Metallica Appreciation Thread

I thought that I had seen one of these already but a search didn't find one, so here we go.  Let us use this thread to discuss things that we like, err... appreciate about the, dare I say, "ultimate" thrash band of the 80's and 90's.  

rushfan4 wrote: I am one of those strange people around these parts that when I like a band I tend to like everything that they have done, and Metallica is no exception for me.  I realize that albums like Re-Load and St. Anger aren't of the same quality of their previous works, but they are still albums that I enjoy listening to from time to time.

I was introduced to Metallica through ...And Justice for All which was the latest album at that time. My brother had been listening to bands like Twisted Sister, Skagarack and Bon Jovi in the years before that and I was really hooked to those bands too, but when I first heard Metallica I was blown away. I had never heard anything that angry before in my life. It was love at first sight. I think ...and Justice for All was my second vinyl purchase after Somewhere in Time by Iron Maiden. I still own my old vinyl copy.

Metallica was one of the first metal bands I got into. I don't listen to them a whole lot anymore, but when I was first exploring heavy metal, Master of Puppets, ...And Justice For All, and Ride The Lightning were some of my all-time favorite albums. I absolutely loved the intensity and heaviness in the music, something I hadn't heard a whole lot of before Metallica. I started my musical journey with Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, and Iron Butterfly, so I was in complete amazement the first time I heard Master of Puppets. I still love them, and I'm glad they showed they were still worth something with Death Magnetic (which I love).

I know that it's in to hate Metallica and Lars Ulrich, but I don't care - I think that "Ride the Lightning", "Master of Puppets", and "... and Justice for All" are some of the best thgrash metal albums ever. "Kill 'Em All" is an album I enjoy listening to, too, and I actuallly like "St. Anger" despite the strange production. I think that "Death Magnetic " is an excellent come-back, and I don't mind the black album. I can't stand "Load" and "Reload" though.

Metallica has played an important part in my life and is a central part of the sound track of my youth, so I'm not going to jump the anti-Metallica bandwagon.


Edited by Time Signature - 26 Jul 2010 at 4:30am

I'm embarassed!  I was a seriously late starter on the Metallica front, 'cause I was brought up with prog, hard rock and some glam metal. So, I wasn't even too sure who Metallica were until I was about 13. You see, thrash was never a genre that my family really knew or took to.

I was big into hair metal when I was 12 years old. I was lucky enough to have a few heavier things like Maiden's "Number of the Beast" and Priest's "Sin After Sin", and Ozzy's "Bark at the Moon", but Def Leppard was my favorite band at the time. Then this girl I knew in school sold me a copy of Metallica's "...And Justice for All" because she didn't like it. I had no idea who they were or what they sounded like, and up to that point, I'd remained ignorant of the world of extreme metal, so that album served as my gateway into heavier fare. I didn't really know what to make of it at first, it seemed so alien to me, but I kept listening to it, mesmerized. It was so morose and wrathful and malcontented, and in some sense I'd never really considered that music could speak to the unhappiness and frustration we feel in life until that point.

So "Justice" was my initiation into the world of extreme metal. I've since gotten into everything from really fucked up death/black metal to doom and prog metal, but recently I've been revisiting thrash metal and listening to these bands again. "Justice" remains my favorite Metallica album, along with "Puppets". I also like the "Binge and Purge" live set a lot.

Charcaroth wrote:  I also like the "Binge and Purge" live set a lot.

I think that a lot of the Black Album-era concerts were boring. I remember seeing Metallica live back then in Copenhagen with Mercyful Fate and Suicidal Tendencies warming up. After those bands, Metallica seemed like a tired mastodon on the brink of extinction, with their long rendition of "Seek and Destroy" and all the state chatter and so on.

I caught one of their shows in Copenhagen last year, and that was much, much, much better, as they'd cut most of the pointless stage chatter and Hammett's guitar solo was shortened down to less than five minutes.... oh, and there were no "Load" or "Reload" songs which I appreciated a lot :-)

I discovered Metallica in the mid 90s as a teenager. Of course they were famous in Eastern Europe, after the dictatorial regimes fell everybody was exploring the new found freedom and catching up with the West, there were tons of metalheads, hippies, "depeche"-ists, etc. But I could not hear Metallica anywhere, until cable television finally arrived in my town too and they had MTV. When the first single from Load hit the screens, I was hoocked - it was "Until it Sleeps". I had no idea what their old stuff sounded like, and I had no clue about metal in general, so I liked the songs from the Load-Reload era a lot. They were excellent pieces of mainstream music of that time. When I started going out in town with the rockers and drink vodka in lousy bars, I would hear "One" or "Master Of Puppets" once in a while, and they were awesome, but since most people in the East had discovered metal because of the fall of Communism in 1989, everyone was big on the "Black Album" - the album that came out at that moment in time. Only a small elite of metalheads were really experts and had a good knowledge of 80s metal (and discs to listen to). So I only got acquainted with their thrash period in the 2000s, when I also got the habit of listening to full albums instead of only listening to the TV singles. Right now I'd rate higher the 80s albums (especially Justice and Master), but I still like Black/Load/Reload/S&M. At least I think so, I didn't listen to any Metallica in years.