MANAGEABLE METALLICA MONDAY #1 (OF 4)
Monday, December 8th, 2008 at 3:21pm by Kip WingerschmidtSo now that the dust has cleared (or so I thought) from the highly over-hyped (here and everywhere else) new Metallica release/debacle Death Magnetic, I’d like to go out on a limb and (re-) remind y’all just how long it’s been since these once-masterful-once-thrashers were actually worth all this debate. I will gladly go on record as saying that the last handful of Metallica albums have, well, pretty much sucked (and I don’t mean that in nearly the same way as, y’know, metal sucks), and despite some solid moments on the Black Album and a pretty entertaining documentary about the band at its touchy-feeliest (thus far), honestly this band has been mostly irrelevant since their seminal/culminatory record …And Justice For All.
And so, starting with the title track of that amazing album from 1988 (which I obviously loved when I was a ‘tweener way back then, but also was the one (no pun intended) that served as catalyst for my inevitable resurgence into metal a handful of years later), I will be going backwards in time for the next few weeks and offering some classic choice cuts from the LPs that made Metallica Metallica, when they legitimately ruled.
Enough of this new-school nonsense! Let’s git serious here, m’kay?
METALLICA – “…And Justice For All”, from — well, whaddya you think, Einstein?!?
-KW
I am so over people bitching about the sound on this record. It was 20 years ago! This record is a milestone. I still remember surreptitiously listening to this in middle school history class by feeding the earbud phones through my hoodie sleeve.
Thats funny you post this because just last night I was searching for prime Metallica albums to download (since I missed them in their hay day being as I am only the ripe old age of 17). I was going to get between this or Master of Puppets.
Good. Thanks.
This is my favorite album by them.
Also, in my opinion, this is the best album ever recorded— quality wise. Every song is a monster. I could (and do) listen to it every day.
Mondays just got a lot better. :P
Yeah, I truly think this was their best and heaviest album. Thrashy, heavy, still had the semi-prog elements of the previous. Was a classic and my favorite. As good as the previous 3 were (and boy were they good as well) this is really their peak.
A lot of people say Master of Puppets was their best, but I definitely prefer …AJFA or Ride the Lightening. I say RTL because that was my first Metallica record and those songs will always be among my favorites
When this album came out I don’t remember anyone ever complaining about the sound. Me and my friends just loved it. Maybe something was telling us to just enjoy it because what was to follow was on par to the first time you got dumped or sucker punched.
Between Ride the Lightning, Master and AJFA they’re all amazing and just different enough from each other to stand on their own. I can listen to all three from beginning to end.
Much rather spend my time listening to thrash like Forbidden, Death Angel or Nuclear Assault than any Metallica album to be honest. I’ve just heard them all so many times…
@ Dr. J: RUN (don’t walk) to yr local music-acquiring place and pick up *both* AJFA (my personal fave) and Master of Puppets (also fuckin awesome — and a bit ballzier to boot!) …..or if you can wait, I’ll be covering MoP on MetalSucks next Monday. Tell yr friends!
This album is far and away my favorite Metallica album. It has the most political lyrics mixed with some serious harmonizing that is gone in most thrash metal today. Yeah, there is little bass on the album, but that’s ok. The heaviness makes up for it — or the speed on the last track. Either way, Metallica have never been the same since this album came out.
Dyer’s Eve is my favorite Metallica song ever. I was a high school sophomore when this dropped and it blew myself and my friends away. Harvestor of Sorrow is my favorite live Metallica song. The …AJFA tour was my first concert so I’m glad I got to see them at their absolute peak. I’ve seen them live 5 times but the last time was ‘94 which pretty much says all I need to about how I feel about the Bob Rock era of Metallica. He killed what was the best metal band on the planet should be anally raped with a very metal spiked fist for doing so. …AJFA was miles ahead of anything else at the time and so good I don’t remember anyone bitching about the production value at the time.
People say Peace Sells, but Rust in Peace has always been my favorite.
That was the album that made me a metal fan, and a Metallica fan too. And I’m one of the few here that actually likes DM.
Best album in metal history, period. I’ve said it for years and it’s held true as of yet. …And Justice for All was (and is) the sound of the best band in metal at their peak. Every song is killer, and although I’ve gotten into many subgenres of metal over the years (Death, groove, grind, math, hardcore, metalcore, etc…) I still hold on to my belief that the last three minutes of “One” are the heaviest minutes in music ever recorded. I remember the first time I listened to this album in my junior year of high school, we listened to the end of “One” over and over and over and never got sick of it. This album was so groundbreaking in terms of the progressive-ness of it and the sheer force of it. That’s why it’s my #1 metal album.
@miguel: One of the few? No, there are many fans of Death Magnetic. I love it, personally, and don’t think it should be compared to AJFA. It’s a great album by itself.
Woah, what’s with all the Justice love? It was good, but definitely a step down from Master of Puppets and Ride the Lightning. Ride the Lightning was really their crowning achievement. It created the formula that Metallica followed on MOP and AJFA, it has really the best riffs and songwriting, and was the album that really turned heavy metal production on its head. It started to pull the mids back, but not scooped like MOP. It had the most bass on a Metallica album, which is noteworthy, and the production doesn’t sound date, unlike a lot of contemporaries (can you believe it came out in 1984?). In comparison, Justice is rather workaday.
I hate how this album sounds, and for me, it ruined what were largely good songs; ultimately, it put Metallica on the back burner until Death Magnetic, which I think is actually fucking great and should’ve followed Justice.
How anyone can like this claustrophobic, bass-less dry as fuck production astounds me. I think it spearheaded the horrible, ultra-suck-the-life out of the live swing that has riddled most of metal since. When things are this dry, the balls are gone, drained to deflated punching bags, useless. What if “Orion” was recorded this way? There’d be silence during all the great bass movements. Yeah, yeah, I know Newsted was on this one, and I’d love to see a full investigation as to what the hell happened in the mix, but bottom line, Jason joined Voivod, who almost always had a real live vibe to them, and made two (and someday, three) great records with them. I wish the new guy would crabwalk his way out of the band (a nice guy, I’m sure, but the squattin’ has got to go).
More Voivod coverage, please. I haven’t seen a thing on here about their post-Piggy shows. I’ll shut up now; this site fucking rules, and I’m on it ten times a day.
I remember not liking it that much when I fist heard it back in 89. I had all the others up to that point, which were instantly accessible to me and I fell in love with. This took a while to grow on me, but when it did, I became obsessed, listening to it everyday 3 times a day, annoying the fuck out of everybody in my journalism class, everybody who didn’t like Metallica, which was 80% of the class.
God, I remember when Metallica legitimately freaked poeple out. When this really uptight girl heard the refrain to One; “Hold my breath as I wish for death….”; she said, in long, drawn out, overly dramatic way, “What…the fuck….IS THIS!!!” Quite offended, she was. That was at least 100 years ago.
One of my favorite Metallica records, but still loses out to Master Of Puppets and (even) the black album… Mainly because of the production. I still rate the song writing and power of the songs above all the others, but that sound just grates on me.
A special re-mixed and re-mastered editon of this album would be a lovely thing to do. If only to bring this largely brilliant album up to standards that should have been.
Man… I miss the real Metallica. Still my favorite band of all time and Justice is my favorite record. My favorite thing to do when I get home after a night of drinking is to throw in the Seattle DVD and fucking blast it… doesn’t get much better than that. Man… I miss the real Metallica.
“One” is the reason I listen to metal. I saw the video on the Pepsi Power Hour and I was hooked (with a little help from “Anti-social” and ” 5 Minutes Alone”)
For a long time it was the only Metallica I had. I do think Master of Puppets is their best though. AJFA is #2 though.
What’s wrong with the production? I didn’t expect bass-after-Cliff.