Cliff Burton

[Sabin Frost]

A man so great he deserves his own thread, any discussion on him welcome.

For those people unfamiliar with the works of Burton (those people exist?) he was Metallica's early bassist and pioneered the use of the bass guitar for leads (the instrumentals "The Call of the Ktulu" and "Orion" are great examples of this).

Personally I love the chromatic introduction on For Whom The Bell Tolls... much like the lead in disposable heroes it is easy to mistake it for a guitar but it is just an example of the incredible possibilities of a even a simple four string bass.

 

[Defenestrated]

Call of Ktulu has some sick bass stuff. He does wonders with that wah wah pedal.

 

[Unfaithfully Metalhead]

I love Cliff Burton's playing... I always felt he was a underrated bassist and blew away his replacement Jason by miles... to me when Cliff died... Metallica died with him.... None of their albums after MOP compared to their first 3 and one big reason was because of Cliff's bass lines...

 

[Sabin Frost]

I agree, Justice was a good effort, just not on the part of the bass... Justice has some of Kirk and James's best work I feel. The bass lines on it are terrible though, they just mimic James mostly.

Still Newsted has done some alright bass parts, My Friend Misery has a fairly cool bass line for a rock song.

My personal favourite Metallica album is St. Anger which basically does not have a bass... I dont consider it their best album, I just love listening to it, the vocals in particular, the lyrics and "flexible" pitch are quite distburing in a good way. Many people hated the production but listening to a lot of black metal it is hard for me to have a go at something that is deliberately underproduced.

 

[Satanstoenail]

Cliff Burton was a huge influence on my bass playing when I was young. I spent countless hours jumping around my bedroom playing the first 3 Metallica albums on my BCRich Warlock.

 

[Unfaithfully Metalhead]

Ever watch live footage of Cliff playing on the Cliff Em All video? ... you can tell that MOF could play... I often wonder if he were still alive if Metallica would of continued in the commercial direction they have with their music and if they did would Cliff have stayed or left... man i was stupid in 1986... I could of went to see Metallica with Cliff here in NY when they opened for Ozzy during Ozzy's Ultimate Sin tour... I always thought I could see them next time around but who would of known that bus accident was going to happen....

 

[Unfaithfully Metalhead]

I agree, Justice was a good effort, just not on the part of the bass... Justice has some of Kirk and James's best work I feel. The bass lines on it are terrible though, they just mimic James mostly.

Still Newsted has done some alright bass parts, My Friend Misery has a fairly cool bass line for a rock song.

My personal favourite Metallica album is St. Anger which basically does not have a bass... I dont consider it their best album, I just love listening to it, the vocals in particular, the lyrics and "flexible" pitch are quite distburing in a good way. Many people hated the production but listening to a lot of black metal it is hard for me to have a go at something that is deliberately underproduced.

I think Kirk's and Jame's best work was on Ride the Lightning... that is when Kirk started taking lessons from Joe Satriani... between Kill Em All and RTL... you can hear the difference tremendously in his lead work... that album has my favorite solos from Kirk... particularly Creeping Death and Fade to Black solos... and the rhythm guitar from Hetfield was just killer.. that album was flawless...

Yah.. basically Jason got paid millions to play the rhythm guitar's root note on AJFA LoL

St Anger?

 

[Defenestrated]

I love Cliff Burton's playing... I always felt he was a underrated bassist and blew away his replacement Jason by miles... to me when Cliff died... Metallica died with him.... None of their albums after MOP compared to their first 3 and one big reason was because of Cliff's bass lines...

Actually, all of the members of Metallica cowrote everything together. And Cliff wrote To Live Is To Die off of AJFA.

 

[Sabin Frost]

Actually, all the members didn't really, if you look mostly Metallica's stuff is written by just Hetfield and Ulrich with the odd writing credits. The only Metallica song not written by Hetfield or Ulrich is Pulling Teeth off Kill Em All and the only album to feature the entire band in the writing credits for every song is St. Anger. Cliff wrote the Lyrics for To Live Is To Die but largely the song was not written by him.

I agree Ride the Lightning is the best for Kirk and James's work, I did not say Justice was the best, its just good, One in particular.

Fade to Black has got to be one of the greatest guitar songs of all time, Metallica's best from that perspective after the song Master of Puppets IMO.

I dont want to turn this thread into a St. Anger flame war, but I am a massive fan of the album, the riffs are utterly brutal and heavy as all hell, something I always liked about Suffocation was their "first gear" not going flat out but putting so much punch into what they were doing it shit all over faster music for heaviness. Most people disliked the fact Lars turned the snare off but it all adds to the atmosphere and bludgeoning feel of the album and I think and I have already made a mention of my high regards for the vocals.

EDIT: Believe it or not, Dave Mustaine has writing credits on all of Metallica's albums up until Justice (Master of Puppets is a my word vs. your word ongoing debate)

 

[Black Core]

http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/member.php?u=52549 ?

 

[Cul-Kothoth]

I love Cliff Burton's playing... I always felt he was a underrated bassist and blew away his replacement Jason by miles... to me when Cliff died... Metallica died with him.... None of their albums after MOP compared to their first 3 and one big reason was because of Cliff's bass lines...

Exactly, Cliff even in death is an inspiration to me as a bass player and (Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth is still one of my all time favorite songs to play to, and to experiment with my solos in place of his when the drums kick in.