agree with Off_It Maiden did have a few good tracks in the later albums.
Metallica did go downhill after Black album, but got back on track with Death Magnetic - just goes to show what a difference a change in producer does for you, was disappointed with Bob Rock after the Black Album.
The Black Album by Metallica is by far the most commercially successful metal album of the last 25 years, probably ever. I'm not saying that alone makes it their best work, but it has to be given its rightful place among the all time greats. Enter Sandman....that riff....
I actually really like Load and ReLoad. Had they not been preceded by the likes of Justice, Black Album, Master of Puppets etc. then they would have probably been considered really good albums. When you've produced 5 classic albums back to back, and kind of change in direction is going to be met with hostility.
Nah - I like my metal bands to be metal, not rock. The Black Album was a rock album. One good song on that fucker (Through The Never), and even that is ruined by the wankiest solo in the history of man. Maiden disappeared into self-parody after Seventh Son. You just can't compare start-to-finish brilliance like Powerslave or Master Of Puppets with the putrid dreck trowelled out since then.
A comparison is often made between these two bands and Slayer - and, although that is flawed because pretty much anything Kerry King wrote after Seasons In The Abyss is shite, at the very least Hanneman's riffs still sound fresh right up to the last album.
A better comparison would be with the Deftones - who have changed so totally from Adrenaline as to sound almost unrecognisable from then to now, but every album is still fantastic from start to finish.
Tom - I get what you're saying, and I'm certainly not one of those people who says that just because something's commercial, it can't be any good. Those are the sort of annoying tosspots who take great pleasure in telling anyone who'll listen that they saw some arsewank indie band play to four men and a dog at the Duck & Winkle before they were massive. However, the Black Album was clearly a conscious decision taken by Metallica's management to make them a shitload of money. That certainly calls into question it's integrity - and since thrash was an anti-establishment genre, it can't really be taken seriously.
Tom - I get what you're saying, and I'm certainly not one of those people who says that just because something's commercial, it can't be any good. Those are the sort of annoying tosspots who take great pleasure in telling anyone who'll listen that they saw some arsewank indie band play to four men and a dog at the Duck & Winkle before they were massive. However, the Black Album was clearly a conscious decision taken by Metallica's management to make them a shitload of money. That certainly calls into question it's integrity - and since thrash was an anti-establishment genre, it can't really be taken seriously.
Possibly. But then again if I was a manager of a thrash metal band, I'd still think the likes of Enter Sandman, Sad But True etc would be a little too heavy to be an immediate cash generators. Its a very heavy album still. Had they been in it purely for the money at that time, then why didn't they follow up with a couple of albums similar to it rather than releasing Load/Reload/S&M/St Anger? The Black Album is the most commercially successful album a band like Metallica could ever make. It was an enormous success financially and I'd say critically too in the long run. Yet they only tried it once...
If you can find them, there were two DVDs of a year and a half in the life of Metallica...covering the production and recording of the Black Album. Well worth a watch.
Comments
Metallica did go downhill after Black album, but got back on track with Death Magnetic - just goes to show what a difference a change in producer does for you, was disappointed with Bob Rock after the Black Album.
I actually really like Load and ReLoad. Had they not been preceded by the likes of Justice, Black Album, Master of Puppets etc. then they would have probably been considered really good albums. When you've produced 5 classic albums back to back, and kind of change in direction is going to be met with hostility.
Death Magnetic was great.
A comparison is often made between these two bands and Slayer - and, although that is flawed because pretty much anything Kerry King wrote after Seasons In The Abyss is shite, at the very least Hanneman's riffs still sound fresh right up to the last album.
A better comparison would be with the Deftones - who have changed so totally from Adrenaline as to sound almost unrecognisable from then to now, but every album is still fantastic from start to finish.
Tom - I get what you're saying, and I'm certainly not one of those people who says that just because something's commercial, it can't be any good. Those are the sort of annoying tosspots who take great pleasure in telling anyone who'll listen that they saw some arsewank indie band play to four men and a dog at the Duck & Winkle before they were massive. However, the Black Album was clearly a conscious decision taken by Metallica's management to make them a shitload of money. That certainly calls into question it's integrity - and since thrash was an anti-establishment genre, it can't really be taken seriously.
Have put on a second date...