Quote:
Originally Posted by boo boo
(Post 684760)
I never got all The Black Album hate to be honest.
Everytime an underground band goes "mainstream" then suddenly it's a big f*cking deal. Would metalheads be happier if they just kept trying to repeat the same album over and over and over?
Well since we're talking about a metal band here, yeah that's exactly what it is.
It's not on par with their earlier material but I think it's a good album nonetheless.
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I don't hate the Black Album. And no, it's not a "big f*cking deal" when "underground" bands go "mainstream". Notice that I used prodigious quotation marks because all those terms are bull
shit. Metallica was never an underground band except for their very very early days; they were quite mainstream almost all the way up to and including the Black Album, and they were still excellent. The reason I don't forgive their experimentation is because it's fine to change your sound but there is no excuse for producing shi
tty music when you clearly have the capability to do more. That's what my entire rant was about two pages ago. Instead of getting more technically complex and creative, they adopted alternative rock and decided that would be good enough to keep with the times. That is a pathetic step. F
uck you for suggesting metalheads only like the same album over and over. There are thousands of metal bands doing extremely creative things and changing their sounds radically from album to album; on the other hand, some musicians in the scene like to make a band to do one specific sound, and then start a new one when it's time to change. That's not "exactly what it is". You are just as guilty of attacking metal as a genre as the people you whine about for telling you the truth about how prog is a genre specifically invented for fat nerds by fat nerds (and I LIKE prog). It's a good album if you like throwing up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheBig3KilledMyRainDog
(Post 684762)
I think a large degree comes from, as I've been told, the "universe of **** it gave way to" a la Godsmack, Korn, Limp Bizkit's
I guess peopel saw the lightening up of the sound, a more rock oriented move, to bring the dawn of the nu-metal era.
I don't agree with that, I feel if anything, Metallica led only to a small portion of that. Ultimatly, no band of that era matched skill levels or used general topics like they did (maybe general lyrics, which is a lot different and a lot worse).
The metal kids themselves clearly hate it because it doesn't sound like a wrench in the gears at the chainsaw factory. I could probably make a platnium selling metal album so long as I looped tightly enough the sounds metal objects crashing to the ground.
And thats really what modern metal is, Stomp with darker overtones.
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I don't think Metallica is responsible for shi
tty music, I think they released the album based on what was popular at the time, which is a far worse excuse than feeling the need to experiment. But you are very, very incorrect about their skill level. There were tons of metal bands in the 80s that made Metallica look like kids at Best Buy playing Guitar Hero, and even outside of the genre there were tons of far more capable musicians. They were good songwriters, they put on a good show, and they had good lyrics, so they were deservedly popular. But it had nothing to do with technical skill. And a lot of metalheads hate it because it's poorly recorded, poorly mixed, poorly written, poorly played, and overall a bad representative of what metal is supposed to sound like - in fact, it sounds
MORE like a wrench in a chainsaw factory than a lot of other metal bands. Have you heard Lars' snare drum? As a drummer it made me want to cry. If you have a paid drum tech you should
not sound like that. There is a difference between trying to sound "garage" and sounding lik cr
ap. Calling that sound "garage" was an insult to real, actual, non-record-label garage bands all over the world. We know how to tune our instruments, thanks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by boo boo
(Post 684779)
Fans don't want good albums or for bands to try different things, they want albums that conform to the style they're most accustomed to hearing. It's a hipster thing, a band releases an album with universial appeal and gains them a whole new audience, then the older fans rant like little school children. "We were here first".
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o im sory......... ur rong. It's not a "hipster thing". The people who are the "universal" part of "universal appeal" often have horrible taste and listen to whatever is playing on the radio. Those are the people I saw at the last Metallica show. It has nothing to do with "being here first". It has everything to do with metalheads not putting up with a good band releasing a terrible album when they should have been capable of a lot more. If you can't cut it anymore, quit it and start something else. I think metalheads hold bands to a high standard, and saying that we are obsessed with 'sellouts' is simply a cop-out for people who don't listen to metal enough to know what kind of quality we expect.
Quote:
Originally Posted by boo boo
(Post 684779)
I disagree on that. I think if anything Metalica were one of the least technically competent big metal bands, at least they were when Burton died.
Lars isn't a really good drummer, Hammett is nowhere near as skilled as many other metal lead guitarists, Newsted was a decent bassist but never had much to do and and because he could never match up to what Burton did, he's gotten a very bum rap.
It's Hetfield that really held the band together, and it's his skills as both a rhythm guitarist and a songwriter that put's Metallica leagues above their peers.
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I agree with all of this. I would say
after Burton died they lost a lot of their skill base. He wrote a surprising amount of material for the band and was especially creative.
Quote:
Originally Posted by boo boo
(Post 684779)
Well Megadeth also wrote songs about political and social topics. But then again, Megadeth was always Dave Mustaine's bitter attempt to outdo his former bandmates at whatever they did.
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When Mustaine stops singing I will check them out, I always said - but after A Tout Le Monde they lost whatever shreds of credibility they might have had. That song insulted good French metal bands like Yyrkoon.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Merkaba
(Post 685384)
I disagree, I think that album cops 95% of it's flak due to it's release environment, and Metallica's fuck-off-up-high-in-the-music-sky mantle piece from past albums. A comparatively bad album doesn't make for an outright bad album. And that album does have some good songs.
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It copped 100% of its flak because it was poorly written, included no solos (which arguably were one of the interesting things about Metallica), had a bass player that didn't suit the band in the slightest, had idiotic, mind-numbing lyrics, and was recorded by a multi-million dollar engineer trying to sound bad. Remember that most highly paid engineers sneer at garage bands and therefore was in fact, in his mind, trying to make the music sound terrible.
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Abominable Homan
(Post 685389)
To be honest, I don't really like any of Metallica's music, but I tend to respect St. Anger the most just for being their attempt to do something different. It's not music I enjoy, but it's better than another rehash of MoP or RtL.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The Abominable Homan
(Post 685405)
I'M MADLY IN ANGER WITH YOU!
Ok, I agree with most of the other stuff you said, but I found the lyrics on St. Anger were usually just silly.
I feel that musically, it may very well be one of their worst in my opinion, but it's worth respecting simply for being them trying a new thing, even if it didn't always work. The decision make the drums sound like that was a little odd (I know they were going for the garage sound, but that doesn't mean you should intentionally have things sound bad), but at least it made Lars' drumming stand out for once to me (even if it's for the wrong reasons :p:).
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That's like saying watching porn is acceptable because it's doing something different than working. A change of tone doesn't necessitate a drop in the level of musicianship or creativity.