How Would You Save Metallica? [Archive] - Comic Book Resources Forums

david r

03-25-2006, 08:29 PM

Chiasm

03-25-2006, 09:04 PM

Dennis K

03-25-2006, 09:17 PM

Metallica. Metal Gods. Possibly the definitive Heavy Metal band of all time.

Possibley the goofiest thing I've read on this board, and that's saying something.

david r

03-25-2006, 09:39 PM

Possibley the goofiest thing I've read on this board, and that's saying something.

I see you didn't attend school during the years Metallica was in their prime. I really can't think of any other heavy metal act that became so huge as Metallica from 1985-91, or so.

Their rise and fall is pretty hard and fast. They really defined a whole generation of metal-heads, now most of whom have turned their backs on them for good. What metal act would you regard as having the same popularity as Metallica in their prime years, and the songs to match?

And "possibly" is spelled without an "e".

Dennis K

03-25-2006, 09:44 PM

I see you didn't attend school during the years Metallica was in their prime.

No, I didn't attend school while they were in their prime, I was already out of high school. I'm also aware that the definitive heavy metal band of all time (if such a thing exists) would be Black Sabbath.

david r

03-25-2006, 09:47 PM

No, I didn't attend school while they were in their prime, I was already out of high school. I'm also aware that the definitive heavy metal band of all time would be Black Sabbath.

I wouldn't argue with Black Sabbath's success in the 1970s and their tremendous influence on later metal bands.

I said Metallica were "possibly" the definitive heavy metal band of all time. For their 1980s material alone, I'd rank them as one of the most influential heavy metal acts. The question is: what has happened to them since and how can they turn it around?? Is it even possible for them to at this point?

Generic Eric

03-25-2006, 09:52 PM

I'm sure Metallica needs saving from thier huge piles of cash. They still sell out stadiums worldwide and sell millions of albums anually. I'm not sure what your trying to say that they need saving from. Thier new albums may suck, but they will still be playing the classics for years to come. I think this is just the natural progression of huge rock bands. Great albums early in thier career and mediocre to lousy albums later on.

Core

03-25-2006, 09:52 PM

So my question is: what can Metallica do to salvage their popularity and regain some respect they've lost over the last 10 years?

Cast a Resurrection spell on Cliff Burton.

Dennis K

03-25-2006, 09:55 PM

The question is: what has happened to them since and how can they turn it around??

1) James Hetfield somehow grew a vagina

2) Reanimate Cliff Burton and have Hetfield lose said vagina.

Generic Eric

03-25-2006, 10:02 PM

So my question is: what can Metallica do to salvage their popularity and regain some respect they've lost over the last 10 years? Is it even possible now?
Nothing can be done. They sealed thier fate with the last couple of lame albums they did. :D

DonC

03-25-2006, 10:19 PM

The so called fans turn on any group when they achieve mainstream success. It doesn't matter if the group has in fact "sold out" or not. The so called fans will see it that way. The so called fans have actually been against Metallica since the black album not just since Load.

Metallica could have just kept putting out the same stuff over and over. The so called fans might have been happy. But the music would have quickly have become stale in its sameness. I for one am glad they branched out. I love some of their early stuff. I love some of their later stuff. I really love Sympothony and Metal, an album that probably puts the so called fans into coniption fits.

Bingo. Musicians need to expand and experiment, it's in their nature. AC/DC is the only band I know of that sounds the same now as they did 10-15 years ago. Playing the same song (musically) over and over gets boring, and when things get boring, people quit. The fans can either accept this or leave. Me, I'll be rocking out to "Hero of the Day" and "Enter Sandman."

Hiromi

03-26-2006, 12:59 AM

defenitive =/= most popular.

And I for one liked Load.(St. Anger was piece of shit though)

Spike-X

03-26-2006, 04:54 AM

what can Metallica do to salvage their popularity and regain some respect they've lost over the last 10 years?

Break up.

.

twilight

03-26-2006, 04:59 AM

Break up.

I second that.

TomGun13

03-26-2006, 09:28 AM

Take 'em out back and give them the Old Yeller treatment.

ghostrider666

03-26-2006, 06:34 PM

1) James Hetfield somehow grew a vagina

2) Reanimate Cliff Burton and have Hetfield lose said vagina.

'Nuff said.

DDM

03-26-2006, 06:40 PM

Metallica has become the equivilant to the Rolling Stones: irrelevent. Metallica needs to break up.

Alex

03-26-2006, 06:52 PM

Sit them in a room, play Master of Puppets and St. Anger over and over again, then force them to answer which one rocks.

Punchy

03-27-2006, 02:44 AM

They need to go back to writing 8 minute epic tunes with crazy rhythms and some friggin' double-bass drum action.

Lubichev

03-27-2006, 11:57 AM

Two choices: Dig up and reanimate Cliff Burton and go back in time before Metallica started to believe that they were superstars (which destroyed them)

or

Finally call it a day

They should hang up the instruments, put away the drum sticks and start producing. Other people's stuff.

ghostrider666

03-27-2006, 02:45 PM

They need to go back to writing 8 minute epic tunes with crazy rhythms and some friggin' double-bass drum action.

Lars was never the best drummer in the world, but its not often you see a pro musician regress as far in his playing as he has thru the yrs.

RickThunderclees

03-27-2006, 06:22 PM

I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I wouldn't.

blackdragon6

03-28-2006, 03:35 PM

The so called fans turn on any group when they achieve mainstream success. It doesn't matter if the group has in fact "sold out" or not. The so called fans will see it that way. The so called fans have actually been against Metallica since the black album not just since Load.

Metallica could have just kept putting out the same stuff over and over. The so called fans might have been happy. But the music would have quickly have become stale in its sameness. I for one am glad they branched out. I love some of their early stuff. I love some of their later stuff. I really love Sympothony and Metal, an album that probably puts the so called fans into coniption fits.
i don't dissagree but sometimes artists do change for the worst.

Neil

03-29-2006, 12:49 AM

i don't dissagree but sometimes artists do change for the worst.
Yes.

And I'd say the point at which a band is no longer leading the pack musically, but seemingly following it, is the one at which they are creatively ended. You can say they aren't AC/DC all day long and I'll agree. If anyone thinks their first four albums sound the same as each other, simply aren't listening. And there's much to be said for their eponymous fifth album, but it's all about where it leads. If it had been a step back to take stock of what they could do, a back to basics lesson for a band that was moving further and further to one extreme and needing to mix things up so they could move on to lead the pack in new and exciting ways - the story at the time - it would have been a wonderful part of their ouvre. Unfortunately, it was the first step toward becoming a band that ran safely in the middle-of-the-road instead, so it gets harsher treatment often than it itself deserves.

I'm glad some people enjoy the new direction. I suppose its an experiment of sorts, it's simply not, to me, a particularly interesting one. I've seen lots of bands wear out their creative energy and struggle to follow one trend after the other in hopes of lighting a fire. It's not the exact sound that I find missing, it's the excitement and passion, it's the band that expects you get better to listen to them. I don't hear that at all in the later material.

Shellhead

03-29-2006, 08:17 AM

Metallica. Metal Gods. Possibly the definitive Heavy Metal band of all time.

Until "Load".

It seems starting with "Load", the band has completely alienated their hardcore fanbase. In fact, I'd say no other band has ever pissed off their fans the way Metallica has.

So my question is: what can Metallica do to salvage their popularity and regain some respect they've lost over the last 10 years? Is it even possible now?

I think it's worth starting another thread just to discuss the definitive Heavy Metal band of all time, which will probably include some discussion of who was metal and what is hard rock.

Metallica did clearly alienate some of their fans with Load, and even more with St. Anger. Asking what a 20+ year-old band can do to salvage their popularity is a curious question, because most bands don't even get a 20 year career. Hetfield and company have made plenty of money to retire on, despite widespread piracy of their music. So, if they are no longer able to innovate and play exciting new music, it would probably be best if Metallica broke up.

Expletive Deleted

03-29-2006, 08:31 AM

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/B000002H5E.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Lubichev

03-29-2006, 09:56 AM

Is that what we should do to them or the sound they need to return to?

Dennis K

03-29-2006, 12:27 PM

http://images.windowsmedia.com/img/prov_w/300_80/075596039628.jpg

Crimson Avenger

03-29-2006, 04:35 PM

Or even...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7a/Metallica-MasterOfPuppets.jpg

The Punished

03-29-2006, 04:37 PM

Kill Lars!

DDM

03-29-2006, 04:59 PM

Kill Lars!

Lars may have sold his soul to the Blue People. It can explain Metallica's creative constipation.

TinMan

03-30-2006, 11:43 AM

Well, I look at it this way;

They decided to experiment with thier sound after Justice, which is understandable, after four albums of the same type of music and thousands of tour dates playing said music, they felt a change was needed. Theres nothing wrong with progressing your sound and changing a bit, BUT you don't do it with goddamn Bob Rock!

Before the S/T they wrote all their albums before they ever entered the studio so when they got there it was a matter of recording, tweaking, leaving. With the black album they wanted to go with a "heavier" sound, so they recruited Bob to help out with that. They accomplished what they wanted to pretty well on that album as far as I'm concerned, but subsequently on the following albums, they let Bob Cock push them into areas that they probably would not have gone on their own. In essence, I think they took too much of a Q from Bob Rock and then got stuck in that shitty groove.

Now that Rick Rubin is producing and Robert Trujillo is a member of the band, I think we may hear a bit more of a return to the "heavy" black album Metallica (cause I believe the thrash Metallica is dead forever).

G. Wayne

04-04-2006, 10:12 AM

defenitive =/= most popular.

And I for one liked Load.(St. Anger was piece of shit though)

St. Anger is one of the songs I'd love to remix if I ever got my hands on that kind of equipment. Mainly just to get rid of that damn grating drum.

Anyway, have 'em do a greatest hits tour (covering their ENTIRE catalogue), in the Black Album era outfits. Then call it quits. Go out with a proverbial bang, compared to sticking around a lot longer than they *coughstonescough* should.

Night

04-04-2006, 04:42 PM

First thing they need to do stop being RIAA's Posterchild and start hanging out with the people who pushed them to fame to begin with. Then they might remeber how to be real metal musicians again.

The Punished

04-07-2006, 03:47 PM

Let's all donate a penny each to a fund to buy the original members a frontal lobotomy so they can go back to the rockers they once were!

punisher_ryu

04-09-2006, 05:51 PM

megadeth, anyone?

Gargus

04-10-2006, 03:46 PM

Definitive? Not really. Just really popular

But if I was going to save them I would travel back in time and kill them as soon as justice for all was released and saved us from the craptacular downward spiral they have gone through and we can remember them kick ass.

I never could help but notice during the more formative years when they rocked the hardest all the best and most popular songs were written by dave mustaine.

TinMan

04-11-2006, 07:42 AM

I never could help but notice during the more formative years when they rocked the hardest all the best and most popular songs were written by dave mustaine.

Unless your favorite Metallica album is Kill 'em all, then thats a ridiculus statement. After KEA the only things he wrote was the opening to Ktulu and one riff in Leper Messiah which they even changed from what he wrote. As far as I'm concerned Puppets was their best album and Mustaine didn't even have but maybe 1% credit on that album, nor Justice, or the S/t.

Hiromi

04-11-2006, 10:30 AM

Mustaine was also partly responsible for the title track in Ride the Lightning, but yeah after that nothing.

A Virus In Shoes

04-22-2006, 04:10 PM

But if I was going to save them I would travel back in time and kill them as soon as justice for all was released and saved us from the craptacular downward spiral they have gone through and we can remember them kick ass.

So you're coming right out on a message board and admitting that you have been plotting the murders of 4 people.

Nice. :rolleyes:

Stupid doesn't even begin to cover you.

And for all of y'all who have been bleating about how great Cliff Burton was, and how he was the one who kept them in the thrash mindset, and was the true heart of the band, that's all bullshit.

Burton was the one who got the other band members interested in Simon 7 Garfunkel and as for his being the heart of the band, that shows a laughable ignorance of the band and it's history.

Up until Saint Anger, Metallica was, for all intents and purposes James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich. The other members could just as well have been session players for all of the input they had on the music. Hetfield and Ulrich would get together and come up with the songs and bring them into the studio and tell the others what to play and it was Hetfield and Ulrich's way or the highway.

stealthwise

04-23-2006, 12:40 AM

Good god, so much hate. It's threads like this one that reminded me why I used to hate the internet and everyone on it. The Napster crap still comes up and it was SIX YEARS AGO. To all those muttering Lars' name in their nightmares, get over it. South Park did a great episode that dissed him, we all had a laugh, and now we have itunes and a bunch of other stuff for dling.

Are Load and Reload great metal albums? No. But they're still good hard rock albums. Metallica experimented and changed, some people didn't like it, others bought millions of copies. Get over it, no big deal.

St. Anger was self-therapy, and yeah, it was poorly produced and the songs were unstructured for the most part. But we still got the Unnamed Feeling out it, and that song f'n ROCKS. Frantic and St. Anger the song sound great live, and the band is embracing a faster, heavier sound again. Did anyone see the documentary about that album? Christ, working no more than 4 hours a day, I was wondering how the hell they managed to record anything.

Thankfully, Phil Towle (therapist) and Bob "I don't need to mix shit" Rock are gone. We've got a new, refreshed band with a positive outlook on life, a new bassist that rules, and Rick F'n Rubin as the producer. This next album shall rule supremely, you will all bitch about it and then jerk off to old Poison records and I shall be happy.

Good day to be alive sir.

Spike-X

04-23-2006, 01:30 AM

So you're coming right out on a message board and admitting that you have been plotting the murders of 4 people.

Yes. Because he has a working time machine, so this is actually a feasible plot.

Stupid doesn't even begin to cover you.

howyadoin

04-23-2006, 02:55 AM

St. Anger is one of the songs I'd love to remix if I ever got my hands on that kind of equipment. Mainly just to get rid of that damn grating drum.Have you seen the rehearsal DVD that came with the album? It's basically the band playing the entire album in the rehearsal studio - with Rob on bass, and very little production.

They should've scrapped the album and released that DVD alone.

stealthwise

04-23-2006, 06:19 PM

Have you seen the rehearsal DVD that came with the album? It's basically the band playing the entire album in the rehearsal studio - with Rob on bass, and very little production.

They should've scrapped the album and released that DVD alone.

Hehe, that I actually agree with, for the most part. It was a really good dvd, and great incentive to buy the album rather than just dl it.