Diesel 11
As you scream into the web of silence...
You don’t even have to drop any songs to make it a single disc. Hell, the album is even shorter than Load!
Although granted including a naff Lemmy tribute that goes nowhere definitely does hurt.
METALLICA ALBUM RANKING GAME: #5 REVEALED
- Thread starter Mosh
- Start date
Although granted including a naff Lemmy tribute that goes nowhere definitely does hurt.
Oh sure, I'm just saying twelve songs on a single disc still feels like a lot (see Fear of the Dark). At 11 songs (including one very short opener) we're closer to Death Magnetic territory.
Also, I know this album has a Lemmy tribute on it but I couldn't tell you which song it is.
Diesel 11
As you scream into the web of silence...
“Murder One”. Could’ve been a fine throwaway tribute single but honestly “Lords of Summer” would’ve been a better song.
Jer
A window to the west, a blazing star above
For me, Hardwired felt like an honest representation of the kind of music Metallica wanted to play at that point in time — something with one foot in their black album phase and the other in their classic period. Hetfield really seems to like playing these simpler grooves, but with some more complicated detours thrown in, and Hardwired stuck the landing more honestly than Death Magnetic did, IMO.
That said, I probably still prefer Death Magnetic by a hair over Hardwired due to overall song quality, even though it feels a bit more forced.
That said, I probably still prefer Death Magnetic by a hair over Hardwired due to overall song quality, even though it feels a bit more forced.
MrKnickerbocker
clap hands
Hardwired is an exceptional album (if you eliminate half of the songs).
Minus the idiotic, childish lyrics in the self-titled song, the first half is pretty perfect. Not every song is a 10/10, but the ones that are (Atlas, Moth) are stellar. If you take the first "disc" + Spit Out The Bone (the third 10/10 on the album), you've got a killer short record.
It's the aforementioned title track and the entirety of "disc" two that drag it way, way down. But overall, the songwriting on the first half (plus Spit) is superior to anything they've done since ReLoad.
Minus the idiotic, childish lyrics in the self-titled song, the first half is pretty perfect. Not every song is a 10/10, but the ones that are (Atlas, Moth) are stellar. If you take the first "disc" + Spit Out The Bone (the third 10/10 on the album), you've got a killer short record.
It's the aforementioned title track and the entirety of "disc" two that drag it way, way down. But overall, the songwriting on the first half (plus Spit) is superior to anything they've done since ReLoad.
Sth2112
Ancient Mariner
Hardwired is alot better than it’s predecessor, more safe but also tighter, more solid, more melodic. Maybe also a litte one dimensional, it’s not all over the place as Load and Death magnetic. And why was Lords of summer not part of the main album? And I wish we had heard some songwriting input from Kirk on this album.
Impressive that they topped the charts in 57 countries with this album!
Impressive that they topped the charts in 57 countries with this album!
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RESULTS NOTE: When compiling data for the next entry, I discovered that I accidentally included a list twice. This did not affect any of the rankings so far although the scores changed slightly:
St Anger: 39 -> 38
72 Seasons: 69 -> 64
Load: 85 -> 78
Reload: 90 -> 87
Hardwired: 102 -> 98
This did impact the top half of the rankings though and deleting the extra list broke both ties. I will still honor the winners of the trivia contest and will flag what would have been a tie when it comes up. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming:
1:
2:
3:
4:
5:
6: Kill Em All
7: Hardwired...To Self Destruct
8: Reload
9: Load
10: 72 Seasons
11: St. Anger
Total score: 116
Highest score: 9 (@____no5 @Iron Taipei)
Lowest score: 1 (@Eddieson)
What could be the game's first upset, we have Metallica's debut album coming in with a somewhat unimpressive showing, even falling below one of Metallica's 21st century albums (although I think that speaks more to Death Magnetic's popularity than Kill Em All's unpopularity, as Kill Em All still scored significantly higher than Hardwired and the other albums on the bottom half of the list). For our trivia watchers, this was the album that tripped everybody up as almost everybody guessed that Kill Em All was ranked #1 on at least one list. In reality, Kill Em All failed to even be ranked #2 on anybody's list and only cracked the top three on two lists. I guess Maidenfans doesn't have a lot of time for this scrappy NWOBHM worship.
The album is scrappy and at times feels more like a demo. Hetfield's vocal melodies largely amount to shouting, Kirk's leads sometimes feel like a random flurry of notes, and the band is generally a bit rickety throughout. Still, this album is filled with teenage charm. There's a lot of catchy riffing throughout and it sounds like the output of a bunch of kids who pretty much spend all day and all night listening to imported Metal albums. When this album shines it's on the more mid tempo riff driven tracks like Jump in the Fire, Four Horsemen, and Seek and Destroy. Those songs are legitimately catchy and show an early knack for hook writing that would propel this band to massive commercial success years later. The thrashier songs, such as Hit the Lights, never really did it for me as theses songs don't feel quite as well arranged. Metallica would get better at these on the next album.
Overall I'm not too surprised at this result, although I wasn't really expecting any of the 90s/00s Metallica albums to best anything from the 80s here. This is the last Metallica album in the game to not appear at the top of anybody's lists and it's also the last album to be last place on anybody's list. From here on out, every album is cherished by somebody on the forum while there isn't any strong contingency coming out against any of the remaining albums.
St Anger: 39 -> 38
72 Seasons: 69 -> 64
Load: 85 -> 78
Reload: 90 -> 87
Hardwired: 102 -> 98
This did impact the top half of the rankings though and deleting the extra list broke both ties. I will still honor the winners of the trivia contest and will flag what would have been a tie when it comes up. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming:
1:
2:
3:
4:
5:
6: Kill Em All
7: Hardwired...To Self Destruct
8: Reload
9: Load
10: 72 Seasons
11: St. Anger
Total score: 116
Highest score: 9 (@____no5 @Iron Taipei)
Lowest score: 1 (@Eddieson)
What could be the game's first upset, we have Metallica's debut album coming in with a somewhat unimpressive showing, even falling below one of Metallica's 21st century albums (although I think that speaks more to Death Magnetic's popularity than Kill Em All's unpopularity, as Kill Em All still scored significantly higher than Hardwired and the other albums on the bottom half of the list). For our trivia watchers, this was the album that tripped everybody up as almost everybody guessed that Kill Em All was ranked #1 on at least one list. In reality, Kill Em All failed to even be ranked #2 on anybody's list and only cracked the top three on two lists. I guess Maidenfans doesn't have a lot of time for this scrappy NWOBHM worship.
The album is scrappy and at times feels more like a demo. Hetfield's vocal melodies largely amount to shouting, Kirk's leads sometimes feel like a random flurry of notes, and the band is generally a bit rickety throughout. Still, this album is filled with teenage charm. There's a lot of catchy riffing throughout and it sounds like the output of a bunch of kids who pretty much spend all day and all night listening to imported Metal albums. When this album shines it's on the more mid tempo riff driven tracks like Jump in the Fire, Four Horsemen, and Seek and Destroy. Those songs are legitimately catchy and show an early knack for hook writing that would propel this band to massive commercial success years later. The thrashier songs, such as Hit the Lights, never really did it for me as theses songs don't feel quite as well arranged. Metallica would get better at these on the next album.
Overall I'm not too surprised at this result, although I wasn't really expecting any of the 90s/00s Metallica albums to best anything from the 80s here. This is the last Metallica album in the game to not appear at the top of anybody's lists and it's also the last album to be last place on anybody's list. From here on out, every album is cherished by somebody on the forum while there isn't any strong contingency coming out against any of the remaining albums.
MrKnickerbocker
clap hands
I ranked Kill 'Em All second-to-last and I stand by it. It's just too raw and the songwriting (and performance) is just not there. The level up in composition between the debut and Ride The Lightning is nothing short of astounding.
Shmoolikipod
Stranger to the Light
Hardwired - where I differ from most is that I really like disc 2. ManUNkind has interesting rhythms and an oddly uplifting vibe, Am I Savage is pretty out there too, and Confusion and Revenge are solid.
Disc 1, minus the title track which is quite awful, is one banger after the other. Halo and Spit are two of the best Metallica songs period, and Moth is what sparked my interest in music. Hardwired has a wide palette, just like the black album, and it's very free-flowing. No, not a revolutionary masterpiece, but I kinda like it more than those.
KEA - had it at #6. For a debut, it's stunningly good. The juvenility of it is exciting, far surpassed by the superior songwriting of the classics, but it alone draws me more than the good songs on the later, very uneven albums (other than Hardwired of course). Motorbreath is my favourite here and exemplifies my feelings well. It's not some intricate creature, but it gets the adrenaline kicking.
Disc 1, minus the title track which is quite awful, is one banger after the other. Halo and Spit are two of the best Metallica songs period, and Moth is what sparked my interest in music. Hardwired has a wide palette, just like the black album, and it's very free-flowing. No, not a revolutionary masterpiece, but I kinda like it more than those.
KEA - had it at #6. For a debut, it's stunningly good. The juvenility of it is exciting, far surpassed by the superior songwriting of the classics, but it alone draws me more than the good songs on the later, very uneven albums (other than Hardwired of course). Motorbreath is my favourite here and exemplifies my feelings well. It's not some intricate creature, but it gets the adrenaline kicking.
Jer
A window to the west, a blazing star above
Kill ‘Em All has always seemed wildly overrated to me among the fandom, largely because Hetfield’s vocals are all over the place, but also because the songwriting is so uneven. I personally had it down at #8, but I’m pleasantly surprised to see it end up this low overall given how much people tend to view the album through rose-colored glasses.
Midnight
The Ever-Present "It"
The thrashier songs on the B-side are what draw me to the album these days. Phantom Lord and Metal Militia have recklessly riding riffs, over-the-top teenage enthusiasm and choruses that stick in my head.
1:
2:
3:
4:
5: Death Magnetic
6: Kill Em All
7: Hardwired...To Self Destruct
8: Reload
9: Load
10: 72 Seasons
11: St. Anger
Total score: 122
Highest score: 11 (@eddie666)
Lowest score: 2 (@frus @Sth2112 )
Note: In the original (inaccurate) calculation, Death Magnetic and Kill Em All were tied)
Perhaps the most impressive showing in the entire game is a late era Metallica album cracking the top five and even beating out a "classic." This album has always had a bit of a fanbase on Maidenfans, and maybe unsurprisingly so. I have always seen this as the "reverse sellout" album where Metallica does basically what they were accused of throughout the 90s: cheap pandering and making commercial decisions over artistic ones.* The only difference now is that for a band like Metallica, the commercial winds were blowing in a way where making a thrash metal throwback album made the most sense.
It's actually pretty incredible how much Death Magnetic feels like a coherent continuation of what Metallica was going for on And Justice For All. If cryogenically froze a Metallica fan in 1988 and let them out just in time to hear Death Magnetic, I'm not sure there would be anything surprising there. I'm not sure it was clear at all that they still had it in them. 15 years and two albums later and it feels like more of an anomaly. I can also appreciate that while the album has a back to the roots feel to it, it doesn't feel like the last decade or so wasn't totally forgotten. Obviously there's the Unforgiven sequel (which is surprisingly not terrible), but other ballads such as The Day That Never Comes feel like they wouldn't be that out of place on Load/Reload. Even Cyanide has a groove-metal type of feel to it that has a late-stage Metallica edge to it.
The songs are very long and sometimes meandering, which I think tends to be where this album gets the most criticism. At the same time though, I feel like that has pretty much always been Metallica's MO. We'll get to it later, but I don't really see how something like And Justice For All can credibly be considered that much tighter from a songwriting perspective. Although, to be fair, even in the album's most epic moments Death Magnetic doesn't really have a One type of instant classic.
Not much else to say on this one. I will be curious to hear some other folks' reactions as this can sometimes be a polarizing album, although for the most part Maidenfans ranked it quite positively. Within the realm of reason, I don't think it's possible for Death Magnetic to break any higher than #5 (maybe it could beat out Black on a forum that is a little bit heavier on classic Metallica purists, but in that world it probably doesn't beat Kill Em All, which puts it back at #5). So overall a pretty impressive showing and about the ceiling for this type of album from my perspective.
2:
3:
4:
5: Death Magnetic
6: Kill Em All
7: Hardwired...To Self Destruct
8: Reload
9: Load
10: 72 Seasons
11: St. Anger
Total score: 122
Highest score: 11 (@eddie666)
Lowest score: 2 (@frus @Sth2112 )
Note: In the original (inaccurate) calculation, Death Magnetic and Kill Em All were tied)
Perhaps the most impressive showing in the entire game is a late era Metallica album cracking the top five and even beating out a "classic." This album has always had a bit of a fanbase on Maidenfans, and maybe unsurprisingly so. I have always seen this as the "reverse sellout" album where Metallica does basically what they were accused of throughout the 90s: cheap pandering and making commercial decisions over artistic ones.* The only difference now is that for a band like Metallica, the commercial winds were blowing in a way where making a thrash metal throwback album made the most sense.
It's actually pretty incredible how much Death Magnetic feels like a coherent continuation of what Metallica was going for on And Justice For All. If cryogenically froze a Metallica fan in 1988 and let them out just in time to hear Death Magnetic, I'm not sure there would be anything surprising there. I'm not sure it was clear at all that they still had it in them. 15 years and two albums later and it feels like more of an anomaly. I can also appreciate that while the album has a back to the roots feel to it, it doesn't feel like the last decade or so wasn't totally forgotten. Obviously there's the Unforgiven sequel (which is surprisingly not terrible), but other ballads such as The Day That Never Comes feel like they wouldn't be that out of place on Load/Reload. Even Cyanide has a groove-metal type of feel to it that has a late-stage Metallica edge to it.
The songs are very long and sometimes meandering, which I think tends to be where this album gets the most criticism. At the same time though, I feel like that has pretty much always been Metallica's MO. We'll get to it later, but I don't really see how something like And Justice For All can credibly be considered that much tighter from a songwriting perspective. Although, to be fair, even in the album's most epic moments Death Magnetic doesn't really have a One type of instant classic.
Not much else to say on this one. I will be curious to hear some other folks' reactions as this can sometimes be a polarizing album, although for the most part Maidenfans ranked it quite positively. Within the realm of reason, I don't think it's possible for Death Magnetic to break any higher than #5 (maybe it could beat out Black on a forum that is a little bit heavier on classic Metallica purists, but in that world it probably doesn't beat Kill Em All, which puts it back at #5). So overall a pretty impressive showing and about the ceiling for this type of album from my perspective.
MrKnickerbocker
clap hands
A great, and accurate, showing for Death Magnetic.
As @Mosh said - it lacks a single classic song, but it makes up for it with pure coolness and consistency. My Apocalypse is the only song on here I'd consider "bad" and everything else is "pretty good to great".
The biggest failure of this album is the godawful brick-walled mastering.
As @Mosh said - it lacks a single classic song, but it makes up for it with pure coolness and consistency. My Apocalypse is the only song on here I'd consider "bad" and everything else is "pretty good to great".
The biggest failure of this album is the godawful brick-walled mastering.
Jer
A window to the west, a blazing star above
…and this is fixed with the “Remastered For iTunes” version, and even moreso with the HD 96KHz/24-bit version of the iTunes remaster. It’s still a harsh-sounding album, but with the clipping gone and some more dynamic range it’s a lot more appealing.