Comments on: Why Metallica Can Shove Death Magnetic

By: Curt King

Curt King — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 07:09:42 +0000

holy crap! I could not have said that better!

and damn it -I could not agree more…

Curt King
Demolish HQ

By: Matthew

Matthew — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 01:26:11 +0000

I respect your opinion. I love Metallica & my favoraite album was The Black Album. As far as the first four albums I thought they sounded like absolute garbage. I am also getting so sick of the sell out phrase being used way to much. Just because they have one of the biggest selling albums of all time does not make them a sell out. By the way, I support Lars (one of the greatest drummers of all time) on the whole Napster thing. If it was your songs & you were losing money I bet you would be crying like a little bitch at K-Mart.

Metallica rules

By: stratoblaster

stratoblaster — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 06:03:28 +0000

There’s a radio station in chicago that plays a mix of old and new metallica and quite a bit off of death magnetic. I gotta say that it isn’t as good as it should have been. It’s overproduced and with all the starts and stops and gratuitous bonus riffs thrown in that don’t fit in, the flow of the song gets ruined. It sound like they are trying too hard instead of letting the heavy come natural. Don’t get me wrong, I like gratutitous riffing but the song shouldn’t sound like a chopped up mishmash. World painted blood much better, imho.

By: Corey Stinson

Corey Stinson — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 13:34:05 +0000

The new album is actually pretty good. 7/8 out of ten is what the Chronicles of Chaos reviewers gave it, and I’d probably place it somewhere around 7 myself. There are definitely plenty of solid modern thrash songs – the first five and the last four sure – and it’s unmistakably Metallica.

By: Jayman

Jayman — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:09:43 +0000

On the point about working with orchestras, Dream Theater did a 20th anniversary show called “Score”, second half of the show was done with an orchestra. To say the least, it was amazing. But DT is a crew of TRUE musicians, dedicated to the fans that made them who they are today!!

By: hikmet

hikmet — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 22:05:17 +0000

I agree with you but I want to add a few things.

1. I think metallica had lost their “creativity” with the death of Cliff Burton. first album “kill em’ all” was nice but it was not that great musically. basically it was a dave mustaine album, fast riffs and solos; it was all about speed. after cliff started to write down songs begining with “ride the lightning” and followed by ” master of puppets”, metallica had peaked musically. james, dave, lars were only interested in nwobhm or stuff like that. on the other hand mr. burton was listenin lynyrd skynyrd, j.s.bach. reading h.p lovecraft. he was a brilliant guy with an open mind, even can be called an intellectual. maybe he wasnt writing all of the songs on his own but it was obvious that he had a huge influence on the band. after he died (and of course mustaine was kicked out before that), it was now up to lars and james to “compose” the songs. the new bass player jason newsted had also some talent but these two assholes didnt give him the oppurtunity to show himself. in ajfa they used what was left from cliff and his legacy, probably “to live is to die” is the best piece of music from that album.
unlike most of the fans i found black album quite succesful when its compared to newer stuff that metallica have crapped out. every new album was worse than the older one. album by album lars and james spend their “good” material, so for every new album there was less “good” material.
when they did the thing with symphony i was a little excited, however they failed me again. i was expecting to hear “orion, fade to black, to live is to die, the four horsemen,..” they choose to play the crap from load/reload. a concert without “creeping death”? fuck it man.
jason left the band because of the known issues there is no need to mention them again and they replaced him with an ape or gorilla; whatever you want to call him. when i saw this moron acting like a monkey on the stage where cliff used to play i felt sad, sad for these clowns.
“st.anger” was the lowest point they could have ever get. an album without guitar solos? maybe you have noticed that i havent written anything about kirk hammet yet. its because he is one of the biggest pussies you can ever see in a metal band. if i’m the lead guitarist of a band and the other members of the band told me that in the new album there wont be any guitar solos, i fucking quit the band at that moment. 25 years in metallica and “enter sandman” is the only remarkable thing that has he done?
you know sometimes i wish cliff had never won that card game, things would be so much different.
anyway, after “st.anger” i lost all my hopes about this band, and i know that the only difference between the new album:”death magnetic” and “st.anger” would be the long and boring guitar solos. and i think i have made a good estimation.
imho james and lars have really small amounts of musical talent. james used to be a good lyric writer in 80s but now he also sucks in it too. he tries to sing like a country singer (god knows why) and ruins all the good songs they made in past. kirk doesnt give anything new besides wah-wah, and “the planet of the apes” whirls round and doesnt get dizzy.

2. After cliff, the band musically died but still they got the metal spirit for a while. You can watch an old clip from “kill em all” days where they were promoting the album in a gig and james says “kill all the fucking posers out there, kill all the fake people”(or something similar to that). he was referring to glam metal bands lik mötley crüe, guys wearing fancy clothes and having make up like ladies and perform like that. this was the “metallica”, the band wrote songs like “ride the lightning”, “for whom the bell tolls”, “disposable heroes”, “one”, and justice for all”,… the protest, the uprising against the system, one of the key elements of metal music.
however with the “black album” things have changed 180 degrees. “one” had turned into “dont tread on me”. only in 2 years. what the fuck happened? i can tell you what happened, the mainstream doesnt accept protest or “anti” anything. you have to move with the trend. it is like that all over world and i guess usa is not an exception. metallica wanted to be famous, basically lars did. and they “sold their souls”. they saw the lights of hollywood in their first grammy awards, and they liked it. they could have toured with slayer, antrax,… but they would have missed the hall of fame if they chose that path. so first they toured with gnr than it continued until they tour with kidrock and linkin park. they become mtv idol and let snoopdog, avril lavigne or other shitty so called “musicians” to play their “beloved” songs. they hurt us, they hurt us bad.
they cut their hair, get private jets piercings therapists sunglasses fancy clothes etc.
james used to say “kill all the posers”, but man who are the posers now?

3. one last word to the people who seems to like new metallica albums. when you hear “battery” in a bar you dont say “oh man they are playing metallica” you say “they are playing battery dude”. but if the song is “bleeding me” you say “oh its metallica playin”. you dont say the name of the song probably you dont even recognize the name. people go and buy load, reload, st.anger, death magnetic not because they are good, but because they are metallica albums. think that “death magnetic” was released by a band called “group 84″ who would listen this crap? and after 6 months would you still be listening this album?

PS. sorry for the possible grammer and spelling mistakes

By: Neil

Neil — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 10:39:18 +0000

I wholeheartedly agree with everything said here, as its almost word for word what ive been saying about selloutallica for years. Even down to the haircuts bit. Theyre a sad imitation of what they once were, and seeing Lars wheeze his way through a performance of some crock of shit from DM on the Jools Holland show on Saturday, was just embarrassing. He was always a shit drummer & a complete asshole, now hes somehow managed to become an even BIGGER asshole and an even WORSE drummer.
RIP Metallica, that band died with Cliff Burton (tho i do love ..AJFA)

By: Palsh

Palsh — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 09:55:20 +0000

I have to say, that WAS brilliant! I grew up listening to MetallicA in my junior high school to high school days. I’m only 24 now. I learned to play guitar, and for most people learning guitar, I was obsessed with them. They did revolutionize metal and also have disgraced it to many people. I doubt I’ll buy Death Magnetic because I rarely buy CD’s in the first place, but I do like how they are ‘attempting’ to bring back something that they lost in the past. No, Death Magnetic isn’t the new Kill Em All or Ride The Lightning, but it is a step on them trying to redeem themselves, at least musically. Now, take out the legal battles over ridiculous things such as a make up product or perfume, and they may someday gain something back before they’re too old to physically play anymore. There’s nowhere to go but down for them being at the top like they were, let’s hope the fall after St. Anger and the Napster backlash, plus all the other things they’ve done will help straighten them out. I’d eventually like to see them in concert, but not as long as they continue the path they’ve been traipsing. – Palsh

By: Nicola

Nicola — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 09:08:25 +0000

well… I’ve also had some issues with _____allica over the years, but ‘Death Magnetic’ is good!

it kind of goes back to their thrashier days with a slight mix of Load…

but you’re free to have your own attitude towards them

just my two cents

By: Mat

Mat — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 09:25:36 +0000

Andrew, i think Metallica killed Jon’s dog
or at least the musical equivalent.

By: Doles

Doles — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 16:54:44 +0000

Jon, You don’t like the song “Enter Sandman”?…I don’t know a lot about the band…though listening to Lars whine is annoying. I thought it was a pretty good metal tune.

By: Emoman

Emoman — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 12:49:01 +0000

F Metallica! Their drummer is a total douche! Lars – PFFFTTT! I did see them on the Black Album tour back in college and enjoyed it. It may have been the weed but, it was a good show. Thankfully back then the new stuff didn’t get played as much and they played mostly their earlier stuff.

I will stick with Iron Maiden.

By: Andrew McMillen

Andrew McMillen — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 09:11:22 +0000

Awesome post Jon. Your arguments and analogies are very convincing and I totally see where you’re coming from with regard to your history as a metal fan.

I’m a far more pedestrian fan of metal, though, so I willingly gave the album a go – downloaded, of course – and was pleasantly surprised by it. Initially surprised that it didn’t suck, then surprised that the songs are coherent and somewhat original.

By: Mat

Mat — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 07:55:37 +0000

@Jon yes they definately strayed from the light there’s no arguing that. Even a stalwart fan as myself couldn’t swallow the pill that was st. anger, though they’ve still managed to produce some good songs.

I’ve also never realized how un-metal they were but i guess i’d never thought too hard on it either. They did sort-of become asshats.

I guess they’re like the transformers franchise to me. The original was amazing, but there were so many misfires and stinkers along the way that i’ve just held on and kept hoping for a bit of the past glory to come around..

I dunno, maybe all bands (and shows) need fans like me.

Slayer is still good because they haven’t changed a whole lot in sound as far as i can tell and they’ve stuck to whats good and do it well, though judging from Metallica’s new album, they haven’t quite given up just yet.

@Kasey
yeah come to think of it a station up here used to have “metallica mondays” where they’d play a song every hour, though they did stop them eventually. 97.1 have a live feed? Most of the stations up here are classic or new rock, so tallica gets left behind a lot. Hopefully their new stuff will get some air time where i’m from (ontario)

By: Kasey

Kasey — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 04:30:51 +0000

@Mat
I live in Dallas, Texas and there is a radio station here (97.1 the eagle) that completely adores metallica. They have two-time tuesday and thursdays where they play back to back metallica and a whole hour devoted to the band on fridays. when their new song came out, they played it every 97 minutes… not to mention how many times it just happens to fall into the normal radio playlist…. which means it’s played A LOT.

By: Michael

Michael — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 18:12:23 +0000

Very well written. I can empathize with your feelings on many levels. A dude at my work the other day was all pumped because he said they were going to play the entire new Metallica album on the radio later. When he said that, I thought to myself, “Bro, Metallica hasn’t been relevant for years.” I remember first being exposed to the band with Kill “Em All and then loving their next two subsequent albums. I remember how sought after and rare the Garage Days EP was. I even have to admit I dug …And Justice For All and the Black Album, but hey, that was back in my adolescence. Since then however, Metallica in my opinion has basically become a non-entity. It was very interesting to learn how involved they were with whole copyright infringement fight; I had no idea of the extent to which they (lars) went to make a total ass of themselves.

By: Jon

Jon — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 13:48:02 +0000

@Svalka: It’s bad business for a bass player to badmouth his lead singer, so you have to expect him to say stuff like that, but I have to agree with you.

@bandaloon: I wouldn’t download anything from them considering that they are have a bank of lawyers on their team. Plus, what isn’t better than St. Anger?

@JR: Thanks. It seems like a longer version of what you said on your blog…

@Mat: I can understand what you’re saying. Everyone has their gateway albums, and everyone has a different degree of heaviness that they like in their metal. There’s nothing wrong with that. Metallica’s absolute disdain for metal for the subculture that spawned them is what makes them so bad.

As for making good albums late in their careers, look at Slayer. God Hates us all and Christ Illusion are (IMHO) as strong as their earlier material, and I find that I reach for them more often than even Seasons…. Getting old doesn’t mean that you have to give up…

By: Mat

Mat — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 11:22:48 +0000

I don’t know about you guys, maybe i’m a bit younger but the black album was my first experience of Metallica. Nothing to this day has rocked my balls harder than when i threw on enter sandman for the first time. The riffs from sad but true, and songs like unforgiven as well. That may have been a mainstream hit but i still argue that metallica is mainstream as they get so very little radio play these days.

I suppose i’d be on the “screw newer metallica” boat if i were born a bit earlier, but to my virgin ears, the black album was something i’d never heard before. Quite the step up from Nirvana. While the “metal” status of metallica is highly in question, you could also say it was a gateway metal band, for after that i got into slayer, sepultura, pantera…

And really, i think ideas of them ever making an album as good as their first three are a little far fetched. Can anyone make an album as good anymore?

By: JR

JR — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 07:18:12 +0000

BRILLIANT! A perfect summary of what these douchebags have become!

By: bandaloon

bandaloon — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 01:22:59 +0000

nice post. I’d pretty much have to agree with most of that. I did get death magnetic (didn’t buy it of course, not gonna buy a new metallica album) and it surprisingly doesn’t completely suck, it’s a heck of a lot better than st. anger anyway.

By: Svalka

Svalka — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 21:14:36 +0000

The other day I read a local newspaper and shook my head in disbelief at seeing Trujillo quoted in an article, calling James “quite intimitading, being such a great talent”. Gee … was he paid to say that?
It would have been more accurate of him to say “James is a saddening character, having been such a great talent”, but since accuracy isn’t very lucrative … well.

By: Jon

Jon — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 19:24:49 +0000

@K: I’m certainly not against AJFA (especially considering the song “Dyers Eve”), but and you may be right about it being the most advanced of their early material, but for some reason it’s not really one of my favorites. It could be that it sounds different than the albums before it somehow.

@Erin: Those were funny. Very nice. And thanks

By: Erin

Erin — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:55:00 +0000

P.S. That was poetic.

By: Erin

Erin — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:18:19 +0000

I thought you might enjoy laughing at this.
http://tofuttibreak.tumblr.com/post/48824984
And this.
http://tofuttibreak.tumblr.com/post/49657077

By: K.

K. — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:09:29 +0000

I want to give them a chance with this new one, because I’ve heard some long time, bitter fans rave about it. But I have not heard it yet so…. no opinion on that.

This post was on point, though. Am I am interpret that you are not a fan of AJFA or feel that it was a “mainstream” album? I feel like musically that was their most progressive album, period, even if the production really sucks. It just happened to be a mainstream hit, but it sounds far from pop to me.