I have finally managed to illegally download Metallica’s 1986 release, Master of Puppets, having lost the CD for a number of years now. I don’t know why I used the adjective illegally, I just felt like being a bit dangerous. It has prompted me to reminisce about my on/off relationship with Metallica over the years. They have gone from being my favourite band to a guilty pleasure.
Why did this happen? There has always been a certain amount of pleasure placed on me by my school friends to denounce Hetfield and co. as the wankers they are. I remember my friend Greg defacing a poster I used to have with various expletives and obscenities, justifying it by saying that it was all true, and that they were really, really shit. I could not accept this, and went to sleep after school listening to any one of their albums. Increasingly, though, I would listen to what could be objectively described as their weaker albums (Load, Reload, etc). I’m not entirely sure why, I think it was because their early work, which stayed truer to their thrash metal roots, was quite hard to fall asleep too. Anyway, I fucking loved Metallica. I got to see them, too, in 2004 at Reading festival. It was the zenith of our relationship and produced a barren period subsequently. This was not totally inexplicable, I think I had achieved all I could with Metallica, and the pace of university life meant I was discovering numerous other bands that held my attention away from my childhood sweetheart. It was inevitable really. You just can't sustain home relationships at University.
Now, some years later, having amalgamated an eclectic and (I think) sufficiently acclaimed music collection, I decided to reappraise Metallica’s position within my hard drives. I have come to the conclusion that it is a worthy one. I must preface an explanation of this my saying that I am only really speaking about Metallica’s first three albums (Kill ‘Em All, Ride the Lightning, and Master of Puppets). I still have time for the Black album and And Justice for All but they come from a Metallica branching out of thrash metal. Herein lay the problem for Metallica I think. Their success within thrash metal led to their increasing popularity which by turn led to their sound becoming more commercial and straying into hard rock.
Add to this several other factors - egotism, wealth, the introverted nature of the Hetfield/Ulrich song writing partnership, James Hetfield’s conquering of his alcohol and drug problems, internal tension and members leaving, and the fact that both were complete and utter wankers - and you can begin to see why song writing suffered. Post black album, where their popularity rocketed, they delved into self-indulgent bluesy rock with little or no genuine feeling behind it. Save 1999’s album with the San Francisco Philharmonic, S&M, which, despite its excellence, only served to demonstrate their increasing popular accessibility, their nineties and noughties albums have been extremely poor. They have become victims of their own success because their realisation that Metallica had strayed far, far away from their roots only led to the train wreck of St. Anger, a devastatingly shit ‘return to what its all about’ album. It was totally contrived and only increased my antipathy towards the band. It was with all this in mind that I realised why I have been able to cherish Metallica once more.
A friend told me that in order to succeed in life you need to be able to compartmentalise. I have done exactly this with Metallica. I have split them up into two different entities. The one being the aging crusty fucknuts who release tired music and have some much wealth and such huge egos that they want to control the entire industry. I have no time for them. They are, well, cunts. And their music is shit. But the second Metallica are the earnest, drink fuelled aggressive bastards who brought three albums of the fastest and most complicated thrash metal ever made. Their anger, their loathing for pretension and the world they saw brought frenetic energy to their music, and a fierce, seething fury that I find utterly compelling. And yet, as people so often forget about Metallica, in Cliff Burton (who tragically died in a road traffic accident while the band were on tour) they had an incredibly gifted and classically trained bassist, whose appreciation for classical music was an integral influence on the technical musicianship of their early work. These classical influences are, to me, plain to see. Although, I am not knowledgeable enough about theory to discuss this in specific detail. You just have to listen to Call of Ktulu on Ride the Lightning to understand this.
Having said all this, is it fair to place Master of Puppets (by way of example as their most critically acclaimed album) alongside other great albums like Blonde on Blonde, Revolver, Forever Changes, Daydream Nation, Velvet Underground and Nico? I think so. It is as good as the aforementioned work but its strength is undermined by virtue of the negative and mocking attitude people generally have towards ‘thrash metal’ as a genre and the general contempt people have towards Metallica as they now are. Which is a shame.
words: Giles Skerry
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