Metallica ~ My Studio Discography Review
-Kill ‘Em All (1983): First album, and the most speed/thrash/punk of their albums. Dave Mustaine (Megadeth) was infamously their first lead guitarist, and quite a few of the riffs are his. Most notably is “Four Horsemen”, which Mustaine wrote the music for. Consequently, he later released a song called “the Mechanix” on HIS band’s debut album. Short version of Mustaine leaving Metallica is that he was an absolute asshole when he was drunk. And, for a band nicknamed “Alcohollica”, they all agreed that Mustaine drank too much. Stand out songs are, “Anaesthesia (Pulling Teeth)”, “the Four Horsemen”, and “Seek & Destroy”. I know what the singles were, but “Whiplash” and ”Jump in the Fire” aren’t the ones they still regularly play live! ;).
-Ride the Lightning (1984): They hit their stride on this one. “Kill ‘Em All” was all about speed and a little melody. Ride the Lightning was the beginning of their explorations of longer form songs with more complicated song structures and better singing. “For Whom the Bell Tolls” is the easy standout of the album, for a number of reasons. That opening chromatic riff is a bass guitar, for starters. That exact riff that opens the song is the reason James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich convinced Cliff Burton to join their band. “Fade to Black” was quite derisive upon release. Most fans were angry about Metallica going soft (because of the acoustic intro). Well, it is now a staple at live shows, and everybody busts out the lighters. “Creeping Death” is another favorite for live shows.
-Master of Puppets (1986): This album changed my life. Literally. I spent pretty much all of High School listening to this album. It is almost universally agreed upon as the best Metal Album of all time. It’s the first Metal Album to go platinum. It sold 4.5 Million copies BEFORE 1991. Think about that. Another thing: they only had one single from the album. The title track was released as a single only in France. The reason being is that if you listen to the album, you will quickly notice that it should be played together. Also, this is the last album of Cliff Burton’s lifetime. The standout track -if I had to pick one- is “Orion”. It is an instrumental song, and it showcases the best rock musicians alive at the time just jamming for more than 8 minutes. Cliff died in a bus crash just 7 months after it was released while they were on tour.
-… And Justice for All (1988): Most of the songs on this album were actually written with Cliff Burton. It took them 2 years to release it because, amongst other reasons, they were auditioning bassists. Cliff was a BIG set of boots to fill, and a young fan of the band named Jason Newsted got his heart’s desire. This album has the most technically complicated song structures of their albums, and it also features the stand out, fan favorite “One”, which was also the band’s first Music Video. It was based on a movie from the ’50s called “Johnny Get Your Gun”, and it’s not hard to figure out the meaning of the song if you listen to it. The title track is great, but it’s also almost 10 minutes long, and rarely in its entirety since. The song “One” was the Grammy Award Winner for best Metal Performance in 1990. It was the band’s first.
-Metallica (1991): The band realized that the songs from '...And Justice for All' were very, very long. So did their record labels. Enter the record-direction of producer Bob Rock. James took singing lessons, the songs were shortened, and the result is an album that your GrandMa has heard at least part of. For example, Mariano Rivera (Yankees Pitcher) has the entrance music of “Enter Sandman” when he heads to the mound, because that’s when the Yankees tell the other teams to say their prayers. I don’t need to list the stand out songs, because the whole fucking album is overplayed by now.
-Load (1996) & ReLoad (1997): I’m putting them together because it was supposed to be a double album, but they split it up for sales. The result of their efforts with Bob Rock and his influence is a kind of groovier, bluesier metal. It’s hard to pick out one song from either of them, but I’ll go with “Until it Sleeps”, “King Nothing”, “Hero of the Day”, and “Outlaw Torn”. All of those are from the first part - Load. Listening to both albums now… I’d advise listening to both of them all the way through. It’s very commercial, but pretty solid the whole way through. The individual songs are kinda of “Meh” in my book, but it’s not bad played all together.
-St. Anger (2003): I can’t listen to this album. I’ve tried… like 3 times. It took them six years to release the album because of a variety of stupid crap that went on behind the scenes, including Lars Ulrich going after Napster (because Lars is and always was a douche) and Jason Newsted quitting the band because everybody resented him for not being Cliff Burton. James Hetfield went through Alcoholism Rehab, and Bob Rock was actually the bassist for the album. The result of their efforts is a piece of shit album. For one thing, Lars’ drumming is annoyingly noticeable. For another, there are no solos on it. So, the Rolling Stone-Ranked #11 Greatest Guitarist EVER -Kirk Hammett- does almost nothing. And the result of Lars dominating, and Kirk being absent is that every song kind of stutter starts and stops, with no easy flow. Also, the lyrics are all about James Hetfield’s journey through rehab. Huzzah. To be fair to Lars, his contributions to the band have always been about song writing. It’s him and James that write most the songs. Lars is just not the best drummer around. He’s just not. He’s pretty good, but he never grew past the punk/thrash double bass drum phase. And, St. Anger kinda proves it. This was Metallica’s last album with Elektra records, and the last one produced by Bob Rock. In retrospect, none of the band members hold grudges -including Newsted and Mustaine- and they’re all very thankful to Bob Rock. (He helped make them very, very rich.) And, in case you didn’t guess, there are no songs worth listening to. Most bands are entitled to at least a couple SHIT records. This is the first from Metallica. Unfortunately, it’s not the last.
-Death Magnetic (2008): This the first album to feature new bassist Robert Trujillo. The album can be viewed as almost an apology for St. Anger, from the Band to their fans. This is an ’80s thrash metal album made by guys with 20 years of experience since they defined the genre in the ’80s. It’s their most creative and hard-hitting release since 1991’s “Metallica”. Stand out tracks are “All Nightmare Long”, “Cyanide”, and their first instrumental song in years “Suicide & Redemption”.
-Lulu (2011): I’ll quote directly from a quote on wikipedia:
Essayist and pop culture writer Chuck Klosterman, in his review of the album for the website http://www.grantland.com, wrote, “If the Red Hot Chili Peppers acoustically covered the 12 worst Primus songs for Starbucks, it would still be (slightly) better than this.”
