lot of questionable stuff too. Metallica has better songs.
 
Up to this point in their discographies (everything from 1992 and down), Metallica have an 80.2% average for me, while Megadeth have an 85.8%. I expect these averages to only change the further into Megadeth I go.
 
I love both bands but I prefer Metallica mainly because they were imo a lot better in the 80s than Megadeth was. Also Metallica's hard rock songs are better than Megadeth's. Megadeth has the better musicians, but Metallica has the better songwriting. Mustaine is far better lyricist than Hetfield though.
 
KidInTheDark666 said:
I love both bands but I prefer Metallica mainly because they were imo a lot better in the 80s than Megadeth was.
Click to expand...
Yeah.

KidInTheDark666 said:
Also Metallica's hard rock songs are better than Megadeth's.
Click to expand...
Absolutely not.

KidInTheDark666 said:
Megadeth has the better musicians
Click to expand...
Yeah.

KidInTheDark666 said:
Metallica has the better songwriting
Click to expand...
Nah.

KidInTheDark666 said:
Mustaine is far better lyricist than Hetfield though
Click to expand...
Yeah.
 
I'm not really seeing where the great reverence for Metallica's 80's catalogue is coming from tbh. Listening to Puppets for the first time (really) all the way through & it's not, in my opinion, better than Megadeth's 80's output; for all the reasons I've already cited. Kirk was even pretty shit in the 80's. I await being blown away by Ride (which, again, I confess to never really having listened to all the way through from front to back, like Puppets) but it's hard to imagine it's going to change my opinion much. When I look at how poorly the rest of Metallica's discography seems to be viewed (yip, that's the way it's coming across guys!) I can't imagine Megadeth's output (however varied) is going to rebalance that view.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top