Metallica: Rank em!

Lulu 

Kill 'Em All

Master Of Puppets

... And Justice For All

Metallica

Death Magnetic

Reload

Load

St. Anger

This would be my actual list. Except for Lulu, you know where that goes!

St Anger
Ride the Lightning

2. RTL

3. AJFA

4. DM

5. Black

6. Lulu (really)

7. KEA

8. St. Anger (strange but I like this album)

9. Load

10. Reload

I played 80s Metallica to death years ago, I understand what you mean about that "over-familiarity" but I can't deny how good those albums are just because I rarely listen to them these days. In fact, when I'm in the mood for some Metallica, I end up listening to AJFA or MoP and sometimes my favorite songs from Load/Reload. 

Lulu is hardly a Metallica album, I saw the cds gathering dust in stores and it said "Lou Reed & Metallica", not the other way around. Thank God I did not buy the album as I listened to it before I saw it in stores and I thought it was terrible. 

I'll try ranking the albums a bit later as it's pretty hard; DM and St Anger would be at the bottom of the list though. 

Can't rank just the studio albums. It doesn't give a full picture. There's a demo and a bootleg, and a couple of EPs included, but anyone interested in Metallica will turn some of those up eventually.

Because the black album was a huge, disappointing pile of excrement when it was first released. The disappointment of those other albums was lessened somewhat because of this. I'm in a tiny minority that actually likes Lulu.

Still, the music of songs like Sad But True, Wherever I May Roam, My Friend of Misery and yes, The Unforgiven and Enter Sandman are simply perfect songs. And I knew it right then and there, in the fall of 1991, that this shit is very good music and the sound is unbelievable. I hated the fact that every idiot at school who used to give me shit for liking metal suddenly discovered metal (and my favorite band no less!) but I am now an adult and I can judge quite more cooly than I did back then.

Nothing Metallica has released afterwards comes even close. And no matter how big a shock TBA was, compared to looking at the booklet of Load and then listening to the album, it pales in comparison.

But like I said, my main question is about putting the Loads and Lulu or Death Magnetic (which is decent but it is obviously an enforced blender of their discography - with lesser drums and solos and no Cliff-esque inspiration) above the Black album. 

Lulu is a failed experiment. There are some moments here and there that theoretically could have worked but no, the combination of Lou Reed's obsession on doing everything spontaneously without much thought and Metallica's inability to gel with his vision, totally destroy any potential. TERRIBLE overall.