Metallica

Zare said:
I'm still not certain that Load/Reload aren't a sellout. In best case, misguided. It's not just music, it's the image, choice of gigs and style at public appearances.
In any case, Metallica has an integrity issue.
Click to expand...

I could agree that the image portion of the Load/ReLoad era seemed trendy on purpose, but I still argue that the music sounded like something they wanted to play versus something they thought they should play.
 
MrKnickerbocker said:
I would argue that Death Magnetic was technically Metallica selling out as well, it's just that by the time they made it "selling out" meant "playing what we used to play because that's what people will pay us for."
Click to expand...

Mosh said:
Strongly agree with that. As much as like Death Magnetic (much more than anything since AJFA), it's more of a sell out than anything they ever did.
Click to expand...

I wanted to mention Death Magnetic as being close to selling out but forgot about editing my post to include it.

DM is indeed a candidate for a sell out album because it deferred to audience pressure, but the enthusiasm I saw from the band during the recording sessions and every time they play DM songs live has convinced me otherwise.

Zare said:
I'm still not certain that Load/Reload aren't a sellout. In best case, misguided. It's not just music, it's the image, choice of gigs and style at public appearances.
In any case, Metallica has an integrity issue.
Click to expand...

I absolutely disagree that the music on Load/ReLoad was selling out. It was the opposite of selling out. They took a massive risk because they wanted to explore that sound.

Sense of style is debatable, yes.
 
And that's why whether or not an artist "sells out" is mostly irrelevant. If they decided to succumb to pressure from fans while still making an album they enjoyed personally, it seems like a win for everyone involved. If it was obviously half assed and passionless, then we could talk more about selling out but I always got the impression that they were really trying with DM.

And that goes for all their albums really. Say what you want about Metallica, but they always put effort into what they do.
 
I've always held the thought that selling out was a bullshit concept anyway. Remember the integrity debates?
 
Selling out IMO means when a band records more commercially accessible (usually softer, poppier) music. For Metallica that'd be Load/Reload and Risk for Megadeth, for example. Not Death Magnetic which was just them trying to sound like they used to sound. If that's selling out then I can't think of many bands who didn't sell out.
 
What you describe, NP, should be labelled "going soft". Not selling out. Selling out implies a financially motivated move. Metallica opting to take a risk and not milk what they had created is not a financially motivated move. Neither is Risk by Megadeth. Doing "commercially accessible" music doesn't guarantee financial success, especially in the case of harder sounding bands, where the risk of financial failure is actually bigger than that of financial success.

Risk, is called Risk for that reason. Lars Ulrich urged Dave Mustaine to take a risk with his music (which implies that they took risks with Load/Reload) and the title was the answer to him.
 
Metallica's Master Of Puppets the first heavy metal album preserved by US Library of Congress
www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-24/metallica-first-metal-recording-historic-us-library-of-congress/7272924?section=music

Metallica's album Master Of Puppets is the first heavy metal recording chosen for preservation by the Library of Congress due to its historical importance.

The US Government-run library's National Recording Registry each year selects 25 pieces judged to be "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" and keeps the best-quality originals to safeguard for future generations.

A statement from the library said Master Of Puppets, released in 1986 as the third album by Metallica, "shows the group moving away from its thrash-metal history and reputation and exploring new ideas".

"Thrash, a reaction against the pop metal of the early 1980s, aimed to renew metal by emphasizing speed and aggression," it said, while crediting "Master Of Puppets" with also aiming to "break free of thrash orthodoxy".

Other selections included Gloria Gaynor's 1978 single I Will Survive, an iconic track of the disco era.

Originally a B-side inspired by a romantic breakup, I Will Survive has emerged as an anthem of the feminist and gay rights movements.

"It is my privilege and honour to use it to inspire people around the world of every nationality, race, creed, colour and age group to join me as I sing and live the words: I Will Survive," Gaynor said in a statement on the song's selection.

The Library of Congress also chose two recordings of Mack The Knife, a pop standard whose German original was co-written for a musical by Bertolt Brecht, performed separately by jazz legend Louis Armstrong and Bobby Darin, whose 1959 version is best known.

Other recordings included another classic jazz work, John Coltrane's spiritual 1964 album A Love Supreme, as well as Motown greats The Supremes' single Where Did Our Love Go and Billy Joel's Piano Man.

The Library of Congress also selected a recording by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra of Mahler's Ninth Symphony from a 1938 concert two months before Nazi Germany annexed Austria.

Leading the orchestra with soaring intensity was the legendary conductor Bruno Walter, a German-born Jew who fled a year later to the United States; Jewish musicians at the Vienna Philharmonic who remained were fired, with some sent to concentration camps.

Among non-musical recordings, the Library of Congress chose for preservation the 1947 speech by then secretary of state George Marshall in which he laid out the groundwork for the massive US-led reconstruction efforts of war-torn Europe.

His remarks at Harvard University were off the cuff but the multi-billion-dollar project to rebuild US-allied European democracies came to be known as "the Marshall Plan".
 
Pre-ordered right on the spot! I've been waiting for remastered editions of those albums for ages.

Remastered reissues of 'Master Of Puppets' and 'And Justice For All' is a given as well.
 
I think they're planning to remaster most of the back catalogue. I think other versions will come out as well, because yeah, the deluxe editions are pricey, but most likely worth it. Here's two videos of Hetfield and Ulrich unboxing the deluxe editions:


 
Last edited:
These look really cool and the price isn't too bad. I'm not even a big Metallica fan and I'm tempted to buy one.

Really curious to see what they do with AJFA in particular, for obvious reasons.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top