Metallica

5. The Black Album - It's not a thrash metal album -- Sure it's not the Metallica we all know and love, but it's still good music

Love is obviously more debatable here... but given the commercial success and very extensive airplay lots of their 90's work got and do this very day, I would argue it's definitely the Metallica we know... :p Or perhaps, in this case, the Metallica they know, if we want to embrace the Metal Community - how ever one defines it.

As for love, I have to admit that a good number of my favourite Metallica songs are from the 90's and onwards but I definitely do not deny the outrageous power of their older records, or the supreme quality of records like Master of the Puppets or Ride the Lightning. As far as their albums go, they haven't released anything as tight and powerful since, as much as I love many individual songs from their later works anyway.
 
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Getting exposed to old Metallica while being interested and keeping track of contemporary Metallica in the mid/late 90s was not easy if you had no people/elders that could show you the way and you had no money to indiscriminately purchase the back catalogue. This goes on to every "true" metal thing. If you were left to watching telly and listening to radio you just weren't exposed to it.

IMHO, metal returned to grace in European media with Brave New World. The Wicker Man is the first metal song I heard on rotation on "normie" channels such as VIVA 1 and MTV. Then the said channels started "discovering" industrial metal, swedish melodeath, black metal crossovers, featuring stuff such as In Flames or Kovenant. VIVA 2 started covering different kinds of acts when covering festival, and things shifted to true metal alltogether. VIVA 2 was the non-mainstream channel but they were commercial as fuck. Before resurgence of metal in media, they did not show any old Metallica, just constant rape with the contemporary singles. They had a late night metal show called Virus, where you could catch old Metallica, Sepultura, Bruce, Maiden, and the rest of the heavy classics. After 2000, Virus was doing extreme metal proper. The difference in exposure of metal that came in period of a few months was enormeous, as it did not follow the true demand of the people but some CEO spreadsheet that says how much of what goes to air.

Why write this? I'm pretty much sure I did not know who Cliff Burton was until year 2000. Because the shitty hair gel Metallica is the "Metallica I knew". I had no venues of discovering music outside of what it's broadcast to me by the music industry. Obviously the people there did not want me to know the Metallica of before. I liked that 90s Metallica initially but it fell dull after some time. And boy was I glad to rediscover the old stuff, the dry aggressive sounds I heard when I was very young but couldn't figure out back then what it was.
 
Master of Puppets bridge riff (at the end of instrumental), my favourite riff from their entire rifforama was written by Cliff Burton, and was lifted from David Bowie song called Andy Warhol. Cliff made an excellent job taking this theme and fitting it to song groove. This David Bowie riff is also present in the bass line of Four Horsemen chorus, which I consider to be the bassline. Cliff did a lot of solo bass, he did a lot of straight high power play carrying the songs (like Creeping Death), but just a simple bass line, with this much pushing power and melody I do not hear anywhere else.

Now I wonder should I start listening to David Bowie.
 
off-topic:

My favourie David Bowie catalogue bassline:
from 1:51 in "The Secret Life of Arabia"

Not very audible on YouTube so go here:

played by this dude also from 1:51 here
 
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Yeah, it is Motownish, and funky. I am not into funk, but this bassline really does it!
The bass player is George Murray who played with him in his Berlin period. Some really good albums in that time, but also before that where Bowie's music is heavier, riffier, more hard rock.
 
Metallica on Colbert doing a good rendition of Battery

I love listening to James try to drag Lars' tempo down with his vocals. Always a glorious thing. Though, in earnest, Lars is doing fine here in the playing department (if not in the consistent tempo department).

They sound really good! I'm always impressed how well James has maintained his voice over the years. I know he changed his singing style, but damn if he doesn't still sound awesome on most of their stuff.

On that same note: is this full step down?
 
What I love more than anything is that for probably the first time since the '80s, they played the melodic riff following the second chorus. It's a shame you can barely hear Kirk.

Hetfield's guitar is sweet. Also why does the bassist have a porn star stache now?
 
don't think so, I just picked up a guitar and it was in tune with it.

Not sure how in tune my guitar is though but don't recall tuning it down:lol:

Your guitar is half step down :)
 
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