They've definitely made better albums, but I've come around on St. Anger quite a bit over the years. Lulu, now that's the real challenge.
I think if I were more of a Lou Reed fan, I might appreciate Lulu, but trying to get into it through the lens of Metallica has not come close to working
I had a good time with Lulu the one time I listened a couple years back St Anger is an endurance test lol, there are aspects of it I actually think are kind of sick but yeah every song should be at least half as long as it is.
You have had to have heard at least 75% of the Black album if you've lived at any time over the last 3 decades.
I feel like I’ve seen some crazy revisionist history on St. Anger lately. Terrible record! I did pick up a used DVD of Some Kind of Monster yesterday though. One of the most unintentionally funny movies I’ve ever seen.
I tried doing a discography run recently but stopped after The Black Album, I’m hesitant to keep going but I’m morbidly curious about Lulu
I will accept st. Anger is not for everyone but idk how you can hear anything off load and reload and not think it’s, at a minimum, the same quality
The difference is that people generally look down on St. Anger for the production values, the sonic choices, and the song lengths, whereas people generally look down on Load/Reload because they're fools.
Master of Puppets Ride the Lightning Kill 'Em All ...And Justice for All Death Magnetic The Black Album Hardwired...to Self-Destruct Reload Load St. Anger I don't think Load or Reload are that much better than St Anger but at least they have a few solid songs each. I don't really like anything on St. Anger and the back half is easily my least favourite stretch of songs they've ever released.
Death magnetic isn’t a bad record but it’s almost impossible to listen to with the borderline criminal work Rubin did on it
I haven’t listened to it since it came out, it’s got tracks, but it’s so LOUD, Rick Rubin is going directly to hell
Ain’t no way - even if you want to dislike st. Anger - that DM is better than hardwired to self destruct
I think audio engineers have analyzed it and it’s like by any metric the most heavily compressed album ever with californication (another Rubin joint lol) being #2 genuinely hurts to listen to with headphones
obviously enough Rubin records are brick walled to death that I get placing the blame solely on him, however I think Andrew Schepps is largely to blame for it on Death Magnetic. he cheekily proclaims to have “won the loudness wars” with that album. well, yes, fair point. but I haven’t sat and listened to it in full and so I can’t count it lol. aside from St Anger, which my dad bought me when it came out when I was a kid, I hadn’t actually listened to any of them in full until a couple years ago when I started collecting vinyl again. saw Master of Puppets at Walmart and I grabbed it on a whim and ended up enjoying it way more than expected and I ended up picking up all of the first 4 records over the span of a few months. always planned to get the black album too but it just hasn’t happened yet. obviously I could just stream it, but it’s particularly fun and engaging for me to have my first listen to something be on vinyl.
master = lightning = justice hardwired = black = 72 = magnetic anger = load = reload kill (solely for the sound quality of 1982. the live album from orion fest puts it equal to the third tier.) and to be clear, this is from best to least best. there is no worst with this band.
The 2015 remaster of Death Magnetic (which I think is the current version on streaming, at least on Apple Music) greatly improves its listenability. Plus its better than having to hunt down those Guitar Hero rips from back in the day.
Also Death Magnetic was my first new Metallica album as a fan so I definitely loved it growing up. All Nightmare Long and Cyanide are the two I’ve taken with me into adulthood. Thoughts on Garage Inc?