Oh, you thought this was going to be like last time, didn't you? You thought I was going to start the Worst Band series with a single honorable mention and then move on to the top three, huh?
Yeah, sorry. Wayyy too many bands out there begging for an entry in this series. We will have a top three - oh, I assure you: we will have a top three - but there will be multiple honorable mentions before we get there.
Speaking of bands begging for an entry in the Worst Band series: let's get started. Let's talk Metallica.
This is one of those things that just blows your mind if you think about it for too long. If you had approached me twenty years ago and told me that one day I'd be sitting down to write about Metallica being one of the worst bands in the world, I'd have shat myself laughing at you. And we maybe would have fought, too.
Ninja's Note: I guarantee you when my wife sees this post, she's going to approach me and go something like this: "You railed METALLICA?" with oh-so-slight indignation in her voice. Then she will get this thoughtful look on her face, as though she's remembering something she hasn't thought of in a long time. Then? She'll look back and me with a sad look on her face, nod her head, and go back to reading.
To this day, I'm a little (or a lot) unclear on exactly what happened. For my benefit as well as anyone who might need a Metallica refresher, I'm going to try to construct an informal timeline.
Very early 1980s - the band is born. They release an album shortly thereafter entitled Kill 'em All. Extremely reflective of the band's NWOBHM (New Wave of British Heavy Metal) influences, the album is intense and good.
Next up - I think it's Ride the Lightning, yeah, that looks right. Ride was and is a completely different beast when compared to Kill 'em All - the NWOBHM sound has started to evolve. Songs are longer, meatier, and there's an emphasis on structural intricacy and melody. In other words...the songwriting style that would come to define good Metallica began to take shape.
Following Ride, we have what I consider to be Metallica's Dark Side of the Moon, and that is the masterful Master of Puppets. Ye Gods, here there be thunder. Can you remember what you were doing the first time you heard Master? Me either, and here's why: probably two minutes into "Battery" (opening track), I quit fucking doing whatever bullshit I was doing and I sat down to listen.
Master is one of those moments of divinity where all the right pieces are in all the right places to ensure perfection is achieved - and yet God Himself still insists on sticking His hand into things and cranking the Perfection Dial from 10 to 11. This almost never happens; happened once for GnR, once for Avenged Sevenfold, and U2's Achtung Baby is pretty amazing. But other than that? Rare.
Gone completely are the nods to the NWOBHM; what you have in Master is a thing entirely new: a heavy metal record that can only be described as "progressive." Songs are longer, much more intricate in structure, and the sounds are so much heavier. It was a thing of beauty.
Next up is an album that - for me - I enjoy every bit as much as Master, but I recognize that in most measurable ways, Master is a superior piece of writing and musicianship: And Justice for All. This album introduces a much drier sound, and the writing/structuring is borderline frantic: tempos are changed, parts are repeated much less as they might have been by a younger Metallica, and complicated time signatures are used. I love it.
Then this happened:
Suddenly - overnight, it felt like - it was all over. Gone were the lengthy songs, the intricate structures, the key changes and time signatures. You expected they would take Justice to the next level....instead, this piece of shit album dropped and it was clear - Metallica had made a business decision. They sat down and said: "Hey, we can either keep working our fingers to the bone to create the kind of complicated, elaborate music our fans love for pretty goddamn good money...OR...we can get away with doing a lot less work, and make a fuckload of money. What do you think? ...the catch? Well...we'll have to start playing the kind of music we've ridiculed all our lives. We'll have to become the very thing that our style of music and sound were a violent reaction to."
Not sure how the band felt, but if anyone wavered Hetfield punched the stuffing out of them and eventually it was unanimous: Metallica was going Top Forty.
It worked. What can I say. There are now more Metallica fans on earth than ever (though I'm proud to say I'm no longer one of them). They're multi-millionaires with nothing better to do than get their panties twisted over Napster or film documentaries about how troubling life can be for those few of us who actually have all our wildest fantasies come true. Bite my balls.
Oh, and the Napster thing? This is why I worry about the school system in Denmark: did Lars learn any critical thinking skills, like at all? This is how my brain would have responded (assuming it even hit my radar, I'd probably have been too fuckin busy downloading fuckin music like a normal person):
"So there's this new file sharing thing out there now and people are downloading my songs for free. Hmm...it's conceivable that I'm actually losing out on some money right now...hmm...
"Well, let's see: first, in this pre-DSL era, who's really going to waste the time to download my stuff? ...probably people who are either loyal fans or people who aren't quite fans, yet, but they're interested in getting to know us better. So...those are the people I risk alienating if I get all shitty about this. Better tread lightly, those people are my bread, butter, and future!
"Am I really missing out? Not really...everyone knows I only take home five or ten cents per CD sold, so...a hundred people could download an entire Metallica album and I'm only out five bucks. That is assuming, of course, that not a single one of these people are simply downloading in an exploratory way and will buy the album if they like it.
"Now, is there a potential upside? Hmm...well, you can download a CD for free but you still have to fork over the cash if you want to see a concert (which, everyone knows, is where the vast, vast majority of my fortune has come from [only because I haven't started selling my songs for TV commercials yet]). So if I have any confidence at all in myself - which I of course do - I'll expect that many of these people who check out our album for free will end up buying concert tickets at some point. That'll be great! Shit, one extra concert ticket will be enough to reimburse me for hundreds of illegal downloads...MAN what a great idea!! I do have a business side..."
This is how badly the band is doing today: fans actually had to get together and sign petitions a couple years back to get Metallica to fire their producer (Bob Rock). Here's a hint, guys - once the artist needs to take direction from the audience when it comes to creative matters? Guess what: at that point, the artist has stopped being an artist, and it's time to take yourself out of the game.
I hate you, Metallica. I can't even write anymore I hate you so bad. You went from having so much integrity people (me included) thought you were heroes.
Yeah, sorry. Wayyy too many bands out there begging for an entry in this series. We will have a top three - oh, I assure you: we will have a top three - but there will be multiple honorable mentions before we get there.
Speaking of bands begging for an entry in the Worst Band series: let's get started. Let's talk Metallica.
Can you knock four grown men unconscious with a single punch? I'm suddenly trying very hard to figure out a way.
This is one of those things that just blows your mind if you think about it for too long. If you had approached me twenty years ago and told me that one day I'd be sitting down to write about Metallica being one of the worst bands in the world, I'd have shat myself laughing at you. And we maybe would have fought, too.
Ninja's Note: I guarantee you when my wife sees this post, she's going to approach me and go something like this: "You railed METALLICA?" with oh-so-slight indignation in her voice. Then she will get this thoughtful look on her face, as though she's remembering something she hasn't thought of in a long time. Then? She'll look back and me with a sad look on her face, nod her head, and go back to reading.
To this day, I'm a little (or a lot) unclear on exactly what happened. For my benefit as well as anyone who might need a Metallica refresher, I'm going to try to construct an informal timeline.
Very early 1980s - the band is born. They release an album shortly thereafter entitled Kill 'em All. Extremely reflective of the band's NWOBHM (New Wave of British Heavy Metal) influences, the album is intense and good.
Next up - I think it's Ride the Lightning, yeah, that looks right. Ride was and is a completely different beast when compared to Kill 'em All - the NWOBHM sound has started to evolve. Songs are longer, meatier, and there's an emphasis on structural intricacy and melody. In other words...the songwriting style that would come to define good Metallica began to take shape.
Following Ride, we have what I consider to be Metallica's Dark Side of the Moon, and that is the masterful Master of Puppets. Ye Gods, here there be thunder. Can you remember what you were doing the first time you heard Master? Me either, and here's why: probably two minutes into "Battery" (opening track), I quit fucking doing whatever bullshit I was doing and I sat down to listen.
Master is one of those moments of divinity where all the right pieces are in all the right places to ensure perfection is achieved - and yet God Himself still insists on sticking His hand into things and cranking the Perfection Dial from 10 to 11. This almost never happens; happened once for GnR, once for Avenged Sevenfold, and U2's Achtung Baby is pretty amazing. But other than that? Rare.
Gone completely are the nods to the NWOBHM; what you have in Master is a thing entirely new: a heavy metal record that can only be described as "progressive." Songs are longer, much more intricate in structure, and the sounds are so much heavier. It was a thing of beauty.
Next up is an album that - for me - I enjoy every bit as much as Master, but I recognize that in most measurable ways, Master is a superior piece of writing and musicianship: And Justice for All. This album introduces a much drier sound, and the writing/structuring is borderline frantic: tempos are changed, parts are repeated much less as they might have been by a younger Metallica, and complicated time signatures are used. I love it.
Then this happened:
Suddenly - overnight, it felt like - it was all over. Gone were the lengthy songs, the intricate structures, the key changes and time signatures. You expected they would take Justice to the next level....instead, this piece of shit album dropped and it was clear - Metallica had made a business decision. They sat down and said: "Hey, we can either keep working our fingers to the bone to create the kind of complicated, elaborate music our fans love for pretty goddamn good money...OR...we can get away with doing a lot less work, and make a fuckload of money. What do you think? ...the catch? Well...we'll have to start playing the kind of music we've ridiculed all our lives. We'll have to become the very thing that our style of music and sound were a violent reaction to."
Not sure how the band felt, but if anyone wavered Hetfield punched the stuffing out of them and eventually it was unanimous: Metallica was going Top Forty.
It worked. What can I say. There are now more Metallica fans on earth than ever (though I'm proud to say I'm no longer one of them). They're multi-millionaires with nothing better to do than get their panties twisted over Napster or film documentaries about how troubling life can be for those few of us who actually have all our wildest fantasies come true. Bite my balls.
Oh, and the Napster thing? This is why I worry about the school system in Denmark: did Lars learn any critical thinking skills, like at all? This is how my brain would have responded (assuming it even hit my radar, I'd probably have been too fuckin busy downloading fuckin music like a normal person):
"So there's this new file sharing thing out there now and people are downloading my songs for free. Hmm...it's conceivable that I'm actually losing out on some money right now...hmm...
"Well, let's see: first, in this pre-DSL era, who's really going to waste the time to download my stuff? ...probably people who are either loyal fans or people who aren't quite fans, yet, but they're interested in getting to know us better. So...those are the people I risk alienating if I get all shitty about this. Better tread lightly, those people are my bread, butter, and future!
"Am I really missing out? Not really...everyone knows I only take home five or ten cents per CD sold, so...a hundred people could download an entire Metallica album and I'm only out five bucks. That is assuming, of course, that not a single one of these people are simply downloading in an exploratory way and will buy the album if they like it.
"Now, is there a potential upside? Hmm...well, you can download a CD for free but you still have to fork over the cash if you want to see a concert (which, everyone knows, is where the vast, vast majority of my fortune has come from [only because I haven't started selling my songs for TV commercials yet]). So if I have any confidence at all in myself - which I of course do - I'll expect that many of these people who check out our album for free will end up buying concert tickets at some point. That'll be great! Shit, one extra concert ticket will be enough to reimburse me for hundreds of illegal downloads...MAN what a great idea!! I do have a business side..."
Hands off my music, you whiny pussy Metallica fans!
This is how badly the band is doing today: fans actually had to get together and sign petitions a couple years back to get Metallica to fire their producer (Bob Rock). Here's a hint, guys - once the artist needs to take direction from the audience when it comes to creative matters? Guess what: at that point, the artist has stopped being an artist, and it's time to take yourself out of the game.
I hate you, Metallica. I can't even write anymore I hate you so bad. You went from having so much integrity people (me included) thought you were heroes.
Can we all Please stop with the devil horns hand sign? Its a little fucked out, guys.
ReplyDeleteYou gotta add a bit about Loutallica....i mean, talk about a LOAD.
Whoa. I have to tell you - I had no idea what you were talking about. I actually thought you were referring to the LOAD album (which I just don't know about too much). But...man...for the fuck of it, I googled LOUTALLICA. That's really a real thing, huh? Fuck me.
ReplyDeleteYeah, lou reed mumbling over metallica riffs for a whole album. They've outdone themselves.
ReplyDelete