| I want to note that
this column is somewhat based on one of my posts on the Let
it be written-BBS. I got extremely irritated upon
reading a post about the LOADs and some of the replies.
Most of the classic anti-LOAD clichés were there:
- Metallica threw
away their style with the LOADs.
- Metallica should go
back to Thrash.
- Metallica
isn’t Metal any more.
- Metallica are
sell-outs and have gone Mainstream.
Another member added one
of the few clichés missing, being ironic:
- Metallica would
have kept their style if Cliff would have lived.
I disagree to all of the above. But too many people
consider these clichés facts. Therefore I’m gonna
share my opinon on these five.
In the post it’s stated that Metallica threw away
their style: It's called maturing. No musican can go on
forever without trying at least something a bit new. A
fellow member of the BBS put it like this: It's called
"trying new things and not making the same album 10
times". To me Metallica is one of the few bands
today making Heavy Metal with some originality.
Megadeth's last studio-album (The Wolrd Needs A Hero)
was good. Great actually. But extremely formulatic. Songs
have similar structure and have parallels on previous
albums etc. What I've heard of Iron Maiden's last effort,
Brave New World, is absolutely great. Fantastic. But
again formulatic, some songs even have almost identical
riffs (basicly; rhythm and guitarlicks aside) to older
songs and songs on BNW. Iced Earth and Manowar make songs
that all are made by certain formulas. Both bands make
good Metal but it’s not very original. Metallica has
always had something new and fresh to offer.
It’s also said that LOAD and Re-LOAD are not Metal
albums. That's flat out wrong. It has all the elements of
Heavy Metal (not Thrash Metal). It has the heavy
sound all the way through, it has the guitarlicks and
riffs and solos (don’t get me started on solos!), it
has the lyrical brightness etc. To me Metallica are now
progressive Heavy Metal, not progressive like the
so-called prog-Metal bands like Linkin Park and that
stuff but actually progressive. Have the
'Tallica-boyz got a clue where they are going? Probably
not. Are they getting there? Definently.
All the talk of Metallica going mainstream and selling
out is a load of bullsh*t. With the Black Album Metallica
achived what is every band’s greatest dream: They made
the Mainstream. Nothing similar existed. Just like they
had always done before they just did what they felt like
doing.
"…But we never thought that we’d done
one [album before] that you think: ‘There it is.
This one album is it.’ You’re never gonna be
able to make a record like that, but as close as you can
get to that one album [TBA] is f*cking it." -
Lars Ulrich
Obviosly Lars feels great about album that made
Metallica. I very much doubt that he and the boyz have
been living a lie for eleven years. After TBA other bands
wanted to be Metallica. Everyone admired them. The
logical thing for a sell-out band to do would have been
to produce a second TBA for some easy cash. Did they?
F*CK NO. Metallica started experimenting with bluesy
stuff, making some of the best and original Metal of the
90s. Nobody is going to tell me that the change of style
from TBA to LOAD is towards mainstream. It’s towards
a new type of quality.
And now the cliché that annoys me the most… To most
of us Cliff Burton is a legend. A great bassist taken
from the world of music years and years before reaching
his musical peak. He had a very broad musical taste which
ranged from J.S. Bach and Pink Floyd to Aerosmith and The
Misfits. Saying that Metallica wouldn’t have changed
if he had lived seems illogic; if you plant various types
of seed, you will get various types of trees. Furthermore
he once said that he eventually intended to leave
Metallica to form a band in which he could play lead bass
and thus exploring new depths of music. He said Metallica
was his platform to that. Would he have stuck to Thrash
forever? It seems stupid to think so. The
experimentations and change of direction in Metallica
probably would have come sooner and might have been more
drastic.
To end this I want to say that Metallica has one
direction. And that is forward. Thrash is great but it's
behind Metallica now. If the new album will be Thrashy
I'm happy. If it'll sound like TBA I'm happy If it'll be
like the LOADs I'm happy. If it'll be yet another fresh
album with new stuff from the boyz I'll be happy.
Bottom-line: If it's Metallica I'm happy.
NOTE: The bands I take exsamples as formulatic bands are
not being bashed. Formulatic doesn’t have to be bad.
It’s a matter of choice: Sticking to what you know
or experimenting. Both is good. I respect these bands
alot, especially Maiden for their pioneering in the field
of Heavy Metal, and all these bands’ stuff is to my
liking. One knows what to expect. Metallica keeps
surprising their listeners.
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