I know everyone says Master of Puppets, but I have to go with And Justice For All. It takes the heaviness of Puppets and elevates it to a whole new level. Plus it was their last great album before they became massively famous. So what's your favorite album from them?
Ride the Lightning. There's not a bad (or even below excellent) song on Master of Puppets, but Ride the Lightning simply has my favourites.
Really tough to call. The first five are all so classic, especially Lightning through the black album. Everything after that is a different band to me. Pound for pound, Puppets is probably the artistic masterpiece. It's raw, brutal, angry, and immensely technical yet still tremendously melodic and listenable. It showcases Cliff Burton at his absolute peak. Talk about a guy who died in his prime. It's got classics like the title track and "Sanitarium" but also way underrated gems like "Disposable Heroes" that nobody ever talks about. And "Orion" might be the best metal instrumental ever written. The black album is obviously the commercial masterpiece. And still probably the best produced album in the history of music to this day. Bob Rock really did a bang up job with the production. It's so full and big sounding without losing the heaviness. James' lyrics got kind of dumb on some of the songs, but his vocals have never sounded better. And there's way more variety to the song structure. Plus "The God That Failed" is super heavy. Not in music but in subject matter. It's about James losing his mom at age 12 because of her Christian Science faith that prevented her from getting modern treatment for cancer. And it killed her. Rough stuff. But who knows? That might have been what propelled him to become the James Hetfield we all know today. Justice frustrates the (*)(*)(*)(*) out of me. Because it really should have been their best work. They were still growing in every sense and had reached a pivotal point of their career where they were teetering on the brink of larger than life success. Right there on the tipping point between underground icons and pop culture superstars. But the Cliff Burton tragedy really ruined a lot of that album. Not in the sense that it made it bad but in the sense that it made it less than it should have been. The production is awful. It's very flat sounding and one-dimensional. And the bass is buried so deep in the mix that you can't even hear it. Jason almost quit the band when he heard how that record came out. He was so disappointed with it. Plus, not to mention the fact that - as much as I love Jason Newsted - his bass playing was a considerable step down from Cliff's. Jason used a pick. Cliff didn't (nor does Robert now). But the songwriting is probably the most progressive thing they've ever done. Very long and lots of changes. And "Eye of the Beholder" and "Dyer's Eve" are two of the best songs in the entire Metallica catalog. Lightning was cool because it was a preview of what was to come. It was a huge step up from Kill 'Em All, but it wasn't quite Puppets yet. You could hear the Puppets sound, though. Very similar in production and tonality. Not quite as technical. "Fade to Black" was a huge departure and pissed off some of the core fans at the time. And "Escape" is probably in my top 3 favorite Metallica songs of all time. Yet it's strangely the only song from that album they've never done live. It's so overlooked. It's right before "Creeping Death" and yet never gets any love. "Trapped Under Ice" is also brilliant. My two biggest complaints about Lightning were that it was too short and the first two songs are throwaways. Puppets was only 8 tracks too, but it didn't feel as short because the songs were longer and more complex and there were no disposable tracks. But I just never cared for "Fight Fire With Fire" or "Ride the Lightning." To me, that album starts with "For Whom the Bell Tolls." Actually, I take that back. The intro to "Fire" is great. And when it first kicks into the heavy part, you expect it to be epic. But then it just gets very boring very quickly. So (*)(*)(*)(*), I don't know how to answer this. I think I just gave you a music review instead.
And Justice For All just really resonated with me... went to the concert, bought the tee-shirt, loved it.
Justice was the last of their albums i can listen to although it is kind of boring, previous works were much better while later ones are horrible.
Ride the Lightning hands down, then ...And Justice for All. I don't listen to Master of Puppets often. I just don't feel like actually listening, even though I realize it's a pretty great album.
http://www.nme.com/news/metallica/71564 Looks like they will be finally coming out with a new album next year as well as the 3D concert film this year. Let's hope that it's better than the highly disappointing Death Magnetic.
In case you wonder, I'm the guy who voted for St. Anger (preparing for massive fan rage). I must be one of the 10 people in the world who actually liked it.
I think St. Anger would have been a great album if it had been made by an underground metal band or if it was Metallica's first album. It just doesn't seem to work for me as a Metallica album, though. Especially since it was twenty years into their career at that point.
You got that right. The underground band feeling is probably what resonates with me. It probably helps that I'm not a hardcore Metallica fan, too, so there were no expectations to disappoint. By the way, what do you guys think about the sound mixing on Death Magnetic?
I'm not much of an audiophile, so I couldn't tell you. It's been a long time since I've heard that record. I have heard about the sound issues, though. The band themselves stated that their new album next year won't have those problems, if they ever release it. That's one problem I have with the band. All of the albums since the Black Album have at least five years in between their release dates.
My favorite used to be "And Justice for All", but now I'm pretty torn between "Kill em All" and "Ride the Lightning". Their earlier, faster, "we took dave mustaine's songs LOL, u mad bro?" stuff is the best. The most inspired, the most original. "Master of Puppets" hasn't aged well for me, and the things I don't like about that album caused me to start disliking "And Justice for All". The songs are just too long, too tedious (at times), and it really hurts the replay value that these albums have. While it is true that Metallica was no stranger to longer songs prior to MoP, the earlier longer songs have less areas that drag, so they don't become as tedious to listen to. "And Justice.." is a heavy album, but they slowed way down with this one, and the production was not as good. Combining that with the overly long songs and I eventually questioned why this one was ever my favorite. "One" is pretty good, but when compared to "Fight Fire With Fire", Metallica's fastest and most aggressive song ever? No contest. Of course, this discussion is not very meaningful. Any self-respecting metal fan understands that Metallica was simply a Budgie tribute band until James and Lars hooked up with the visionary Dave Mustaine, who showed them a new way to play, and a new sound not heard before. Don't take my word for it, Scott Ian from Anthrax credits Dave as the creator of thrash metal too, and Scott was there in 1983 with his own "Big 4" album. It's no coincidence that Metallica got famous using Dave's songs after they kicked him out of the band (forcing him to write an entirely new album, setting him back 2 whole years). Megadeth is who real metal fans prefer and/or respect. Metallica is for the fans of pop music who occassionally dip their toes into the metal genre.
Death Magnetic had really bad sound mixing on the album version, at least. Get the Guitar Hero mixes if you can.
