James Hetfield: "we may be slow , but hey , our quality is poor"

I hadn't bought a Metallica CD since "..And Justice for All." I bought the new one after hearing a few tunes. I'm happy to say that it's pretty damn good.

metallica always sucked.... sorry.

Please inform me when they apologize for the albums that they did release.

this thread needs more JAmes Hetfield with Armani bags


all that i see/absolute savings

Love means never having to say you're sorry for releasing so few any more Metallica albums

Let's just get this out of the way right now:

That's okay Metallica, I wouldn't care if you never released an album again. Drama quee(n/r)s.

I love how its cool for internet geeks to bash metallica. metallica f'ing rocks. eos.

/has seen them live
//obviously you haven't

wait wait wait....

You don't know troo metal until you have heard Pestilential Tranquillity, Gates of Chaos, Bewitched Crown, and Flesh Mass.
I'm their only fan, so only these bands are troo brootal metal. If they get one more fan they are corporate sell outs and I will never listen to them....


/goes back to working on my non-tan

I have to ask. Which of the mods is the Metallica hater.

I love Metallica, so I'm willing to lie and say that there hasn't been a Metallica album in 12 years.

/You love someone despite their flaws.

Never mind Metallica Just
Start Wearing Purple (new window)

kwirlkarphys: I love how its cool for internet geeks to bash metallica. metallica f'ing rocks. eos.

/has seen them live
//obviously you haven't

Has seen them live. Six times. Dating back to opening for Ozzy when Cliff was alive. I don't like the term sold out. Everyone deserves to get paid. But they've sold their souls. Did you know they had a taper's section on the Justice tour? Did you know that they first gained notoriety by a tape that circulated from person to person (No Life Till Leather)? And then they pull the Napster BS? Screw them!@! I don't blame them for a decline in their music. Almost all artists peak and then decline. I don't blame them for cutting their hair and wearing suits. Can't be 15 forever, right? I blame them for forgetting who they are. Forgetting where they came from. Forgetting who got them there.

bigtotoro: kwirlkarphys: I love how its cool for internet geeks to bash metallica. metallica f'ing rocks. eos.

/has seen them live
//obviously you haven't

Has seen them live. Six times. Dating back to opening for Ozzy when Cliff was alive. I don't like the term sold out. Everyone deserves to get paid. But they've sold their souls. Did you know they had a taper's section on the Justice tour? Did you know that they first gained notoriety by a tape that circulated from person to person (No Life Till Leather)? And then they pull the Napster BS? Screw them!@! I don't blame them for a decline in their music. Almost all artists peak and then decline. I don't blame them for cutting their hair and wearing suits. Can't be 15 forever, right? I blame them for forgetting who they are. Forgetting where they came from. Forgetting who got them there.

cassette tapes vs digital media, apples and oranges. take one tape copy it and give to your friend, quality drops a bit, your friend copies his copy the quality drops a bit more...etc etc...
take a digital copy of a song and give to your friend, no discernible loss, he gives it to his friend, no quality loss...etc etc...

just my 2 cents

Also, trading tapes (there was a really cool shop in San Diego I liked getting bootlegs tapes from) means human interaction, word of mouth, a community. It's how I started like Suicidal Tendencies (still have them on vinyl), Manowar, Megadeth, Slayer...

Trading files on the internet is nothing like that. There is a difference.

Still don't think they handled Napster well, not giving them a free pass on that, but there is a difference. I still think a bunch of RIAA lawyers came and brainwashed them into that.

As stated by my friend Chris:

It WAS Cliffs death that changed the band irrevocably.

The first major consequence was that Cliffs loss initiated a MAJOR change in James Hetfield... simply put, he lost his art. He had his anger and his pain, but Cliffs death seemed to have take the artistic passion out of him, and replaced it with a towering resentment for Lars, who to this day seems oddly false when discussing how Cliffs death effected him.

In fact, if you look at everything since, it seems clear that Hetfield is happiest, when he's reliving the early days of the band, as in Garage Inc.

You have to remember that Metallica is essentially two bands. James Hetfield and then later Jason Newsted, are thrashmetal punks to their core; whereas Lars Ulrich and Kirk Hammett are quintessentially speed metal.

This tension between artistic elements is what made their music great, and Cliff Burton who was a punk at heart, but was also a great lover of Jazz and Classical music (and speedmetal, which grew out of classical influences); acted as the bridge between these two elements in tension (This can be best heard in "To live is to die" and "(Anastehsia) pulling teeth").

Without that bridge, the balance was lost, and it was simply a tug of war between James and Lars.

"Master..." was the last album where those elements of speed metal and thrash metal were truly blended properly. "Justice..." was an exploration of the excesses of speed metal; complicated by the gigantic ego of Lars Ulrich (and corresponding anger of Hetfield) making the production of the album a sloppy, poorly mixed nightmare.

Bringing in Bob Rock on "Metallica" was really an attempt by the band to put that bridge back in place, and restore some of that "mix" lost when Cliff died; and to an extent it worked. Combined with the far more professional production that Rock provided, and his ability to mediate between Hetfield and Ulrich (mostly by making them hate him wore than each other), "Metallica" was the most balanced production the band had yet made.

Of course, that's the problem with it.

Metallica wasn't great because they BALANCED thrash and speed metal, they were great because they wildly rollercoastered around the entirety of thrash and speedmetal, even within the same song.

Bob Rock gave them a better produced, better packaged, GOOD album, but he also muted the excesses.... the ups and downs that make great art. There was no more rollercoaster... more like a freight train, running down a straight line at 90mph.

Make no mistake "Metallica" is a very good album, and has a couple of really GREAT songs on it... but it is... unmagical? I don't want to say uninspired, because the very personal lyrical content that Hetfield included is in many ways beautiful, painful, and entirely revealing... but it just doesn't have the spark that the first three albums did.

"Metallica" also marks the last significant artistic contributions that Kirk Hammett or Lars Ulrich would make to the music of the band.

The entire post "Metallica" discography is essentially Hetfields artistic choice, fueled mostly by his anger, resentment, and disillusionment. It has also moved deeper and deeper into a grunge and groove metal mode, without the classical speedmetal influences; and only occasionally breaking out into the hardcore thrash that Hetfields artistry and passion is rooted in.

Honestly, I think the last time Metallica did something great, it was on "Garage Inc." where for a few minutes James clearly felt like he was expressing himself fully, even though it was through other peoples music; and he and Lars were able to actually ENJOY playing with each other again.

Load... well, there is some excellent songwriting in load, and a few quite good songs, but overall it's missing inspiration. There's a lot of anger there, but no genius, no life to it. In Load, Metallica essentially abandoned their roots in punk, thrash, and speedmetal; and moved into a more hard rock, blues oriented structure. It's a simpler, more accessible, easier to play, write, produce, and sell music... but it just isn't as good.

It isn't really Metallica, it's almost numetallica.

St. Anger is just more of the same, only... angrier.

I've heard death magnetic, and I agree it's heavier than Metallica has been in years, but again there's no feeling to it other than anger and resentment.

Honestly, I think Hetfield should break up the band and either form a new thrashmetal band, or do some solo work; because this stuff is obviously not satisfying him...

...though really Metallicas artistic output since 1991 can best be thought of as James Hetfield with the support of Kirk Hammett and Lars Ulrich, rather than as Metallica (Newsted was ignored entirely for Load, and Trujillo has very little artistic input at all, though he is certainly a very strong bassist, and writes his own parts).

Yes, I know that we're not talking apples to apples. But it's the fact that it SUCH a turnaround from the previous stance. I am not saying that they have to be down with piracy, but it is obviously not having a significant effect on the sales of new music, revenues from touring and merchandise, continued flogging of the back catalog, and sales of live shows on their website. All that Lars' little crusade accomplished was to paint him as the whiny, douche-y, loudmouthed jackass that he is. And it also finished off a lot of longtime fans like myself who aren't particularly crazy about the new stuff, but who continued to give them a pass and let them coast on former glories.

phoenixdan:

cassette tapes vs digital media, apples and oranges. take one tape copy it and give to your friend, quality drops a bit, your friend copies his copy the quality drops a bit more...etc etc...
take a digital copy of a song and give to your friend, no discernible loss, he gives it to his friend, no quality loss...etc etc...

just my 2 cents

Well since i have a very high format rate (i blame it on the pron) my mp3 loss is just about equal (if not a tiny bit worse) as your quality loss on cassette tapes. And if you can keep track of all the cds you burn, i commend you.

84Charlie, well said and 100% right if you ask me.

84Charlie: As stated by my friend Chris:

That's possibly the most intelligent thing I've read in a Metallica thread, and mostly spot on if you ask me.

Though I would say that one of Metallica's problems is that they started thinking of themselves as "artists" and not as a bunch of lads making an energetic, drunken noise.

Sislik: Well since i have a very high format rate (i blame it on the pron) my mp3 loss is just about equal (if not a tiny bit worse) as your quality loss on cassette tapes.

Wut?

I want to thank 84Charlie for posting something refreshingly new in a Metallic thread besides:

"Hasn't been a decent album since 'Justice'"
"The band died with Cliff" (although he kinda did say that but in a much more thought out way)
"Everything on Load and Reload automatically suck"
"Napster boo hoo wah wah"
Etc.

bigtotoro: Yes, I know that we're not talking apples to apples. But it's the fact that it SUCH a turnaround from the previous stance. I am not saying that they have to be down with piracy, but it is obviously not having a significant effect on the sales of new music, revenues from touring and merchandise, continued flogging of the back catalog, and sales of live shows on their website. All that Lars' little crusade accomplished was to paint him as the whiny, douche-y, loudmouthed jackass that he is. And it also finished off a lot of longtime fans like myself who aren't particularly crazy about the new stuff, but who continued to give them a pass and let them coast on former glories.

Why oh why does anyone point out the taping section? It's insubstantial because it's an inconsistent comparison. Lars went after Napster on account of people leaking an unfinished album, NOT because they were trading bootlegs, which takes creative control away from the artist. I see nothing wrong from what Lars did (what the RIAA has been doing since, however, is exploitative strong-arming). Hardly anyone ever remembers this point, it's always "let's demonize these guys because they're rich and, therefore, greedy," when really it comes off as some kind of bad justification for pirating music. Not to say that Metallica aren't greedy assholes, but at least they were perfectly within their moral and legal rights to say, "We don't appreciate people stealing our unfinished work."

Also, given the quality of Load/Reload (I forget which album it was at the time), was it really worth it?

In other news, Wolf Eyes says nothing and releases 4 more albums just in time for lunch.

Well, since there are some decent viewpoints being shown here, I'll add in my two bits.

Cliff Burton died, RIP, but this was not a creative decision by the boys in the band. Their musical direction changed, and you don't like it. That doesn't mean they should have committed ritual suicide on Metallica just because you find it less compelling. They have been good on their own, and an inspiration for others, even if only in their own formative years.

Metallica got popular, and the voice of popular Metal. They somehow wound up becoming more of a generic 'no adjective' Metal around the time of the Black album. They didn't have a crystal ball that told them "Enter Sandman" would be rocked by the masses. I don't believe for a second that James woke up one morning in 1990 and said, "Hey guys, let's make an album that's a pop sensation, fark Cliff!" then went on to poop out the "Metallica" LP with its litany of really good songs.

Probably actually scared by the success of their Black Album, which I don't believe they made with the express intention of becoming a Billboard juggernaut, they started to lay low with Load, Reload, and only came forward again with St. Anger, where they were trying to find their edge again. It's my own bias, but I like the way this band meshes their sound, even when it borders on country-western influences, like "Mama Said".

That brings us to Death Magnetic, which I listen to regularly again. As regularly as I did with AJFA. It's really good, and certainly better than 95% of the other shiat that gets popular attention.

I still love speed and thrash metal, I'm a fool for heavy riffing and blistering solos and vague anger and fantasy inspired themes.

Metallica is different. Not the same. Changed irrevocably. There's better speed and thrash metal out there. I understand that. There's bands also that are darker, heavier, grittier, speedier, and thrashier than Metallica. They used to be kings of Metal, and now they're not. I'm okay with that. I don't think that's a good reason for them to split up the band.

They didn't release very many albums, but they've released as many gems as most other bands, even if you only count their first three, and hate everything after, including Metallica and Death Magnetic. Then again, they've toured a hell of a lot, so that doesn't bother me.

Sislik: Well since i have a very high format rate (i blame it on the pron) my mp3 loss is just about equal (if not a tiny bit worse) as your quality loss on cassette tapes. And if you can keep track of all the cds you burn, i commend you.

Buy an extra hard drive. They are cheap these days. All my mp3's are kept separate from my operating system hard drive. I have all my cd's that I bought. It really isn't that difficult to keep track of where they are. I wish I had that much porn, that I had to format my hard drive just to keep up with it....sigh

phoenixdan:cassette tapes vs digital media, apples and oranges. take one tape copy it and give to your friend, quality drops a bit, your friend copies his copy the quality drops a bit more...etc etc...
take a digital copy of a song and give to your friend, no discernible loss, he gives it to his friend, no quality loss...etc etc...

just my 2 cents

Because if there's anyone that cares about audio quality, it's Lars Ulrich, right?

saintwrathchild: Also, given the quality of Load/Reload (I forget which album it was at the time), was it really worth it?

It was neither. If I recall, it was because someone stole the Mission Impossible track they were working on.

they haven't produced albums because they became complacent in their success. they have no other excuse for not producing BUT complacency. Which is the reason newsted left: he wanted to farking play. I believe that when you are young, you join a band because you LOVE the music and want to create (KISS excluded). they forgot themselves and sold out. Soul'd out. as for ST. Anger??? WTF? It was a lame attempt to sound hard? Am i right? or am i right? I am glad for trujillo's success but lets face it, it was a political move (ST Rules).
/seen Metallica live. Still loves their old stuff.