I can see disliking the Load records, but why is Black Album reviled so?

[SoundMaster]

The recent Metallica thread has me questioning the band and their output. Sure, the Load/Reload messes were light years different from their glory years (although Load does have some decent tunes), but why is the Black Album almost universally reviled and hated by metaldom? In reality, the album is quite heavy, although not thrash, of course.

Sure, that album propelled them to mega-star status, but are songs like "Sad But True", "God That Failed" and "My Friend of Misery" really that bad or that far removed from their classic 80s output?

I dont think so. Again, tell me why you hate this record (if, in fact, you do)!!

 

[SavaRon]

I don't think the Black album is bad, it was just a big turning point for the band. There are good songs on it, they are just different. Very different actually, but that's not a bad thing really. I think alot of fans feel like they lost something when they got mega-huge. It was the start of the end for Metallica for many fans of the old albums.

They were innovators of the thrash movement in the 80's and became followers of trends and fashion in the 90's. I still like some of the ouput from them, but nothing compared to the earlier stuff. I am really hoping they do something good on the new record, but I'm not holding my breath!

 

[Norsemaiden]

Very true.

 

[JonnyD]

I dont hate the Black album at all actually never have ... I do believe a few of the songs are Criminally overplayed (Sandman,Sad but True) but it is really a great Hard Rock/Heavy Metal album ... I mean Shit... Dont Tread on Me Still crushes my skull to this day!

 

[Unfaithfully Metalhead]

no that was me crushing your skull for saying that Jonny lol jk... anyways i dont hate the album but it is very commercial... Nothing Else Matters might as well be a love song (i do like the song though if it wasnt Metallica's name on it lol ) ... anyways the reason it is so reviled is because Metallica was considered a very "heavy" band before clifford died.. could you imagine if Slayer or one of the other thrash bands we admire put out a commercial record out like that... I think you would revile it then Sound....

 

[ElectricWiz]

I don't hate it, it has some good songs, but there some things about it that I reeeeally didn't like.

A. (and most importantly) James changed his singing style. Really he was just growing older, and so his range was changing. But he began to do that hard to describe thing he generally does now, which is to sing/say everything with a kind of weird upturn at the very end of each phrase with an added "ee ah," that resembles a mix between a southern preacher and a professional wrestler.

B. The Don't Tread On Me theme they were embracing didn't personally appeal to me. Not that the record utterly reflects that, but at the time I didn't like James' mutton chops, the coiled-snake-south-shall-rise-again thing, and all that. Just rubbed me wrong somehow. I preferred the pushead, jeans and high tops thing.

C. I prefer the metal goofiness of The Thing That Should Not Be or Sanitarium to Unforgiven any day. Unforgiven seemed whiney to me.

D. For lack of a better way of putting it, Master of Puppets just seemed more European to me. It was kind of obscure, but not all together, a little mysterious, dark, murky, and a bunch of other things I can't put into words. The Black Album, for whatever reason, just didn't hold that same mystique for me.

Wherever I may roam, Sad But True, etc. Good songs! Overall though, just not what I had come to love Metallica for.

 

[SoundMaster]

A. (and most importantly) James changed his singing style. Really he was just growing older, and so his range was changing. But he began to do that hard to describe thing he generally does now, which is to sing/say everything with a kind of weird upturn at the very end of each phrase with an added "ee ah," that resembles a mix between a southern preacher and a professional wrestler.

I actually agree 100% with this. I despise his current vocal style....in reality, he cant sing to save his life. I like the record in spite of this, however. Heck, I prefer death vocals to the nonsense he passes off as singing...

 

[Electronicoil]

Wow, Electrowiz put it better than I've ever heard. I agree 100% and actually couldn't really put it into words until I read his reply.

That said, I don't hate the Black Album so much as I'm just not really "into it." Same the loads and St. Anger. Well, the production on St. Anger drives me nuts, though.

Actually I blame a lot of the post "Justice" problem on Bob Rock. I just don't like the production at all and that is reason enough for me to listen to metal that I actually enjoy better.

 

[ElectricWiz]

I actually agree 100% with this. I despise his current vocal style....in reality, he cant sing to save his life. I like the record in spite of this, however. Heck, I prefer death vocals to the nonsense he passes off as singing...

Also, though a lot of people give Bob Rock a hard time about what he, "did," to the band, this is the only thing I really hold against him. I really think it was him that steered James' vocals in the way they went. Producers often tend to be highly critical of the scream vocal, so to speak, ala James in the early days. There is no doubt in my mind that he reeled him in, and I've always thought it was a bad idea.

 

[Electronicoil]

A buddy of mine's band used to do a parody version of "Hey Joe" with post-Bob-Rock Hetfield style vocals. It was hillarious in a way that may not convey in writing, but the singer did Hetfield's voice perfectly and added all the little extraneous vowell sounds at the end of lines.


"Hey Joe-wah,
Where you going-uh with that gun in your had-ee-ah
Hey Joe-wah,
Where you going-uh with that gun in your had-ee-ah"

 

[Priest of Evil]

when a great thrash band starts making records with Bob Rock the producer who leads you straight to selloutvile, population :Metallica; is there any wonder the thrash community was appalled with them and their Black album?

 

[SoundMaster]

when a great thrash band starts making records with Bob Rock the producer who leads you straight to selloutvile, population :Metallica; is there any wonder the thrash community was appalled with them and their Black album?

I can see the thrash community being alienated, but the entire metal community? Many Metallica fans were metal fans first, thrash fans second.

 

[Wyvern]

I do dislike "Metallica" to me enough with 'Enter Sandman' to show that they lost their touch, as a matter of fact 'One' already was bad enough (and I like the tune, but not for an album a B-side maybe) in the previous one.

Sorry, Metallica dies with AJFA, it's my feeling and Nobody will change me anyway, no, no way
Nobody's gonna change my world
That's something too unreal
Nobody will change the way I feel


NP: Shaaman - 'Iron Soul'

 

[SickBoy]

I never really got into that record at all...
I was a total Metallica-head (weren't we all...) and this one was a huge letdown to me, starting with the cheesy as hell Nothing Else Matters, because of which all the girls in my 8th grade started listening to Metallica...
That aside, nothing excited me much on that record.
Sure, it has one of the best productions ever, but IMO it's waaaay overrated.

 

[Electronicoil]

I never really got into that record at all...
Sure, it has one of the best productions ever, but IMO it's waaaay overrated.

Wow. I hate the production more than I hate the songs.

Then again, I'm a huge fan of "raw" production.

 

[KMADD]

It was Meh. AJFA was metallica's last good cd IMO.

 

[rokk]

I agree the turning point for me was AJFA when they did the video for 'One'.
When you start hearing a band like what Metallica was on the radio all the friggin' time it changes things. Maybe not Metallica's fault but that doesn't change the fact. I gave them another chance with the 'Black' album and it was headed further down the same road. I guess ultimately when a band gets so popular that you start getting angry with yourself for buying and album because you hear so much of it on the radio all the time that there is no need to spin the disk.

Oh well just me ranting!

 

[Priest of Evil]

I can see the thrash community being alienated, but the entire metal community? Many Metallica fans were metal fans first, thrash fans second.

Yep thats right most thrash metal fans, like msyelf, were metal fans to begin with but thrash was more intense than metal and metal is not rock. To me Black was more rock than metal. It was a COMPLETE sell out, whether or not it was their hearts that lead them to this sort of music or the dollars, I dont care - Im with Wyvern on this!

Wyvern said:
Sorry, Metallica dies with AJFA, it's my feeling and Nobody will change me anyway, no, no way
Nobody's gonna change my world
That's something too unreal
Nobody will change the way I feel

 

[Trans-Siberian Outcast]

I agree the turning point for me was AJFA when they did the video for 'One'.
When you start hearing a band like what Metallica was on the radio all the friggin' time it changes things. Maybe not Metallica's fault but that doesn't change the fact. I gave them another chance with the 'Black' album and it was headed further down the same road. I guess ultimately when a band gets so popular that you start getting angry with yourself for buying and album because you hear so much of it on the radio all the time that there is no need to spin the disk.

As I was reading through the responses to this thread, rokk's post pretty much says what I was thinking. I don't dislike the black album, but it was just another step in the wrong direction as far as I was concerned (and the point where I lost interest in them).

It's still burned into my mind, interviews with the band saying they would NEVER SELL OUT, would NEVER MAKE A VIDEO FOR MTV. I'd cut them alot more slack for selling out if they hadn't made such a big deal of claiming they were the anti-establishment metal band, no posing allowed. Fact is, after the marketing success of AJFA, they changed their tune drastically. That change struck me as a bit out of key for Metallica, a band I adored in my youth.

NP: Alice Cooper - Dirty Diamonds

 

[TRrEiTxIxRiE DTrash]

I like the black album the best coz its catchy and to the point and I like the songs. I couldn't care less about whether or not its different to the earlier albums or not.

Then again I'm a person who prefers Poison & Warrant over Slayer & Megadeth in a heartbeat so its pretty easy to see why I prefer the black album.