You really believe Metallica sat down and said, "We need songs like 'Wanted Dead or Alive' and 'Living on a Prayer'"? Loving the drum sound on Bon Jovi's records is what led them to Bob Rock, not wanting to write songs like them. And let's face it, the production on "Justice" was horrible.
When your songs are as fast and long as the ones on "Justice," what other possible direction is there than shorter and slower? A collection of 12-minute, 300 bpm songs? These guys were already packing arenas and had gold and platinum albums. It's not like they were hurting for money and this was their one last stab at success.
I can't win this argument; I've had it a million times, but the main issue that former fans seem to have is that Metallica is no longer the speed-metal band that they loved in the 80s. God forbid they make music that's classified as "hard rock" rather than "metal." Good music is good music no matter how you slice it, and I can listen to Load just as easily as I can Ride the Lightning. Flawed as St. Anger is, I think it'd be a great record if the songs were trimmed down (again, they're too long) and the drum sound was better. Apparently, this is selling out.
It's also easy to say that you'll never make a video when you're a snot-nosed 19 year-old punk and Michael Jackson, Quiet Riot, Poison, and Duran Duran dominate MTV. Same with saying you'll never play arenas when you don't have enough fans to fill them up.
U2 runs into this on a smaller scale (Pop, anyone?), and I think it's a silly argument when applied to them as well. I love Pop as much as I love War; it's not an issue of how I think the band is supposed to sound.
You caught me. I lied about being a fan of the older stuff. Except that I own the records, listen to them, and enjoy them.
On some of their longer songs, sure, it works. On others, it sounds like they had five extra riffs lying around and threw them into instrumental breaks.
So when I listen to Metallica, the question I should ask is, "Is this metal?" rather than "Is this any good?" Got it. I admit, they shouldn't have shoehorned themselves with their band name, but I think whether I actually like the music is more important than what genre it falls under.
My point was that a Bob Rock-produced U2 song or record is not going to sound like Bon Jovi, which is what you implied. Or rather, you didn't want that "cheesy" sound anywhere near U2 (though that's exactly how I'd describe the production on Stuck in a Moment, Miracle Drug, and COBL, to name a few.) The cheese in Bon Jovi comes from the band, not the producer. With U2, I think it's the other way around, given that I love live versions of the aforementioned songs.
A "loud" mix with commercial appeal is exactly the kind of production I'd want on U2's harder-rocking songs, so I don't think there's any chance of us seeing eye-to-eye here.
