Yeah, I don’t mind buying music for my favourite bands. Ironically I will buy a CD and never ever play it. Just convert to MP3 and load it on my devices/memory cards.
As for Metallica, I think the black album is full of awesome songs. They were just more produced (is that so bad?) and they were radio friendly…as in the songs were 4min30s long instead of 7:15. The band made a conscious decision to go big and capitalize on their success, and reaching the public through the radio was the way to do that. I don’t fault that at all.
The songs were still great. You’re going to tell me that Sad But True, God that Failed and Misery are not fantastic? And are ‘sellout’ songs? Good luck. Sandman was great but just got overplayed to death but the first time you heard it, you thought it rocked the fuck out. If Sandman and Unforgiven and Nothing Else Matters were all 7 minutes long, that album would never have received such public acclaim, Metallica would still be underground, and MET fans would all be lauding the album as a heroic collection of songs. But they were 4 minutes, got played on radio, and all of a sudden metallica wasn’t in the shadows…they were mainstream, so lots of people who need to be different said they were no longer cool. I think that’s a crock.
Even load and reload aren’t that bad, but they don’t have that edge. They just don’t have that feeling that you’ve accidentally put a classical album on with overdrive distorting the sound, which some of the early albums did. So for me I started losing interest in that music.
If we want to walk through their albums,
Kill em all was pretty good, but they were basically a bunch of 19 year olds ,and it’s reflected in the simplicity of it.
Lightning was great up and down
Puppets was even better
Justice is my favourite Metallica album. The whole thing is just pure as hell, and is their peak if you ask me.
Black is good, but different.
Load/Reload not a disaster, but not my style
St Anger was a mess. I still can’t figure out WTF made them do what they did to the drum tuning, or what all the crazy time signature changes are about.
Magnetic is pretty solid. Lots of good songs, and back to the music heavy style. Not as good as 2-3-4 though.
The covers/garage album is fun, but not their music so I don’t rate it at all.
Lightning was a sea change…that’s when they really became something I loved. Lightning Puppets and Justicw are just worn out on my memory cards. Love them so much.