Metallica

The Flash said:
I watched the full show. They're plugging the blu-ray release of Some Kind of Monster documentary. So nothing to get excited about, really.

Unless they're planning a surprise or something.
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That makes some sense, but still seems like a lot of work for 10th anniversary about a documentary that James hates. Weird.

Oh, well. More Metallica! Night 2:

 
I looked up the announcement on Metallica's website, Craig Ferguson himself invited the band for a week in celebration of his last month on the show.
 
I really like that bluesy solo Rob does at the end of the intro. That might be the first time I've really heard Rob's bass in the mix and heard him do something fresh. Go Rob!
 
MrKnickerbocker said:
This is another song that just misses so much without Jason Newsted's backing vocals. Nice try, Kirk, but no.
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There's a lot of things wrong with it, but the backing vocals isn't high upon my list of concerns. I have long since come to accept and somewhat appreciate the skills of each members, which usually leaves a lot to be desired (Ulrich and Hammett being the weak spots), so I am not going to comment on that. I think the band sound reasonably good here. What I can't comprehend, however, is how someone thought that snare sounded good - or how they could end up with that guitar sound despite having their budget.
 
Out of Hammett, Ulrich and Hetfield, Hammett is by far the most proficient in my view.
 
Don't underestimate Hetfield. Dude is a hell of a rhythm guitarist. And yes, Hammett has always been and is still a monster lead player. Calling him a "weak spot" makes no sense to me.
 
Out of everyone in the band, Hetfield is far and away the most proficient and talented member. He is a hell of a songwriter when he puts his heart into it and probably the best, most consistent rhythm guitar player in metal history.

Hammett was amazing, until some time after the black album, when he started getting lazy. He has the occasional moment of brilliance, but he's been phoning it in for 20 years.
 
Hetfield and Trujillo have real talent. Hammett may have too, but I can't bear his Satriani-esque wah-wah widdling. In Enter Night, it states that he was still taking lessons with Satriani during the recording of Master of Puppets. The only stuff of his I like is his soloing on the Justice album. It's harsher and less "creamy" than the rest of his playing, and suits the brutality of that album perfectly. The solo on The Unforgiven is the only other one I like. Yes, it's a smooth wah-wah job, but it's actually musical. For me, Mustaine is a much better metal guitarist than Kirk.

Lars though, his playing has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
 
Hammett's playing is riddled with out of tune bending, excessive string noise, hard and inaccurate picking, and also tasteless overuse of wah-wah. We can put away the latter as a matter of taste, but you really can't get around the technique. It should be noted that while he can't be viewed as anything but influential, he obviously isn't a very good player, to say the least. Does he have a saving grace? I can appreciate that his solo writing skills has been creative and very trendsetting - to solo over chromatic riffs takes a totally different approach and there really was no influential player who did that before Kirk. He sort of adapted a heavily blues based style to work under totally new circumstances. Overall though, riduculously bad technique often makes him a chore to listen to live. On record, he is mostly fine - peaking during ...And Justice For All.
 
That's true for most rock musicians though. The popular mentality in rock seems to be that once you've "made it", you don't need to improve your playing anymore. The only two rock musicians I can think of offhand who have continued to better themselves are Neil Peart and Adrian Smith. I'm not sure why Lars is the posterboy for musical stagnation, he ain't that bad.
 
I hope that ain't true. I hope every musician always strives to better themselves or learn new things....

In my opinion, Lars is a good example of stagnation, at least if we're talking drumming. Contrary to what many people might believe, some of his best drumming is on Load/Reload. But since then? Terribly lazy both live and in studio...
 
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