New Metallica

[Wolverinebass]

In truth, they're terrible. Lars has sonically ruined the band with every album having terrible production. They'll never admit to a mistake, because they see themselves as infallible.

 

Lyrically bland for some time, the band are a pale imitation of what they were. Could you imagine how good some of those albums might have been of they'd had decent mixes and mastering? Or in the case of St. Anger, any decent songs to start with. Unlike Rob Trujillo, there would be no amount of money on earth that would make me play bass for them.

[SteveXFR]

Metallica have had 3 extremely good bassists and never really made the most of any of them 

[Elfrasho]

I'm not a Metallica fan, but I enjoyed that! 

[Barking Spiders]

And yet........they're still better than Megadeth, Slayer, Avenged Sevenfold, Slipknot, Alter Bridge, Shinedown and any other metal/hard rock band I've heard who were formed this century. At my stepdaughter's last weekend she insisted on playing a Shinedown track to her mum. I had to go to the end of garden to get out of earshot. Short haired Metallica at their worst are preferable to the best Shinedown has to offer.

[fretmeister]

18 hours ago, asingardenof said:

Agreed, Bob Rock definitely nailed the best Metallica studio sound with those two albums and the newer tracks on Garage, Inc.

 

Nah. Ride the Lightning is head and shoulders over the rest.

[bartelby]

2 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

 

Nah. Ride the Lightning is head and shoulders over the rest.

 

The correct answer.

[acidbass]

Just got Snakepit tickets for both nights in Amsterdam, April 2023!  Can't wait!

[KingBollock]

I sometimes wish that Master Of Puppets had the quality of production that The Black album or the Loaded albums had. I often used to think that it would be the perfect album, one of the best metal albums ever if it did. But then, I have to wonder if it would ruin it somehow.

 

I love Master Of Puppets, and really like The Black album and Reload.

 

But, when it comes to what I choose to listen to, I most often pick Megadeth over Metallica. They’ve just done more consistently good stuff. Though, to be honest, I don’t often listen to either anymore.

Edited November 30, 2022 by KingBollock

[bartelby]

For me the best album for songs is Ride the Lightning. But production wise the Black album is the peak.

 

 

[fretmeister]

The Black Album isn't a metal album. It sounds like a pop record with guitars.

[KingBollock]

8 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

The Black Album isn't a metal album. It sounds like a pop record with guitars.

That’s a ridiculous thing to say. It might not be a thrash album, but there are plenty of heavy songs on it that are definitely metal.

[Cato]

8 minutes ago, KingBollock said:

That’s a ridiculous thing to say. It might not be a thrash album, but there are plenty of heavy songs on it that are definitely metal.

 

I think the goal posts have moved on what gets considerdd 'metal' these days.

 

Back in my day it was pretty much anything with distorted guitars.

 

These days it seems that for something to be 'metal' it has to have grunting/screaming vocals what we used to call 'thrash' guitars (heavy distortion with palm muting) and only use minor scales.

 

Which is possibly why despite it's fans spliting it into a comically large number of sub genres, it all sounds a bit samey to me.

 

Though I stopped listening to heavy music in my early 20s I was a huge fan of Anthrax, Megadeth and to a lesser extent Metallica back in the day, I was never that into Slayer though, and to me it's Slayer who actually seem to be the most influential ìn the direction modern Metal has taken.

 

 

[Bolo]

A name change in 1990 would've done the world a service. I love 80s Metallica, though I'm a 90s kid. Newtallica (black album onward) has nothing interesting going on to me.

[fretmeister]

46 minutes ago, KingBollock said:

That’s a ridiculous thing to say. It might not be a thrash album, but there are plenty of heavy songs on it that are definitely metal.

 

 

Ok, I'll rephrase - the songs are metal (as shown by live performances of them), but the sound production of the album isn't. It's a polished radio friendly album that is far too polite. It is devoid of attitude.

 

It's like they wrote some banging tunes and then decided to take a load of ritalin before recording them.

[Barking Spiders]

1 hour ago, fretmeister said:

The Black Album isn't a metal album. It sounds like a pop record with guitars.

The degree of metal-tude is down to perception. For the non-metal fan I'd say the black album is 100% metal. To the average fan of Norwegian black metal it probably is pop with slightly louder guitars

[asingardenof]

32 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

Ok, I'll rephrase - the songs are metal (as shown by live performances of them), but the sound production of the album isn't. It's a polished radio friendly album that is far too polite. It is devoid of attitude.

So the degree of metalness is inversely proportional to the production values?

[fretmeister]

11 minutes ago, asingardenof said:

So the degree of metalness is inversely proportional to the production values?

 

 

No- that would suggest that production values are a preset curve rather than being task specific.

 

The Black Album production is very good and it would suit a Britney record perfectly. It has that radio friendly sheen to it.

It would not suit an opera production or a grindcore album for different reasons.

 

As an aside - I really think the production has aged quite badly in a way that RTL hasn't. 

 

It's the music equivalent of Silence of the Lambs. Wonderful at the time, but now, not nearly as impressive even though the writing itself is excellent.

[Doctor J]

The production is what sold that album. There is filler aplenty on there. Rock made some fairly weak songs (alongside the confirmed bangers we all know and love) sound immense. Saying it would suit Britney is just rubbish. It's thick with reverb which suits the slower tempos, it allows long decays to fill the space beautifully. It wouldn't suit their early songs at all, absolutely not, it would just sound like mush but it's definitely a long way away from being a pop production too.

[KingBollock]

I wonder what the first two Metallica albums would have sounded like, production wise, if they had the money they had by the time they did the black album?

 

I’m a bit of a black metal fan and, while I like early stuff, I actually much prefer later, better produced stuff, by the same bands. I actually like hearing the music. I hate the gatekeeping reverse snobbery about it.

 

Better production doesn’t mean selling out. And selling well isn’t selling out, either.

[fretmeister]

3 minutes ago, KingBollock said:

I wonder what the first two Metallica albums would have sounded like, production wise, if they had the money they had by the time they did the black album?

 

I’m a bit of a black metal fan and, while I like early stuff, I actually much prefer later, better produced stuff, by the same bands. I actually like hearing the music. I hate the gatekeeping reverse snobbery about it.

 

Better production doesn’t mean selling out. And selling well isn’t selling out, either.

 

 

Never said it did.

 

And I'm not talking about good production -v- bad production. I'm talking about production styles.

[Cosmo Valdemar]

3 hours ago, KingBollock said:

I sometimes wish that Master Of Puppets had the quality of production that The Black album or the Loaded albums had. 

 

 

 

[KingBollock]

5 minutes ago, Cosmo Valdemar said:

 

 

 

I shall give that a listen tomorrow, I’m having an 80’s Iron Maiden afternoon.

[Russ]

It's the way with metal bands - while they're on the way up, they're angry and channel that anger into their music. Once they "make it" and they're rich, they've got nothing to be p***ed off about anymore and the music loses its edge. Happened to Metallica, happened to Korn, happened to Slayer, happened to Megadeth, kinda happened with Slipknot too (although they had other things to be upset about). 

 

Metal is in rude health though. There's some amazing younger bands out there right now. I thoroughly recommend the new Lorna Shore album, "Pain Remains", as a shining example of what modern metal can be.

Edited November 30, 2022 by Russ

[KingBollock]

8 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

 

 

Never said it did.

 

And I'm not talking about good production -v- bad production. I'm talking about production styles.

No, you didn’t. I was following on my train of thought from arguments that I have been reading for decades, arguments that I have avoided because they’re futile. I like what I like and I don’t care what other people think of that or what they think it should be labelled. Why would I?
 

To be honest, the christmas thread has rather skewed my mood. That and the fact that my wife plied me with too many painkillers, just so I can go and get the christmas decorations down from the attic. Double-bummer.

[KingBollock]

6 minutes ago, Russ said:

It's the way with metal bands - while they're on the way up, they're angry and channel that anger into their music. Once they "make it" and they're rich, they've got nothing to be p***ed off about anymore and the music loses its edge. Happened to Metallica, happened to Korn, happened to Slayer, happened to Megadeth, kinda happened with Slipknot too (although they had other things to be upset about). 

 

Metal is in rude health though. There's some amazing younger bands out there right now. I thoroughly recommend the new Lorna Shore album, "Pain Remains", as a shining example of what modern metal can be.

I was surprised to see Megadeth mentioned there. The only time they really softened was Risk, and that was only in an attempt to make a record that would make Metallica money. That was a genuine attempt at selling out (though I still bought and liked it), after that they seemed to go back to being Megadeth. Mustaine might be rich, but he’s still ticked off that he isn’t in Metallica, or, at least, as rich as them!