Metallica

I was always intending to buy S&M2 on vinyl when it eventually came out, after personally being impressed after watching it in cinemas. But seeing it being priced at like £70 has made me just decide to listen to it on Spotify instead.
 
I'm definitely planning on checking it out, but like many, I'm not a fan of the setlist. I liked the original S&M quite a bit, but even then, about a third of the songs they selected I would've replaced with stronger material. With this, there's really only half we haven't heard before. The Unforgiven III will probably work well, but why not Orion? Fade to Black? AJFA? My Friend of Misery? Low Man's Lyric from Reload would sound great with a string section. Instead we have a retread of the original S&M, and I simply don't see the point.
 
Detective Beauregard said:
about a third of the songs they selected I would've replaced with stronger material.
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Agreed.
Detective Beauregard said:
The Unforgiven III will probably work well
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Not a huge fan of it but taking in account the song and the brief snippet from the trailer it seems so
Detective Beauregard said:
Low Man's Lyric from Reload would sound great with a string section.
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Yup but the song is a bit meh.
Detective Beauregard said:
Instead we have a retread of the original S&M, and I simply don't see the point.
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Neither do I as I stated before.
 
I'm propably a very bad person, I guess, but the original S&M is currently the only physical Metallica record I own... but I really like it!

While some of the arrangements don't really add that much weight to the songs, I find the S&M take on For Whom the Bell Tolls, for example, as probably the "definite" version of the song for me. The strings in the intro are fucking powerful and James' delivery is spot-on there. I also quite like Load (and ReLoad has some decent songs too) and the S&M treatment elevates those songs in a nice way.

While the S&M2 seems to have a bit too much recycling going on and a couple of strange setlist choices (how in the name of Kthulhu The Unforgiven or Fade to Black etc. didn't make it... props for including part III and some creative, if not perfect picks though), The Day that Never Comes and from the most recent stuff, Halo on Fire are songs I'll probably give a lot of listens. And from the original set, I'm very curious to hear how The Outlaw Torn, for example, turned out.

I haven't checked any YouTube videos or tasters for that matter. I was supposed to see it in cinema, but I guess I was just too busy or whatever and I've successfully avoided "sneak-peeks" to this point, so another week or two won't hurt either. So yeah, I'll give it a YouTube Music spin or two (what a terrible downgrade from Google Play Music...) and decide about potential CD/Blu-Ray purchase then.
 
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Randalf said:
I'm probably a very bad person, I guess, but the original S&M is currently the only physical Metallica record I own... but I really like it!
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Why are you a bad person? For owning just 1 Metallica record? For liking S&M? Or for not owning Puppets or Lightning?
 
The original S&M is a great album. The orchestra really highlights some of the older songs, particularly the stuff from Lightning and Puppets. The two new songs were outstanding, particularly No Leaf Clover. But while I do like Load and Reload, I think the orchestra doesn’t work as well for some of the bluesier numbers from those albums. I also thought there were no-brainers that should have been played (The Unforgiven, Fade to Black, Orion, even Creeping Death) but were omitted so the band could play their hits, most of which I did not think blended particularly well.
 
LooseCannon said:
Nobody is too old for Spotify.
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Eh, not so sure about that. If you’re used to owning your music, being able to listen to it anywhere regardless of whether you have network access or not, and you find the idea of songs being removed from your collection or replaced with different versions without notice and without your consent to be appalling and borderline theft, not to mention the big data abuses that are almost certainly going on behind the scenes, then you’re probably too old for Spotify. I sure am.

I will only buy uncompressed, non-DRM’d music that I own, and that cannot be taken away from me.
 
Jer said:
I will only buy uncompressed, non-DRM’d music that I own, and that cannot be taken away from me.
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Excepting by actual theft, damage, fires, you forgot about it, your child breaks it...come now, physical media has great disadvantages too. Like, people can do what they want, etc. I don't see physical media as a waste of money or whatever, but I certainly think the disadvantages of it are far, far more than the "difficulties" of Spotify or similar distribution methods.
 
Jer said:
Eh, not so sure about that. If you’re used to owning your music, being able to listen to it anywhere regardless of whether you have network access or not, and you find the idea of songs being removed from your collection or replaced with different versions without notice and without your consent to be appalling and borderline theft, not to mention the big data abuses that are almost certainly going on behind the scenes, then you’re probably too old for Spotify. I sure am.

I will only buy uncompressed, non-DRM’d music that I own, and that cannot be taken away from me.
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Plus, CDs are among the only things that are cheaper now than 20 years ago.

A new CD often cost 120 Francs up to the year 2000, which roughly corresponds to a 24€ purchasing power in today's money, taking inflation into account. With this sum, you can now buy one new cd -for an average of 15€- plus one or two discount but sealed ones. Besides, you have a booklet, as you said you own it for good, and you don't need to be online to listen to it, so that you can focus more on it.
 
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LooseCannon said:
Excepting by actual theft, damage, fires, you forgot about it, your child breaks it...
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Since it’s not DRM’d, I can make and keep copies and other derivatives. So the compressed copies on my computer and my phone wouldn’t be stolen if the physical master CD was stolen, and vice versa. That’s enough of an insurance policy for me. And as better compression tech emerges, I can recompress from an original CD or FLAC as I choose to.

The only real downside is the physical bulk of CD cases, and since I don’t move often and have a carousel for them, it’s not much of a downside. I can use a free streaming platform to sample new things, then buy the stuff I like as physical or non-DRM’d virtual media. It puts more money in the artists’ pockets and restricts me less. And there’s no subscription fee.
 
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