Why did metalfags have a massive chimpout over this album?

because it's nice

>>74913802
like you would know. you weren't even born yet

>>74913846
ouch

>>74913802
Because it is the first buttrock album.

Bob Rock

It would be like if Death Grips made an album with Steve Aoki today.

File: Deafheaven_-_Sunbather_2013.png (81KB, 270x270px) Image search: [Google]

81KB, 270x270px

Why did metalfags have a massive chimpout over this album?

File: Aesthethica.jpg (8KB, 300x300px) Image search: [Google]

8KB, 300x300px

Why did metaIfags have a massive chimpout over this album?

>>74913858
No...I'm pretty sure KISS invented buttrock almost 20 years earlier.

People who know a thing or two about music production appreciate the album. Most expensive analog album ever produced and one of the last big analog albums.

The album still packs a punch and sounds meaty today. One of the best drum sounds on any album, period. I don't know how Bob Rock did it but every time I hear a song from the album I Imagine the band playing in a pitch black environment. The album sounds dark without being thematically dark.

Metalfags enjoy listening to a bunch of bands that sound the same.

They would have remained popular within the thrash metal community but they never would have seen success like they did. Also, I don't consider the Black Album thrash what-so-ever. After Justice they were seeking commercial success and they found it in spades. I won't listen to anything after Justice. I don't "hate" them for making the artistic choices they did like other metal fans but it's not for me. TBA sure is a well mastered album too, it's unfortunate I don't enjoy it.

Yeah, the Black Album is not thrash. Many, many longtime fans hated it for exactly that reason.

>>74914109

Justice went platinum before the black album came out. They were already the biggest metal band in the world before the black album, toured with arena rock bands and were very well known and respected in a wide variety of music circles. The only bands bigger than them before and during 1990 were Guns' n Roses, U2 and ACDC. The black album just propelled them to mega star levels but they were already stars. They did everything right with the black album and not just commercially. The change in sound was necessary, they did their whole technical thrash shtick and it was time for them to move on. Now Load and Reload were absolutely awful albums where they pushed their commercial ambitions too far but the black album was perfectly fine with a few standout singles.

TBA isn't a bad album by any means but it got very overplayed very very quickly. The songwriting is solid and the production fantastic, which can't be said of later Metallica records. By the Load era, the band were so far up their own asses in the cult of celebrity surrounding them that it was ridiculous, although Load/Reload did nonetheless have a few good moments on them if you can put aside how James Hetfield recycled ten different variations of the same riff. By St. Anger, they were completely delusional.

I also take issue with the retards who think none of this would have happened if Cliff Burton was still around. Do you honestly think they would have continued releasing thrash masterpieces and riding on unicorns for the next 10-15 years? Cliff was not the only songwriter in the band and he had encouraged them to try a wider variety of things than just metal.

After TBA, they made all their money and were set for life, so they pretty much lost any kind of hunger and motivation.

I get that the times were changing and they had to adapt, I just think TBA had dodgy songwriting and Load was even worse. By that point it seems like Metallica wanted to be Corrosion of Conformity or something.

>>74914295
>>74914241
Load/Reload sold about as big as they could have and IMO sold a lot more copies than they should have. Neither album is anything special, they were just milking the huge mainstream rock audience they'd captured with TBA. As others have noted, the Black Album was their commercial move and is better described as a pop album with metal edges (nothing wrong with that, btw, I love pop and think it's a great album). Load and Re-Load would only have sold 10x platinum each if they had songs as good as the Black Album's songs but they didn't. So no, I don't think that even with the changing fashions (which Metallica tried to ape, copping a grunge look for Load, in 10 years they had gone from cutting-edge to following trends) the ship of diamond-level sales had sailed, it all came down to the songs.

As far as TBA not being thrash, well, really only the first two albums were pure thrash metal and MOP already shows a move in a more progressive metal direction which they took further on AJFA.

And IIRC the term "thrash metal" wasn't even used in the mid-80s, bands like Metallica were referred to as speed metal.

>>74913858
>>74914042
"Buttrock" refers to all of the post-grunge and nu metal stuff from the late 90s and 00s. Like Creed, Three Days Grace, Saliva, and Staind and stuff like that.

At least that's what it meant originally. Like it wasn't even supposed to necessarily be a pejorative term.

TBA I love. After that, Load/Reload had a few good tracks amid an ocean of filler. My Vertigo UK 2 LP pressing of TBA is an audiophile's dream come true. Anyone who doesn't like Load/Reload should listen to The Outlaw Torn and get back to me.

Problem with Load/Reload is that the combined run length of both albums is 154 minutes and they clearly didn't have enough material to fill it; listen carefully and notice how many times the same riff or drum pattern is repeated.

>>74914342
>And IIRC the term "thrash metal" wasn't even used in the mid-80s, bands like Metallica were referred to as speed metal.

False. The word "thrash" came into being around 1984-85.

I think Kerrang coined the term to describe bands like Kreator and Destruction and Slayer and Metallica. It was definitely around by 1985.

I remember back in the early 90s everyone speculating what the next Metallica album after TBA would be like. The rumors were going around that James Hetfield & Co. were listening to a lot of blues and Southern rock, and the general implication was that the next album would sound like that. I don't think anyone seriously expected a retreat from TBA as far as commerciality was concerned. I also remember they played 2x4 and Devil's Dance live before the album came out, and those songs were circulating on bootlegs. I hadn't heard them, but was told by friends they sounded like Pantera songs. Therefore, the buzz was Metallica were no longer leaders, but now followers.

Personally that annoyed me less than the eyeliner and black nail polish they start wearing during the Load era. I felt that was a little unnecessary.

There wasn't anything they could do at that point.

They had mined the thrash metal sound to exhaustion, they couldn't make more thrash albums without sounding recycled.

From an artistic standpoint, they should have taken more chances, but that would not have been commercially viable. Look how Lulu was received. Try to imagine the reaction to that if it had been released in 1995.

There's a big difference between being a young, hungry band who wants to take on the world and a bunch of rich, bloated rock stars who live in a Beverly Hills mansion.

I liked the Black Album, and still do, but the cracks were already showing. Two ballads. Too many videos (from the "no videos" band). The live album that nobody could afford to buy. They gained a new audience, but lost a big chunk of the old one.

>>74914544

>They gained a new audience, but lost a big chunk of the old one.

You think metal purists are a big chunk of an audience? TBA wasn't even that commercial sounding, the only thing they dialed back was the complexity. I Imagine just the sheer meatiness of the production melted some faces, even on some oldschool metalheads.

>Two ballads.

The best songs on the album.

>>74914497
It was pretty well known at the time from interviews and whatnot that they were listening to all the popular heavy rock of the time and for example, Lars Ulrich was really into Alice in Chains for a while and talked about how the next album would sound "more greasy". When the first Load songs were premiered in concert in 1995, nearly a year before the album came out, people had a general idea of where the new album was headed.

Every album up to Load felt like a natural progression to me. By the mid-90s, they were rich rock stars approaching middle age, mellowing a bit, and no longer being pissed-off teenagers and the music reflected that. It may not have been what metal fans wanted, but it was at least honest and reflected where they were at that point in their lives/career. After 2000, they gave up and just decided to peddle stale nostalgia for their 80s sound rather than continue to evolve artistically.

Oh, and FYI Load/Reload were a product of them using up Cliff Burton's remaining riff tapes.

>>74914295
>By that point it seems like Metallica wanted to be Corrosion of Conformity or something
You're probably right, in fact James Hetfield even guested on one of their albums. Load does sound quite a bit like Wiseblood.

TBA should have been trimmed down to eight tracks, even then it still wouldn't be as good as the first four albums.

Holier Than Thou and Through the Never are both terrible. In the Some Kind Of Monster documentary they comment that the Load albums were them taking virtually any idea and making a finished song out of it. That's what Holier Than Thou and Through the Never sound like; insubstantial and should have been left off the album. Actually I'd put The Struggle Within in the same category. So there's three songs that are nowhere near good enough to be on a Metallica album.

The God That Failed and My Friend of Misery are both lesser songs too. I have a really bad relationship with albums that die so badly in the second half. The Black Album is the epitome of this.

I love The Unforgiven. You drop that song into Justice or Master of Puppets (like The Thing That Should Not Be) and it would have a way better reputation. I can better see the dislike/hate for Nothing Else Matters but I've always liked it.

As for the Load duo, they're half great and half filler. Even still, I look at those albums as being Metallica officially declaring themselves to be Black Sabbath. Biggest metal band in the world, growing pains, the real rehab albums. I hate listening to the St. Anger lyrics because everything seems so "12 step" related even if it isn't. The Load albums seem like James really screaming for help before the fall and it's much more interesting.

>>74914735
>TBA should have been trimmed down to eight tracks, even then it still wouldn't be as good as the first four albums

This was a big problem that accompanied the CD era; artists start having to include 20 songs per album in order to use up all the space on the disc. Surprisingly, it is their shortest album since Master of Puppets and the albums that came after TBA are all much, much longer (to their detriment).

My memory is that whereas the Black Album, although different from their earlier work, was received positively and perceived as a broadening of their sound. Load sounded like a bunch of washed-up rich rock stars who were phoning in it.

TBA really was mostly just filler outside the big hit singles and Nothing Else Matters makes me throw up inside my mouth when I hear it. However, I can remember being in the car one afternoon and hearing "Until It Sleeps" debut on the radio and being somewhat interested. I picked the album up on the release date like a good little soldier. Flipped through the booklet and marveled at all the GQ underwear ad photographs. What the fuck happened to these guys? As for the music...I found some tracks that jumped right out at me ("Outlaw Town", "Hero of the Day") but many of the tracks just plodded along, unremarkable and boring. I appreciated that they were continuing to explore with different sounds but the insistence on filling a CD out to maximum capacity just led to a lot of long, boring repetitiousness.

Then Metallica promised a quick follow up, since they had so much usable material at their disposal. Oh goody. Well I guess technically it is "usable", but it's certainly not enjoyable. Reload is their worst album by far. I can't find anything to like about it. I play it every five years and check again but it never changes. Dull, plodding...Lars uses the same boring drum beats on every song...I hate it. Hate.

They should have condensed both albums to eight songs and thrown the rest away. Combined it is the longest, dullest, most passionless double album in history. 160 minutes of the sound of people counting money.

>>74914895

>Nothing Else Matters makes me throw up inside my mouth when I hear it

Just fuck off.

>>74914675
>After 2000, they gave up and just decided to peddle stale nostalgia for their 80s sound rather than continue to evolve artistically

Death Magnetic clearly showed that they had no idea how to write good songs anymore. They just slapped a bunch of random riffs together for 7-8 minutes and called it a day. The only good song on there is My Apocalypse because it's short and to the point. Also fuck Rick Rubin's production.

Because it wasn't very good.

>>74913802
It has too many 'meh' songs. Holier Than Thou, The Struggle Within, Through The Never, all nothing songs. No Metallica album before it had three songs of that low quality. Then there's My Friend Of Misery, The God That Failed, Don't Tread On Me. Just not good songs. Six out of twelve songs are inferior.

Are Metallica totally overrated or what?

Sorry, could not resist. But I really can't stand these guys and their everlasting mainstream popularity pisses me off. They were a good band in the 80's (though even in 1987 Ritchie Blackmore said that "the guitar players are good, but the band is mediocre") but their MTV phase only produced one horrible record after another, starting with the Black Album. IMHO Hetfield is a terrible singer and Ulrich is second only to Matt Sorum as the worst drummer I ever heard. The fact that they were were so ridiculously successful in the early 90s when much better metal bands were swept aside or left in the deep underground doesn't make me love 'em more. Metallica are the only metal band that everyone knows, the only metal band critics love and to many people they are simply the only metal band worth mentioning, which is a crying shame. In many ways, the U2 of heavy metal. Totally overrated IMHO.

Kill 'Em All (1983) , 8/10
Ride The Lightning (1984) , 7.5/10
Master Of Puppets (1986) , 8/10
And Justice For All (1988) , 7/10
Metallica (Black Album) (1991) , 7/10
Load (1996), 6/10
Reload, 5/10
Garage Inc , 4/10
San Francisco Symphony , 4/10
St Anger (2003), 4/10
Death Magnetic (2008), 6/10

>>74915044
I was always a little skeptical of how Metallica were praised by Rolling Stone Magazine when they normally ignore metal completely.

>>74915069
what about Hardwired?

File: 1461001585759.png (99KB, 173x280px) Image search: [Google]

99KB, 173x280px

>>74915069

>Death Magnetic (2008), 6/10

All this being said, that band effectively died when "Nothing Else Matters" became a radio hit. James Hetfield decided he was a singer, and the band swiftly descended into mediocrity. The Load releases and St. Anger are unlistenable dreck. I don't think I've ever made it more than one or two tracks into Death Magnetic because I don't care enough to bother. Basically, if you can pretend that Metallica stopped making music in 1991, the answer to this thread is a resounding "no." If you had the misfortune of listening to Metallica when they were collaborating with Marianne Faithful and Michael Kamen, well, I'm sorry.

>>74914908
Nothing Else Matters sounds like a Scorpions power ballad, dude.

>>74915124

How do you mean?

>>74915124
When TBA came out, your sister would borrow your copy so she could listen to that song and then go back to her Color Me Badd CDs.

If they'd done a Zeppelin and quit after releasing 8 studio albums in less than a decade, we probably wouldn't need this thread. They'd be mentioned over in the Sacred Cow conversation instead.

While I like the Big Four, I never did quite understand the whole thing among metalheads about who can be the fastest/most brvtal/trve cvlt band and really, there's nothing wrong with melodies and pop hooks.

They did lose their way starting with Load, but I do like the Guitar Hero version of Death Magnetic a lot.

I'm old enough to remember TBA and at the time, people who'd never shown any prior interest in metal were buying that album like hotcakes and queuing up to Metallica concerts. Us metal fans turned to Pantera to get our fix, but I still stupidly kept buying Metallica albums out of a misguided devotion. I remember Load was sort of decent but Reload was just garbage. No matter how many times I listen and relisten to it, I can't find anything interesting about Reload. I ignored S&M and Garage, Inc because I really didn't need Bob Seger covers.

I actually thought St. Anger was a step back in the right direction, at least it was heavy, aggressive, and non-commercial again. Death Magnetic was just as >>74914930 said, slapped together riffs with nothing interesting about it.

you have to be remotely retarded to think this is even a remotely good album

average at best

>>74915305
>I actually thought St. Anger was a step back in the right direction, at least it was heavy, aggressive, and non-commercial again

Some Kind of Monster is good, the rest of the album is shit and drags on 20-30 minutes too long. I could like it more if Kirk had actually gotten to do anything and they didn't have that...drum sound.

>>74915044
>and Ulrich is second only to Matt Sorum as the worst drummer I ever heard
I take it you haven't heard Meg White? :^)

>>74915305
I don't get this whole "Oh fuck, normies like my favorite band now I can't listen to them anymore" mentality.

>>74915305
I like St. Anger a lot, but it's a hard listen for me. It's the therapy album, if you will. Kind of their Plastic Ono Band. HATE the drum sound on it and wish all the songs didn't have the Sad but True "let's tune down to G" sound.

Sure the production on Death Magnetic is awful unless you have the Guitar Hero version (which eliminates the brickwalling) and Hetfield's live vocals are not what they used to be, but I thought he sounded better on that album than St. Anger - autotune or not and, more importantly, I do think the songs were there.

>>74915305
>>74915424

St. Anger needed to be a 30-minute punk metal ablum, just straight up trim like 4-6 minutes off of every song. The lack of solos and drum sound would have meshed perfectly with that, but when the average song length is seven minutes it gets annoying as fuck really fast.

It'd also be nice to hear a kind of St. Anger medley live, just a bar or so of Frantic/St. Anger/Invisible Kid/Shoot/Monster all together.

>>74913802

mostly because it wasn't metal

>>74914675
>>74914601
Ain't My Bitch is the best song on Load. :^)

>>74917023
Bleeding Me or The Outlaw Torn are the best songs on Load

>>74913858
That's not Back in Black.

>>74914241
>I also take issue with the retards who think none of this would have happened if Cliff Burton was still around. Do you honestly think they would have continued releasing thrash masterpieces and riding on unicorns for the next 10-15 years?

The Big Four all went more commercial and moved away from thrash in the 90s. You think Megadeth were any better with Youthanasia, an album almost as buttrock-y as TBA.

>>74917337
The Outlaw Torn really doesn't have enough melody. In general, Load/Reload are less melodic than previous Metallica albums but the non-single tracks are virtually absent of any hooks.

File: Aversion (USA) - Fit to Be Tied.jpg (423KB, 600x600px) Image search: [Google]

423KB, 600x600px

>>74913802
if you want another 80s era Metallica album (specifically Kill Em All) just listen to Aversion's Fit to be Tied https://youtu.be/7XCQypx71-M

I like TBA more than Master of Puppets.

>>74913996
because it's black metal for people who dislike black metal, but want to be hip and say they don't.

>>74919481
This. I don't really like black metal but I like Sunbather.

>>74919481
It dosent make the album bad

>>74920021
it's disingenuous, not to mention the black metal aspect of it is mediocre at best and the shoegaze parts don't mix that well.
WITTR did it better with Two Hunters and Celestial Lineage.

Actually, with the possible exception of Garage Inc. This is the last GOOD album Metallica ever made, although I've heard some stuff off the new album that sounded pretty decent.

>>74920485
new album is their 80's era, only JUST edition.

>>74918102

Sounds like kill 'em meets milo goes to college

>>74915069
Kill 'Em All (1983) , 8/10
Ride The Lightning (1984) , 9/10
Master Of Puppets (1986) , 9/10
And Justice For All (1988) , 9/10
Metallica (Black Album) (1991) , 9.5/10
Load (1996), 7/10
Reload, 5/10
Garage Inc , 3/10
San Francisco Symphony , 5/10
St Anger (2003), 1/10
Death Magnetic (2008), 7/10

>>74920063
Alcest did it better too