Metallica is back !

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Listened to Master Of Puppets last night after ages. Man, what a fucking fantastic album! Definitely my favorite of theirs. They were truly amazing in the 80s!
 
Listened to Master Of Puppets last night after ages. Man, what a fucking fantastic album! Definitely my favorite of theirs. They were truly amazing in the 80s!

I haven't listened to it in ages either. Hello, Battery! :rockon: The main riff in the title song is one of the first things I learned how to play when I got a distortion pedal. :cute:

U2DMfan, I never really got into AJFA...I love stuff like Harvester of Sorrow and One, but the album just lacks overall consistency for me. I also don't like the production on some songs.
 
It's still risky. It's risky because other bands of their ilk had not tried that yet, and they had a big following that had become accustomed to a certain progression of their sound. You forget that despite the criticism of Rattle and Hum: The Movie, the album sold very well (much better than POP, in the U.S. at least), received Grammys and other awards, etc.

There is no way to imagine that making a complete 180 and inverting every adjective that could be used to describe their music, would result in financial success, critical acclaim, or public acceptance. Talk about trends all you want (the industrial and hip-hop elements weren't anywhere near aboveground in 1990), but that's the bottom line. Unfamiliar territory for them and their fans, when they could have done anything similar to previous material and still gone multi-platinum.
 
Pop sold well enough in Europe and ROW. Perhaps Pop was just that - an attempt to really bring out that genre to the US by a big rock band. U2 just chose too big a mission to fulfill for a single band. I think that, especially with the music landscape changes and U2's ageing, there will be less and less of a "safe U2 album".

More than any trend though, to me Rattle and Hum and Pop just saw U2 pump out the dance and American music fascination out of their collective systems. I think the fans and critics grew tired of it eventually and all that contributed to the two big shitfs in their sound.
 
Sales figures and critical reviews were actually available to those people who were 'aware' in 1997, you know? we can go to AMG or Rolling Stone and see that they revised their review.

AND, of course you didn't address a single question I posed, which I suppose speaks for itself don't you think? Go back and try again with real world thoughts and hindsight and outside of what your anecdotal "midnite sale" thought. I have anecdotal evidence that says otherwise. Not that is was fucking Sgt Peppers, but that it was at the very least adenturous.

Still wrong.

Prodigy and Chemical Brothers were garnering tons of buzz in the US press during 1996. And they were already established top 10 acts in the UK (oh, wait, that doesn't count.)

Hell, the buzz was big enough that MTV even had an entire show devoted to the "electronica" genre. In the US.

Pop WAS a bandwagon jump in the UK. (but that doesn't count.)

And in the US, "Pop" was perfectly positioned to ride in on the wave of a "new sound" just as it broke. RS and Spin both ran stories about this "new" sound and how it was gonna change the stale state of "Alt " rock.

And we all know how behind the curve MTV, Spin, and RS are.

Let's try again (copy and paste):
What exactly were they apeing when they tried to steer the album towards more rock and roll towards the end of those sessions? What bandwagon jump was that? Was that a great ploy to sell millions?

That's wonderful. Despite all that steering, there's not a single rock and roll track on Pop. Hell, U2 have only recorded a handful of rock and roll songs over their entire career.


What does the sonic dressing on Zooropa and Passengers owe to and why don't those albums receive the same charge of bandwagoning? Is it because the band hasn't given the apologists permission to do so?

I'm talking about Pop. Zooropa, OS1 are different albums. Though it's been suggested before that U2 got "Alternative" at just the right time. You've never heard that before? I'd suggest you start to hang with people who offer a wide variety of altering opinions. Granted, it will only provide anecdotal references. Which don't count. But it's good anyway.

It is absolutely a myth and nothing more.
More pointedly, it's merely an excuse.
I continue to defend an album that I consider average at best because we have automatons on this board that recite the same crap over and over......sorry

It's a fact. Deal with it. Don't let a grudge get in the way of that. Pop was U2 at their most calculated and contrived.
 
That's wonderful. Despite all that steering, there's not a single rock and roll track on Pop. Hell, U2 have only recorded a handful of rock and roll songs over their entire career.

Yeah, I consider Last Night On Earth to be bluegrass.
 
so because it is getting hard to dispute facts that Pop was a conscience business move we're gonna moan abuot the definition of rock?

go metallica
a band that has always lacked imagination
 
A business move?

Pretty bad business.

Listing facts doesn't mean the hypothesis you're attempting to buttress them with is valid.

I still don't understand how POP was a bandwagon jump when they had gone even further into electronic music on Passengers. All they did was just blend those experiments with their own style. Pop is more of a hybrid, if anything, and it's certainly NOTHING like The Chem Bros., Prodigy, Underworld. Just cuz the band was listening to that stuff doesn't mean they were aping it.

Or have you not actually heard all the stuff you're talking about?
 
Despite the 'Electronic" window dressing, Pop is actaully the last time U2 released a ROCK album, or an album with any amount of imagination of any genre.
 
I don't mean to go off topic and stray away from the U2 discussion but... when exactly is the Metallica album expected, does anyone know?
 
A business move?

Pretty bad business.

Listing facts doesn't mean the hypothesis you're attempting to buttress them with is valid.

I still don't understand how POP was a bandwagon jump when they had gone even further into electronic music on Passengers. All they did was just blend those experiments with their own style. Pop is more of a hybrid, if anything, and it's certainly NOTHING like The Chem Bros., Prodigy, Underworld. Just cuz the band was listening to that stuff doesn't mean they were aping it.

Or have you not actually heard all the stuff you're talking about?
pretty bad business move indeed, but a business move nonetheless
perhaps if they'd had the balls to really push the project through all the way the album could have been as exciting as some individual tracks are now

of course POP is a hybrid
U2 tackling any genre is a hybrid
even when they play covers the covers end up sounding like a hybrid
the point you're trying to make here escapes me
Prodigy also didn't sound like Chemical Brothers and Underworld not like either of them
does that mean that this was not a musical current at the time?

you're statement that perhaps I haven't heard the music I'm talking about is just lame to be quite honest
everyone in Europe (I'll add that just to amuse myself) over the age at 15 (at the time) and remotely interested in music checked uot those albums
it was the most if nto only exciting thing happening
as a result I didn't find U2 moving into this territory particularly a surprise
when the execution ended up lacking I even foudn it rather disappointing

perhaps I'm confused but I don't believe I ever accused U2 of jumping on any bandwagon
I only got involved in this thread because you stated that POP was released WAY BEFORE Prodigy and Chemical Brothers released their breakthrough albums, which in fact was something like 1 and 4 months

I don't feel uncomfortable with U2 tapping into what's hot & happening in the world of music
they did it successfully with the Manchester scene around Achtung and less successfully with the "chemical beats" scene around POP
you win some, you lose some
perhaps if there had been anything worthwhile going around except for rap around early 2000 we wouldn't have gotten ATYCLB
 
perhaps I'm confused but I don't believe I ever accused U2 of jumping on any bandwagon
I only got involved in this thread because you stated that POP was released WAY BEFORE Prodigy and Chemical Brothers released their breakthrough albums, which in fact was something like 1 and 4 months

That's actually NOT what I stated. What I did say was that even though POP was only released slightly before those two albums, it was started long before, and was originally slated to come out before the end of the year. Had it done so, I don't think they would have appeared as joining the party so late in the game.

And I stand by what I said before. U2 was already in the realm of electronica on Zooropa, already combining hip-hop/proto trip-hop beats with rock as far back as Achtung Baby. All they did on POP was make it sound a little more organic, a little more "fun". If that's the effect of the influence of the club scene, sure. But doesn't that naturally come out of running a club from your hotel? I don't see how this translates to some kind of calculated business move.
 
Hammett's solos are back? Well, that's good. I'm still only cautiously optimistic.


Not only guitar solos, the rest of the article



METAL THRASHING MADNESS!
It must have stuck in James Hetfield’s craw to see the young bucks in Municipal Waste, Evile and Gama Bomb trying to nick his King Of The Riff crown from him. So, to remind these little gits exactly who it was who had a hand kickstarting the thrash movement, on the new record there’s a cavalcade of mental mosphpit moments, as well as the man declaring himself a “heavy metal riff machine”.

DARK LYRICS!
“Sunshine never comes”. “Show your scars”. “|Suicide, I’ve already died!”. On the new album, James Hetfield’s once again dealing with some serious stuff in his lyrics, making for some decidedly dark phrases. But it’s not all doom and gloom, he also declares that he’s “Up from the wreckage one more time”. After St Anger, ‘Tallica sure are.

LABYRINTHINE ARRANGEMENTS!
Placing dozens of riffs into maze-like arrangements and joining them up with cunning, tricky fills is essential to making classics like Master of Puppets twist and turn. Once again, Metalllica stick two fingers up to verse/chorus/verse and drop a cunningly designed carpet-bomb of riffola on us. Superb.

ULTRA-HEAVY PRODUCTION
Rick Rubin’s CV includes twiddling the knobs for Slayer, Mayhem, System of A Down and Trouble. If there’s an expert of heavy, it’s him, and he’s done a sterling job ensuring that ‘Tallica’s new album is heavier than a pregnant hippo. Although it’s much, much faster than that.

METAL THRASHING MADNESS!
It must have stuck in James Hetfield’s craw to see the young bucks in Municipal Waste, Evile and Gama Bomb trying to nick his King Of The Riff crown from him. So, to remind these little gits exactly who it was who had a hand kickstarting the thrash movement, on the new record there’s a cavalcade of mental mosphpit moments, as well as the man declaring himself a “heavy metal riff machine”.

DARK LYRICS!
“Sunshine never comes”. “Show your scars”. “|Suicide, I’ve already died!”. On the new album, James Hetfield’s once again dealing with some serious stuff in his lyrics, making for some decidedly dark phrases. But it’s not all doom and gloom, he also declares that he’s “Up from the wreckage one more time”. After St Anger, ‘Tallica sure are.

LABYRINTHINE ARRANGEMENTS!
Placing dozens of riffs into maze-like arrangements and joining them up with cunning, tricky fills is essential to making classics like Master of Puppets twist and turn. Once again, Metalllica stick two fingers up to verse/chorus/verse and drop a cunningly designed carpet-bomb of riffola on us. Superb.

ULTRA-HEAVY PRODUCTION
Rick Rubin’s CV includes twiddling the knobs for Slayer, Mayhem, System of A Down and Trouble. If there’s an expert of heavy, it’s him, and he’s done a sterling job ensuring that ‘Tallica’s new album is heavier than a pregnant hippo. Although it’s much, much faster than that.
 
The Unforgiven III???

Are you fucking kidding me?
 
Unforgiven III :lmao: Well, let's at least give the song a chance and not judge it from the title! I did like Unforgiven II.

But Cyanide... :yawn: From what I've heard so far of bits and pieces of songs tested live and stuff, I'm pretty underwhelmed. I don't hear even Load/Reload quality let alone Puppets or Lightning. I'll probably wait to read reviews before buying this thing, if at all I buy it.
 
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