Metal Reviews

Reasons why Metallica is probably the great heavy metal band of all time:

- First and foremost, the consistency of their product quality. Some bands put out a few awesome songs. Some have one great album. Metallica is one of the EXTREMELY rare bands that virtually never released a bad (even mediocre) album. Every album Metallica released adheres to superb standards of quality and excellence.

- Attitude: Metallica is not a band that embarrasses itself with its actions like some other acts. They don't pour water buckets over politicians or run through the streets naked. They respect themselves.

- Stability: except for the bassists, the band has been practically the same since their big start. Three different bassists in over 20 years is remarkable. You know how many people joined and left the Stones?

- Live Shows: forget Kiss, forget Alice Cooper, Metallica doesn't need makeup or fire breath to amaze fans. All they do to accomplish that is sing their songs. Metallica live is a truly unforgettable musical experience. The energy, the songs, the INCREDIBLE instrumental skill of the members gives some people a reason to live.

- Maturity: Metallica is not a band that's stuck doing the same thing for one fifth of af century. They change their songs on a constant basis. They were pure thrash: blistering speed and loud noise. That was their first album. Their second album matured a great deal, in which they included anti-war epics, eternal power ballads and excellently crafted political messages. Their third album matured even more with instrumental work, amazing song quality and truly righteous messages (the title song, Master of Puppets is basically an anti-drug PSA, done in rare greatness). Their fourth album, "...And Justice For All" matured even more with 9-minute epics and great song quality as usual. Their fifth album was the ultimate departure, on which fans are still divided, where they took a simple structure to their songs and more mainstream-friendly songs. However, in doing that, they didn't compromise their trademark quality: the song are as amazingly built as ever, with stunning solos, amazing and sincere lyrics and raw power. After a lot of pressure to go back to the original formula, and after many angry "fan" reactions, you'd think they'd abandon that and do what they did; no, they took the other way: they released tow more albums with AWESOME songs that barely deserve the label "heavy metal". The songs were amazingly good (Low Man's Lyric, Hero of the Day, Where the Wild Things Are, among others) but weren't as hard as their earlier stuff. After mixed reactions, at a time when ANY band would give up and go back to the old stuff, they experimented with their music even more by collaborating with a symphony in their S & M album, which is basically a new version of their collection. Even Black Sabbath (the fathers of heavy metal) didn't have the guts to experiment like that. That's what makes Metallica so great: they do MUSIC, not just stuff to please fans with make money. Their careers were virtually in jeopardy and they said, "We don't care, we want to make all kinds of good music". One can only respect that. Only if you'd been there would you know how difficult those decisions were (yeah, more than once).

Those are a few.

I still regret opening up an IMDB thread about Jim Carrey's love of Cannibal Corpse. The level of ignorance was astounding. People might want to learn to just shut up when they don't know what they are talking about.

That sounds like the rant of a new metal fan right there. He does get credit for it being well-thought out and seemingly genuine, but he loses tons of points for being completely retarded.

Have The Stones had a bunch of different musicians in the band? I'm no expert on them, but I would think the band is all original members or at least all but maybe one.

And can you have a 6-minute "eternal power ballad"?

Have The Stones had a bunch of different musicians in the band? I'm no expert on them, but I would think the band is all original members or at least all but maybe one.

He does get credit for it being well-thought out and seemingly genuine, but he loses tons of points for being completely retarded.

After mixed reactions, at a time when ANY band would give up and go back to the old stuff, they experimented with their music even more by collaborating with a symphony in their S & M album, which is basically a new version of their collection. Even Black Sabbath (the fathers of heavy metal) didn't have the guts to experiment like that. That's what makes Metallica so great: they do MUSIC, not just stuff to please fans with make money.

Some are downright embarrassing, such as Metallica's S&M, that leaves an eerie aftertaste of rich dudes creating an album of recycled covers of themselves with over 50 professional musicians, only because they can afford to pay enough money for it.