Post by CAPT Issac R. Madden on Dec 1, 2014 18:46:16 GMT 1
So for this thread, I'd like to explore the theme of bands that were doing extremely well but then crashed and burned in a ball of nuclear fire.
I'll start this one off with the obvious target for me: Metallica.
For the longest time, Metallica was THE thrash metal band and remains arguably the most well-known heavy metal band in the world. Just about everyone knows the name "Metallica" no matter what genre they prefer. Creatively, they peaked with 1986's Master of Puppets album while their musical skill in a technical sense peaked with 1988's ...And Justice for All, and their commercial peak was their 1990 self-titled album colloquially known as "The Black Album". After the Black Album, they started to go into a decline with Load and Re-Load with their best songs of that era being King Nothing, The Memory Remains, and their covers of Whiskey in the Jar and Turn the Page. While most fans were convinced Metallica was just in a phase spawned by the explosion of grunge and hoped for a return to the fast, frantic, and heavy thrash metal they basically wrote the blueprints for, all hopes were summarily dashed with 1999/2000's St. Anger at which point all but the most hardcore Metallica fans wrote off the once-legendary band as a pack of washed-up sellouts. Then after a long hiatus, 2008 brought Death Magnetic which, while not up to their old standards, showed a step in the right direction though the album sounded like they'd completely forgotten how to play what once had been their bread and butter. I personally consider Death Magnetic to be what a garage band trying to sound like Metallica would come up with rather than an actual Metallica album, but it was a much-needed attempt at returning to their roots and held cautious hope that they'd learned how badly they'd fallen.
Then 2011 happened and Metallica not only hammered home the final nail in their coffin, but they soaked it in lit napalm and covered their grave in the melted remnants of the Chernobyl reactor core with a collaboration album featuring the late, great Lou Reed titled "Lulu". That album is so horrific, it got a 1/10 rating from Indie music media group Pitchfork Media which is an incredible rarity considering how much slack they cut the music they review. Among the criticisms leveled on Lulu are: "If the Red Hot Chili Peppers acoustically covered the 12 worst Primus songs for Starbucks, it would still be (slightly) better than this." and the effect is that of Lou Reed ranting over some Metallica demos that were never intended for human consumption."
Lulu is very nearly the musical equivalent of Ride to Hell: Retribution in its awfulness and as such I will not post a link to it on here nor to I recommend subjecting yourself to such Lovecraftian levels of pure horror and disgustingness.
To sum up, Metallica's James Hetfield's lyrics went from 1984's "I'm Creeping Death!" to 2011's "I am the table..." Need I say more?
I'll start this one off with the obvious target for me: Metallica.
For the longest time, Metallica was THE thrash metal band and remains arguably the most well-known heavy metal band in the world. Just about everyone knows the name "Metallica" no matter what genre they prefer. Creatively, they peaked with 1986's Master of Puppets album while their musical skill in a technical sense peaked with 1988's ...And Justice for All, and their commercial peak was their 1990 self-titled album colloquially known as "The Black Album". After the Black Album, they started to go into a decline with Load and Re-Load with their best songs of that era being King Nothing, The Memory Remains, and their covers of Whiskey in the Jar and Turn the Page. While most fans were convinced Metallica was just in a phase spawned by the explosion of grunge and hoped for a return to the fast, frantic, and heavy thrash metal they basically wrote the blueprints for, all hopes were summarily dashed with 1999/2000's St. Anger at which point all but the most hardcore Metallica fans wrote off the once-legendary band as a pack of washed-up sellouts. Then after a long hiatus, 2008 brought Death Magnetic which, while not up to their old standards, showed a step in the right direction though the album sounded like they'd completely forgotten how to play what once had been their bread and butter. I personally consider Death Magnetic to be what a garage band trying to sound like Metallica would come up with rather than an actual Metallica album, but it was a much-needed attempt at returning to their roots and held cautious hope that they'd learned how badly they'd fallen.
Then 2011 happened and Metallica not only hammered home the final nail in their coffin, but they soaked it in lit napalm and covered their grave in the melted remnants of the Chernobyl reactor core with a collaboration album featuring the late, great Lou Reed titled "Lulu". That album is so horrific, it got a 1/10 rating from Indie music media group Pitchfork Media which is an incredible rarity considering how much slack they cut the music they review. Among the criticisms leveled on Lulu are: "If the Red Hot Chili Peppers acoustically covered the 12 worst Primus songs for Starbucks, it would still be (slightly) better than this." and the effect is that of Lou Reed ranting over some Metallica demos that were never intended for human consumption."
Lulu is very nearly the musical equivalent of Ride to Hell: Retribution in its awfulness and as such I will not post a link to it on here nor to I recommend subjecting yourself to such Lovecraftian levels of pure horror and disgustingness.
To sum up, Metallica's James Hetfield's lyrics went from 1984's "I'm Creeping Death!" to 2011's "I am the table..." Need I say more?