Okay, it's been over a year, and all the metalheads I know STILL go into a frothing rage every time I mention St. Anger. I've given up trying to explain that the fact that I like the album does not mean I'm a brainwashed tool of the record industry, because they ain't buying it. However, as a result of all the whining and bitching, I've come up with a theory as to the true purpose Metallica had in making St. Anger: to totally alienate their core audience. Seriously.

Consider: Metallica's "old school" fans have wanted their heroes to return to their original, ultra-complex, virtuoso thrash style since the Black Album. However, several interviews I've seen/read (most notably VH1's Ultimate Albums episode on the Black Album) have lead me to believe that Metallica is sick and tired of that. Kirk Hammett describes the experience of touring behind ...And Justice For All as playing for 2 hours and just trying to not f*** up. (I might be wrong on the time, but you get the idea.) In other words, they don't particularly want to make more of that kind of music. However, it's become apparent that ...AJFA part 2 is the only album that would satisfy these fans. Thus Metallica was at an impasse.
Then, the Napster debacle came along, and Metallica realized that they were actually rich enough to alienate their own fans. Thus, they took the opportunity of St. Anger to go in a completely different direction, one that would simultaneously please critics who were enraptured by the Garage Rock Revival (because that's really the genre they want to be a part of) while getting rid of the annoying fans who were stifling their creativity. And it worked beautifully.

So, do you folks think any of this crap is valid? Or do I need to see my doctor about getting my prescription increased?

kwakerjak

As far as I know, you and I don't need to see our doctors. I'm not a big Metallica fan, but since my brother and nephew are, I'd have to say that your comments are right on, and that you've been waiting to share them for at least a year. Don't sweat all your friends...I would think that once you were proved correct, they would have to stroke you a little.

Now, I KNOW for a fact that there's several Metallica fans hiding here, and they'll give you the real skinny, but I hope you accept that at least I'm tryin' to relate to you, man. Come on, what's the story about this album?

I'm the true Metallica fan you're lookin' for. Everything after AJFA is crap. I'll take that back. The general thrust of the Black Album was good, "Enter Sandman" is quality and so is "Holier than Thou." But nothing since AJFA has been able to match songs like "Battery" "Master of Puppets" "Seek & Destroy" "For Whom the Bell Tolls" "Eye of the Beholder" "Fade to Black" etc. It's just the fact of the matter. It's a natural progression for bands. My theory is that it takes about 4 or 5 albums for even the best bands to run out of creative steam. The Beatles, Stones, Zeppelin, The Who, etc. were in the extraordinary minority.

I've seen Metallica about 15 times, about 6 times when they were supporting the Black Album. St. Anger, Load & Reload are flat-out awful! You may like it as a casual listener, but as a Metallica fan, they don't cut it. Just go see their movie "Some Kind of Monster" and you'll immediately jump off of your bandwagon. No true speed metal band pays a shrink $30K/mo. to babysit their pathetic butts while they're recording their album. I felt like vomiting like 4 times during that sucker.

OK, enough of my bellyaching. If you dig St. Anger, good for you. If you're a long-time Metallica fan, (the Good the Bad & The Ugly style), I'm with you that they're done...

[The views of the Games Editor in no way reflect the position of Metacritic.com & other quasi legal mumbo jumbo!]

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My theory is that it takes about 4 or 5 albums for even the best bands to run out of creative steam. The Beatles, Stones, Zeppelin, The Who, etc. were in the extraordinary minority.

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Interesting, but not quite the point I was getting at. What I meant to say was that Metallica, unlike some bands who just keep putting out endless retreads (*cough* Iron Maiden *cough*), recognized that they couldn't make another AJFA, and thus they changed directions for the Black Album. It's just taken 10 years for their older fans to accept it.

The only thing I find annoying is that every single one of my metalhead friends chalks up my enjoyment of St. Anger to ignorance of their "Golden Era" in the '80s, which is an attitude I find to be very patronizing and holier-than-thou (no pun intended). I think some of them (and by some of them, I mean the one I come in contact with most frequently) can't fathom the idea that a person who listens to heavy metal with some regularity can hear Master of Puppets and not think it's the definitive metal album of its decade.

Thanks for sitting through this dreck,
kwakerjak

P.S. In case you were wondering, Reign In Blood is the best '80s metal album.

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Originally posted by kwakerjak:

P.S. In case you were wondering, _Reign In Blood_ is the best '80s metal album.

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I wouldn't even say that Reign in Blood is even Slayer's best album, much less the best of the 80's. How about "Seasons in the Abyss" or "South of Heaven"?? Both kick Reign's ass.

Saying that Metallica simply "changed directions", and fans should simply judge their new work indepdently would be like David Beckham deciding to go out for Beach Volleyball and asking us to judge him based on his new interest. GET BACK TO WHAT YOU DO BEST! This new style of music?? You suck at it. Keep doing it if it floats your boat, but we want you to blow our freakin' brains out with "old" style, or Metallica's true style. But as MGE stated, those guys aren't in that period of their creataive lives, and it's probably gone for good.

Metallica has nothing left to offer. They became very lazy after the death of the great Cliff Burton, and it has shown in their music. Lars hardly ever practices from what I hear, and the drumming on And Justice For All came more from the repetitive recording of Bob Rock than any creativity or skill on Ulrich's part. Every album since then his drumming has been extremely half-assed. Kirk doesn't even bother to try and write fast solos anymore, I assume he doesn't want to get blisters on those pretty boy fingers. It's a pity that Hammett has truly become a wasted talent. James is just pathetic now, without Cliff there to push him, his lyrics have become empty and irrelevant, and his vocal abilities continue to decline. Plus, Hetfield's attitude problems drove the untrusted bass replacement Jason Newstead out of the band, without ever giving him a chance to contribute. I loved Randy Trujillo's work with Suicidal Tendencies and others, but I doubt he will be given any creative input. It's ironic that in the beginning, much of their creativity and writing was from the bass player, and once he passed, the following bassist's have never been allowed to attempt to fill that role. It's a pretty easy equation for me, Metallica plus Cliff Burton and Fleming Rasmussen equals good, Metallica plus Bob Rock equals bad. What the hell are Metallica doing with Bob Rock anyways? I think Kwakerjak is right that they wanted to head in a more mainstream rock direction, and I think that started with the hiring of Rock as producer. Why else would they employ a guy known for his work with the likes of Bon Jovi, Aerosmith and The Cult? Certainly not to be progressive, creative or innovative! They were aiming for the mainstream success that Bob Rock would bring them, enabling them to play less demanding music, and not have to worry about hitting all those damn notes live!

Forgot to say something
I completely agree. Although I like the black album that is the last good one. Metallica is a sell out band that cares only about the top twenty now. Its a shame when one of the greatest bands of all-time sells out

Oh so precious, oh so niave. I have never really given much time to Metallica, however the question of who owns a bands creativity is an interesting one. Somehow it is believed that if an entity becomes popular, that entity is honour bound not to stray from the sound that brought that popularity in the first place, that it might be practicing some kind of fraud or deception if it were to explore other ways of expressing itself. Remember Dylan going electric/ country/ gospel...etc. There is a punch line to a cartoon that I'll always remember. "Looks like if I wanna hear good music, I'm gonna have to record it myself".
Why would anyone want a band to re-record the same song over and over again, just under a different title. Musicians should be allowed to explore the total range of thier creativity, and not be constrained by the wishes of a few know-nothings who want to be suspended in the past like somekind of amber mosquito.

Your obviously not a big fan of them Burning Man. The reason that fans of Metallica hate their new album is not because they went into different sounds but because they are:

A) Sell-outs due to the whole Napster thing. They used to just give their cds away and tell people to spread the word about them.
B) And they starting caring about the top 40 lists and started ignoring the true spirit of metal.

They sobered up, then gave up.

So what your saying is that they could have recorded the best sounding album of all time, and thier "fans" would still hate it for reasons nothing to do with the quality of the music?

Of course not, if they came out with "the best sounding album of all time" then this wouldn't even be a discussion, the demanding fans of them would perfectly satisfied. But when you add point A and point B together, PLUS the fact that "St. Anger" was terrible, you get disgruntled fans, who banish them from the world of rock.

Please excuse my obvous ignorance, but are you saying the first two things only mattered because ".....St Anger was terrible"? This sounds a bit like a "chicken/ egg" argument to me.

There lots of Metallica hate because people see Metallica as great talent going to waste. I didn't like St. Anger, Load and ReLoad were fine, decent tracks on either one, nothing compared to the Ride and Master but lets face it, what do you do after you've recorded one of the great metal albums of all time?

Metallica is a band in the shadow of their own name (METAL-lica) and two (maybe three) albums, namely Ride, Master and the Black album. That's just hard to live up to.

And Metallica didn't sell out. Listening to the records in chronological order shows a gradual shift from speed metal to heavy metal to hard rock. They didn't write a throw away song on an album, have it become uber popular and then wrote an entire album in the same vein of said hit song(::cough::Goo Goo Dolls::cough: not to mention they kept getting popular with each sucessive release anyway.

I'm not even gonna start on Napster because I can't help anyone realize that theft is theft if they can't see that for themselves.

As far as your theory goes, I disagree because the structure of the songs on Anger smacks of effort to recapture the old days (song length, number of tracks, album art, song structure). Perhaps they were trying to meld old and new Metallica but didn't quite get it on the first try.

What pissed me off the most about Metallica's obvious sell-out was the fact that people actually paid good money for their garbage releases.

Not only that. All of the johnny-come-lately Metallica fans that needed a trendy bandwagon to hop on bought their pathetic albums and sent the members of the band the wrong message. They basically said "we love what you're doing, we'll buy your music, we'll continue to make you richer and richer." So Metallica kept on churning out their dog sh!t.

James, Kirk and Lars the loudmouth have families to provide for now, and their families, stock portfolios, and future security are more important than making true, meaningful music for their true heavy metal fans.

They continued to churn out pop music posing as hard rock and they continue to suck off the corporate tit. I refuse to call Metallica a metal band anymore. They're just Nsync with an edge now. A bunch of posers trying to pass their crap off as something real. But real metal fans can sniff out the fakes. And Metallica is nothing but a bunch of fakes that are cashing in on their once amazing reputation. A reputation that we, the true fans gave them. So really, they're f#cking their true fans right in the a$$.

There are no excuses to be made for this washed-up sell-out of a band. To their one-time true fans, what they did was obvious...They started making music to make money.

They should've quit after the black album instead of doing such an injustice to metal.

Metallica would probably please fans if they released another album with songs as good as Black. It at least had good hooks and the occasional cool guitar solo. It was guitar driven. They don't have to go all the way back to the 80s. But, they're just not good at writing what is currently thought of as radio music.

My brother bought St Anger just because the guitarist did good solos, but then found out St Anger didn't have a single guitar solo.

As a teenager, I was a massive Metallica fan. Like most older fans, I went off them after the Black album when they lost their integrity.

It's quite something to see 100,000 people in a field go mental to a band that never released a single or did a video for MTV. They weren't in the pop charts and mainstream media didn't like them. To cap it all they were UGLY! Ripped jeans, greasy long hair and acne. They were like a US version of Motorhead and they sneered at anything commercial.

I think they should have split after the black album and pursued solo careers - They proved the point by that stage and there was nothing left to say. They should still do it. I had far more respect for Jason Newsted when he joined Voivod (RIP Piggy).

James could form a band with Jim Martin from Faith No More and Les Claypool (they are all good friends). Kirk could do a collaboration with Carlos Santana and re-join Exodus. Rob Trujillo could get back to the bay area scene and use his amazing playing again. He is way better than Metallica.

As for Lars...erm Tennis?

The band has become a strange metaphor for that soldier with no arms or legs in the 'One' video. 'S...O...S...Kill me' Why prolong the agony?

i guess this theory is kinda plausable, but it doesnt explain why they still play all their old hits, load/reload phase hits, and only two or three songs from st anger live

quote:

Originally posted by kwakerjak:
Consider: Metallica's "old school" fans have wanted their heroes to return to their original, ultra-complex, virtuoso thrash style since the Black Album. However, several interviews I've seen/read (most notably VH1's Ultimate Albums episode on the Black Album) have lead me to believe that Metallica is sick and tired of that. Kirk Hammett describes the experience of touring behind ...And Justice For All as playing for 2 hours and just trying to not f*** up. (I might be wrong on the time, but you get the idea.) In other words, they don't particularly want to make more of that kind of music. However, it's become apparent that ...AJFA part 2 is the only album that would satisfy these fans. Thus Metallica was at an impasse.
Then, the Napster debacle came along, and Metallica realized that they were actually rich enough to alienate their own fans. Thus, they took the opportunity of St. Anger to go in a completely different direction, one that would simultaneously please critics who were enraptured by the Garage Rock Revival (because that's really the genre they want to be a part of) while getting rid of the annoying fans who were stifling their creativity. And it worked beautifully.

You present an interesting theory. Though, we may never understand Metallica's decisions, one fact remains. The music has always been and still is good.

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Originally posted by MetalKid:

quote:

Originally posted by kwakerjak:
Consider: Metallica's "old school" fans have wanted their heroes to return to their original, ultra-complex, virtuoso thrash style since the Black Album. However, several interviews I've seen/read (most notably VH1's Ultimate Albums episode on the Black Album) have lead me to believe that Metallica is sick and tired of that. Kirk Hammett describes the experience of touring behind ...And Justice For All as playing for 2 hours and just trying to not f*** up. (I might be wrong on the time, but you get the idea.) In other words, they don't particularly want to make more of that kind of music. However, it's become apparent that ...AJFA part 2 is the only album that would satisfy these fans. Thus Metallica was at an impasse.
Then, the Napster debacle came along, and Metallica realized that they were actually rich enough to alienate their own fans. Thus, they took the opportunity of St. Anger to go in a completely different direction, one that would simultaneously please critics who were enraptured by the Garage Rock Revival (because that's really the genre they want to be a part of) while getting rid of the annoying fans who were stifling their creativity. And it worked beautifully.

You present an interesting theory. Though, we may never understand Metallica's decisions, one fact remains. The music has always been and still is good.

Dude, we get it. You like Metallica still. Did you really need to dredge up a three year old thread to prove it?

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Originally posted by ezatldude:
Dude, we get it. You like Metallica still. Did you really need to dredge up a three year old thread to prove it?

I do feel it necessary to give Metallica the credit they deserve, in contrast to all the Metallica hating that goes on. I do think 5 Metallica threads on the forums is overkill.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: MetalKid,